BEAD means changing your EADG strings out for the low five strings of a 5-string set. The nut will need to be filed to accomodate the larger strings in each slot.
It’s very easy but it sounds really hard until you do it. Nuts pop right off the bass and are easy to replace and work on.
I would recommend buying a second nut and filing it out for BEAD. The only tool you need is a small round and flat file from a diamond file set (and sandpaper, if you buy a new nut blank). Like $5-10 in tools max.
You really want to have a dedicated bass for this, though. Popping back and forth between EADG and BEAD is a big hassle. I’ve done it but don’t recommend it.
Depending on the bass, and what TUSQ and others offer, you may not need to do any work at all, they have lots of precut ones for the most common basses. Not sure about BEAD though, that might not be a standard thing.
Either way, a Luthier can do this for not a load of $
It is much more than just retuning!
You’re turning a bass into the low part of a 5 string bass.
If you have a dedicated bass to put the BEAD strings from a 5 string set on, and if you’re OK with doing adjustments to the nut, truss rod and bridge, then go for it.
Tuning down is fun and possible, but it’s not a long term solution for something this low.
As a beginning player, my band was in dropped B tuning. Every Friday I would tune down for rehearsal. Then - every Wednesday - I’d tune back up for my bass lesson. It was BRUTAL on my bass. That poor thing got warped and messed up thanks to my de-tune, re-tune moves.
So -
Either get a 5 string, get a bass that is specifically BEAD tuned, or only tune down that low for the very rare occasion.
I am about a third of the way through the Beginner to Badass course and I am starting to get the itch to try to learn to play some of the songs I listen to. New World Shadows by Omnium Gatherum looks like a good starting point - lots of chugging, but with some mini slides to keep things interesting, but I am wondering about the tuning.
The Songsterr tab gives the following tuning:
e
B
F#
C#
My first question is why are the D and G strings even changed? The only strings you use in the song are the E and A strings - is it to keep even tension on the bridge or something?
Second question is what’s with the lower case ‘e’? Does that mean E flat?
I think you’ll find if you look, the first string is generally listed as “g” in lowercase. I’ve never seen a good explanation why only that string is in lowercase. But it is.
As far as why all the strings have alternate tunings, it’s how the bass player in that band tunes. It’s downtuned a couple steps. If you look at other songs from this band, they use the same alternate tuning as well as all the strings.
Another reason to do this is for setup. Lesser tension on the neck may necessitate adjustment to the setup, adjusting the intonation or truss.
Also when you do alternate tuning, you can put a capo on the appropriate fret, third in this case? And have a normally tuned bass below the capo.
Probably because you usually get drop C# tuning which means you just change one (lowest) string or you get standard C# tuning which means you change all the strings the same amount.
Lower case letters mean they’re in a second/higher octave.
There’s a couple of reasons I can think of, though I completely understand where you’re coming from, where you’re only aiming to play the one song in the new tuning.
Reason 1 - yes - keep the tension even. If you have regular tension on one half of the neck and slack tension on the other half, you’re setting yourself up for some neck-warp. Probably wouldn’t do anything if you just changed it for 30 minutes or so every once in a while to play the song, but it’s worth paying attention to.
Reason 2 - When you move into a new tuning, the bass feels different and different riffs will come out. It’s nice to have the entire bass set up for the new tuning so that if you do end up exploring on your own in the new tuning the high strings are working with the rest of the bass and you can still use the fingerings and intuitive musicianship you’ve built up in standard tuning.
Definitely not Eb.
Why can’t they just be consistent with the capital letters? Makes me mad that they’d throw lower case letters in there.
Lower case letters should never be used for note identification. Just makes things confusing.
I am not quite sure about this, but isn’t Drop C# tuning down all the strings a half-step, and then the lowest string another full step (so we have C#, G#, C#, F#)?
Or put it another way: It is tuning down Drop-D by a halfstep.
That’s a possibility too (and probably the more common one), they both are and that’s why it’s always good to say exactly what the tuning is. Either way, neither of them are what the OP needed.
