BassGuitarFish

So i recently started a band, and me and my friends were disscusing what songs could we play, and my guitarist said that he could only play songs in standard tuning because of his bridge, is that possible or is he full of shit. Because i really want to play songs that are not in standard. He has kirk hammett ltd (i think), and im really tired of him playing Battery main riff all the time

halfj06

If he has a floyd style trem then yeah.. pretty much. Its kinda a big deal to change tuning

thebestjoe

It is possible, but he's also full of shit. Like above, it's a Floyd Rose trem. The strings are locked at the bridge and nut, and with the springs in the back, they hold the bridge level, and if you change one sting's tuning, it has everything else go out.

If you were to only want to go down to dropped D, it won't be a big hassle (IMO), as long as it wouldn't be every other song. Anything lower than that, and it's a big deal.

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BassGuitarFish

I was thinking about playing in C#, because you cant play most metal higher than D

Pitwulf

pretty much all of metallica and thrash in general is in standard

Fisheth24

Wut?

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jthm_guitarist

If he has a floating trem, it's not that he can only play in standard but that he can only play in one tuning. So you guys can decide to tune down to C# but it's a big hassle to retune again.

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Wisthekiller

Most Metallica, Megadeth, Motorhead, Ozzy/Black Sabbath, Black Label Society, some Slayer, some Mastadon, Venom, etc... are in standard. Even some black and death metal are standard.

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RiffsanBridges

You need more iron-rich cereals. Metal can be played in E standard as well, in fact most NWOBHM and more classic Heavy Metal songs are played in E standard.

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PSimonR

Yeah, most of the old stuff is in standard. Bands really didn't do drop tuning in early metal and NWOBHM days.

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Wild_Impala

You have to play in this tuning otherwise your music wont be classed as metal it will be classed as lounge jazz, no need to thank me for my truth nugget, now run along little one.

T00DEEPBLUE

Yes you can.

The LTD KH guitars have Floyds, so he has a point. They take a lot of setting up to re-tune.

No. Even slight changes in the tuning of 1 string will throw the rest of the guitar out of tune.

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Wisthekiller

That's why D-Tunas are AWESOME...


Anyone know if you can put one on every string so you can droptune the whole guitar? Yes it seems impractical but may be awesome.

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thebestjoe

What I meant was that only dropping one string down would only be a slight adjustment to have everything back at equilibrium.

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T00DEEPBLUE

I had this idea years ago when i first heard of D-Tuna's.

It's still a faff.

It's much easier to simply block the trem.

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JokerGrin

BassGuitarFish, the people in this thread are quite right when they say plenty of metal is in standard. It depends on your style. They're also right when they say changing tunings/strings on a Floyd Rose-style bridge is a pain in the arse, because it is.

Does he do much bullshitting on the whammy bar? If not, get him to block the tremolo.

If he refuses, I guess the only other solutions are to get your guitarist to buy a cheap fixed bridge guitar for drop tunings or for the band to focus on standard-tuning songs.

KoLdDoOm

Reason #54325432 why it isn't always necessary to be in an ultra br00tal low tuning to be really, really heavy:



But, like everyone says, it is a bit of a faff to change tuning on a guitar with a Floyd/Edge/ZR/equivalent...

That said, if you stick to C# for all your songs, he could just set his guitar up for that and keep it like that? As someone who played in a band that played all their songs in Drop C, I kinda liked coming home to practice to some of my favourite songs, but since I was in Drop C instead of E/Drop D, either lowering the pitch in Audacity or learning to play it in my new tuning, either way it was a fresh way to play along to songs I'd done to death!