Drop D tuner for Ibanez SR650

I’ve been searching for a drop D tuner for the Ibanez and I’m not finding a model specific one :thinking:
Do any of you guys know what I should be looking for?

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The only drop tuners I know are from Hipshot. Maybe you could just ask their support what model you need for your Ibanez.
EDIT: It could be this one. However, you’d better check as one review states that the headstock of one specific Ibanez seems to small.

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Thank you @Krescht. I’ll send them a message right now :+1:

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It’s funny. I tuned down to Drop D and back up yesterday, and both times, I was almost spot on just by turning the peg manually the first time. Took like two seconds each time. You just kind of get good at it.

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That’s what I’ve been doing @howard. I’m thinking it may be a good way in to buying another cheap bass specifically to tune drop D looking at the price of the hipshot replacement :wink:

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I just remembered Joshs words:
“No one tunes their bass during a song in a live setting.”
pause
“Well Victor Wooten does, but…”

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This is what I did for BEAD :slight_smile:

Well it wasn’t exactly a cheap bass either. But it was a separate one.

I thought about this for a minute just now, trying to picture the likelihood of me wanting to play a song that changed between EADG and DADG during the song, when I would not just leave it in DADG for the whole song. And it is certainly possible but I couldn’t come up with a ready example. The only reason I could think of (rather than just leaving it in DADG for the whole song) was if it was heavily chorded and some chords were harder in DADG.

Not trying to claim detuners aren’t convenient here, just saying - detuning and retuning is not that hard either :slight_smile:

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yes, same here, and I always say that switching from one standard to a drop tuning doesn’t require a special tuner at all, the exception being the very special case when you need to switch from one tuning to another very fast when playing a song. it does not necessarily happen every day. :sweat_smile:

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It’s more of a solo/riff thing I think.
I agree that if you just provide the bass line to a song other solutions might be more sensible than to re-tune.

Example of how Charles Berthoud uses it in a solo (linked to a few seconds before tuning change):

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Yes, but, why? He could have done that without changing the tuning as well.

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I don’t think so.
He could’ve played the notes, sure but the sound wouldn’t have been the same.

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Specifically how so?

One thing I hadn’t considered is that there’s more convenience here if he is playing a lot of open string E and needs to drop to D for a small part of the song. And with slap, yeah, I can certainly see that. That would be tough without changing the tuning. (with the same being true of other open string work.)

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The lower string tension has a more boomy sound that you won’t get with the standard tuning. Maybe be nitpicky by me but I think I would hear the difference between a drop-D tuning and the same notes played on a standard tuning.

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I honestly doubt that’s it. Drop D string tension isn’t that much different. I think it’s much more likely that to facilitate not having to fret something that would otherwise be open string it’s more convenient to detune. That would make a lot of sense, especially for slap.

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I will also point out, though: he’s truly gifted, a much (much) better bassist that I will likely ever be, and he has detuners on all four tuning pegs. So clearly there’s a legit reason to do so :slight_smile:

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You say that but I really like him and his videos so I watch him and listen to him a lot and yet have to see him use the other detuners that are not for the lowest string.

He has a few videos in which he experiments with non-standard tunings but in those videos he doesn’t change on the fly if I remember correctly. It’s just edited. On that note I really loved the comment:
TwoSet Violin: “Bass sucks!”
Davie504: “Violin sucks!”
Charles: “My bass is now a violin!” (fretless tuned like a violin G - D - A - E)

I agree. He is really good and in my opinion he manages to do technically challenging things but not on the cost of sound/groove. Not easy to do on bass I think. Not so sure about “gifted” as I saw some videos about what and how long he practiced but yeah… he is really good :wink:

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Nothing wrong with a gift you give yourself :slight_smile:

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Update.
Now he has dropped his G-String.
Yes I had to word it like that. Video here:

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To say he’s talented is such an understatement :scream:

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I love him for being technically clean and challenging while still sounding good.
Often times it’s either the one or the other, but he manages to combine good music with technically challenging playing.

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