ShortScale.org

So ive been hearing alot that e flat tuning improves tone but I sorta thoughy it was just bullshit until today I tuned down that new asat to dropped dflat cuz I felt like playing heart shaped box. The verse was pleasent but as soon as I got to the chorus and pushed the distortion the rawk tonez destroyed my mind. Placebo? Did I adjuat my amp differerently? Another odd thing I noticed though was that even though I was on the bridge pickup and had my bass cut more than anything else, the lowest notes were really ringing out, in a really nice wau actually, maybe its the pole pieces and I just didnt notice it idk.

It's probably just the deeper sound from being a half step down and in drop D too... the 6th string is fairly low at D flat and because your gear is probably set up to sound the way you like in concert tuning, the low strings are flopping around a bit and showcasing a different frequency on your distortion box/amp settings and so on.

Also if you were playing along with a record there's the added coolvibez of sounding a bit like it?

It's the extra flop in your strings from being tuned down. Loose strings sound huge through distortion because they vibrate more freely, so to speak, than tight strings, which is why a strat with 9s will sound thicker than it would with 10s. Compare Brian May with 8s on his 24" scale Red Special to Dick Dale using probably the thickest strings anyone has ever bothered to use on a Strat.

Listen to more Thin Lizzy.

I use E flat tuning pretty much all the time now...I just like the slightly lower pitch I guess. Not that it's really noticeable - your ears start to think of an open E flat note as 'normal' after a while. There's the added comfort from the slightly reduced tension, which isn't an issue if you have MANLAND STRENGTH, but some of us struggle with the ol' gauges more than others.

I know there've been numerous threads in the past about whether different gauges *sound* different in of themselves, but personally I think the jury's still out: I've read sensible-sounding arguments from both sides. Dick Dale sounds as awesome as he does for a number of reasons (the principal one being: he's DICK FUCKING DALE, probably), and 'bridge-cable gauge' strings may or may not be a major reason for that. I suspect that he's so used to using that gauge after all these years that he couldn't play in the same way with anything different, so a scientific comparison wouldn't be a practical possibility anyway.

I'm not so sure on the string guage/sound correlation. There are too many other variables. Billy Gibbons uses 8s and he gets a pretty big sound out of them.

ive tried all kinds of different string gauges, and for me there's not really a sound difference. really only use different gauges for tension. and over time you adjust. I used to use 13s on my guitars for a lil bit, just made it harder to fret notes and shit. I'm sure if I still used tem they'd feel normal though. different scale lengths factor too. i like a decent bit of tenson so I use 11/12 strings. can't do rubbery thin strings purely because I snap them and notes always go sharp when playing with a band. at home it probably wouldn't matter though.

but yeah, for tension and comfort totally matters for the player, for sound not much difference. tone is all in the switch tip, bridge cover, nitro finish, vintage radius, and chocolate fingers.

oh and I'd go heavier strings for lower tunings to even out the tension. kinda obvs.
eb is a favorite though. same with d. two of my go to tunings.

also a lot of the tone is from playing in a different key, same with capoing up the neck. voices the chords a lil different.

I dont really know about it being a "better tone," but there is definitely something to tuning down that just has a better sound in most rock band settings. I, too, had never imagined that a half step could feel and sound so different. But i suppose we could have just asked metallica...

U2
JIMI HENDRIX