The thing with drop D (or wtever the root down a full step you choose to do) tuning is there are guitarists out there who WILL NOT work in that tuning. Like it's "cheating" or god forbid they have to adjust their scale position on the top string. It's always been a weird hill to die upon in my eyes as it just makes riffing that much simpler with a little bit more "exotic" possibilities imo. You can do some cool stuff with things that would be a "I wish I had Paul Gilbert fingers" nightmare otherwiseI like my Strat and Tele in Eb. Several guitars in drop D (my goo to tuning) and
then ones in drop C and drop C#. Also have a Baritone that stays in B-E-A-D-G-B.
That guitar can to drop A in a nanosecond, too.
Many tunings = many tones.
I was in C# standard forever and I liked it for a long time but stopped having bands where it made sense. I pedal tone all the time in drop D. Unless I am thinking of a different technique?
The thing with drop D (or wtever the root down a full step you choose to do) tuning is there are guitarists out there who WILL NOT work in that tuning. Like it's "cheating" or god forbid they have to adjust their scale position on the top string. It's always been a weird hill to die upon in my eyes as it just makes riffing that much simpler with a little bit more "exotic" possibilities imo. You can do some cool stuff with things that would be a "I wish I had Paul Gilbert fingers" nightmare otherwise
I was in a band for a few years that had both a male and a female front singers. We played a lot of new country at that time. I had to carry 5 guitars to cover the single coil and humbucker sounds in the tunings we used. It was kind of too much. None of the electronic tuning adjustment devices were good enough to handle it back then. I tried real hard to use my Axe FX Ultra as well as a Morpheus Drop Tune back then. They just couldn't quite get there and that was really the only options I had at the time.
I mostly play in E standard even for slide, but occasionally play in drop D or open G. I don't detune as the music I play doesn't call for it. If the singer wants to sing in Eb or Ab I'm very comfortable with Bb, Eb, Ab and Db chords, scales and arpeggios in E standard tuning even down in 1st position.
It’s been a long time since I’ve come across one in the wild, but yeah, I know the type. They’re all over TGP. “You just have to use one finger”, yeah dumbass, for that one power chord, as if playing powerchords with 2-3 fingers instead of one is the measure of a fucking guitar player.
My uncle said it a bunch in the 90’s when I started playing and was getting into Chains. That’s when I learned that if I wait about 2 weeks, my uncle would say the complete opposite thing as if he never spoke of it before. One week Cantrell was just another grunge guy who couldn’t play, 2 weeks later he was the only guy from Seattle actually playing guitar.
