Neha Patil (Editor)

D♭ tuning

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D♭ tuning

D♭ tuning, also called C♯ tuning, is an alternative guitar tuning. Each string is one and one half steps lower than in standard tuning, or one half step lower than D tuning. The resulting notes can be described as D♭-G♭-B-E-A♭-D♭ or (less often) as C♯-F♯-B-E-G♯-C♯. "Extremely slack," it is very popular amongst alternative and heavy rock bands because it has a darker and lower-pitched sound compared to E standard.

Used by

  • A Pale Horse Named Death
  • A Perfect Circle - nearly all of their songs are in this tuning.
  • Abbath (album only; live performances are on D tuning)
  • AC/DC (on Burnin Alive)
  • Akercocke
  • Alice in Chains
  • Amorphis (on Tales from the Thousand Lakes)
  • An Isle Ate Her
  • Architects (they also drop the low string to G♯/A♭)
  • Behemoth
  • Between the Buried and Me
  • Black Sabbath - many songs from Master of Reality onward to at least Never Say Die! (because Tony Iommi had two damaged fingertips). They still use this tuning on some songs from later albums.
  • Black Stone Cherry (On the song "Me and Mary Jane")
  • Blink-182 (on the songs "Obvious" from their self-titled album, "Time to Break Up", and for live performances of "Adam's Song")
  • Bolt Thrower
  • Candlemass
  • Cannibal Corpse ("Mummified in Barbed Wire", "Disfigured", "Absolute Hatred", "Eaten from Inside", and "Orgasm Through Torture")
  • Chevelle (on three songs from Wonder What's Next: "Comfortable Liar", "The Red", and "Don't Fake This")
  • Children of Bodom (on their first album Something Wild and on 2 songs from their latest album I Worship Chaos)
  • Coldplay (on their song 'God Put a Smile Upon Your Face')
  • Comeback Kid
  • Creed (on 4 songs from Full Circle, although most of the rest of the album has the low string dropped to B and, on one song, G♯/A♭)
  • Dark Tranquillity
  • Decapitated
  • Down
  • Dying Fetus
  • Dream Theater (on the songs, "Along for the Ride", "New Millennium", "Vacant", and "You Not Me")
  • El Caco
  • Epica (on the songs, "the Last Crusade", "Blank Infinity", and "Another Me in Lack'ech", from the Consign to Oblivion album. All the other songs from the album are in C tuning.)
  • Eyehategod
  • Falconer (on the albums, Northwind and Among Beggars and Thieves)
  • Godflesh (prior to Us and Them)
  • Gorgoroth
  • Gorguts
  • Hate Eternal
  • Iced Earth (on most songs)
  • Isis (band)
  • I the Mighty
  • Judas Priest (on "Jugulator", "Blood Stained", "Death Row", "Decapitate", and "Abductors")
  • Kalmah
  • Kyuss (on "Space Cadet")
  • Las Cruces
  • Limp Bizkit
  • Lykathea Aflame
  • Machine Head (on some songs)
  • Mark Tremonti (on "So You're Afraid" and "Doesn't Matter" from All I Was)
  • Metallica (on "Bad Seed" from ReLoad, "The More I See" from Garage Inc., and live performances of "The Thing That Should Not Be" since 1987)
  • Monte Pittman
  • My Dying Bride (on all songs except "A Doomed Lover", "One of Beauty's Daughter's", and "The Blue Lotus", which are all dropped to Drop B.)
  • Nirvana (On certain recordings of Old Age)
  • Omnium Gatherum
  • Orange Goblin
  • Pantera on The Great Southern Trendkill, War Nerve, Drag the Waters, 13 Steps to Nowhere, and Floods from The Great Southern Trendkill
  • Pianos Become the Teeth
  • Portraits of Past
  • Rains
  • Reverend Bizarre
  • Rotting Christ
  • Sent By Ravens
  • Sinergy (on the album Beware the Heavens)
  • Skillet (on some songs from the albums, Hey You, I Love Your Soul and Collide)
  • Slash (on "Crucify the Dead")
  • Slayer (on the song "Gemini" from Undisputed Attitude, the albums Diabolus in Musica (except "Perversions Of Pain", bonus track "Unguarded Instinct", and "Scrum"), God Hates Us All, and the songs "Black Serenade" and "Cult" from Christ Illusion)
  • Sleater-Kinney
  • Slipknot (on "Snuff" and "Before I Forget")
  • Sodom (in several songs from "'Til Death Do Us Unite" and "M-16")
  • Stone Sour
  • Stormlord
  • Suffocation (on Pierced from Within)
  • Superjoint Ritual
  • Testament (since Low)
  • Therion (on most songs in every album from 1994–present and their death metal demos)
  • Truckfighters
  • Torture Squad (on the albums "The Unholy Spell" and "Pandemonium")
  • Type O Negative
  • Vader (2002-present)
  • Venom
  • Woods of Ypres
  • Within Temptation (on most songs from the album Mother Earth and some songs from the albums, the Heart of Everything and the Unforgiving)

    • References

    D♭ tuning Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA