Songs you didn't learn because the recording was not in 440

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hbcalisurfer

hbcalisurfer

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In anticipation of the release of an updated Tom Petty Long After Dark LP this Friday put the original through bluetooth and heard a song I used to play but completely forgot about, "Finding Out". So grabbed my guitar to jam along and the pitch was wrong. When he LP was released I was listening to vinyl because that is how music was presented at the time. My turntable has a stroboscope allowing you to change the speed until the song came into pitch and that is how Im learned them.

Now I listen to music from a pay service and usually stick to songs in the proper pitch resulting quite a few being left out of my practice routine. If I am in a Hendrix mood will drop a guitar tuning to the proper 1/2 or full step however there is a library full of songs making it worth it. However for the one offs it just doesn't happen.

Here is a version of the Tom Petty song in 440:

 
I feel like there were some old AC/DC albums that were a little off and always frustrated me.
 
I just bring those songs into my DAW and use the native pitch shifter to get them to whatever I'm tuned to.

Problem solved.
 
Dan Gleesak said:
I feel like there were some old AC/DC albums that were a little off and always frustrated me.
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There were a bunch of them tuned up. I'm guessing the sped up the recording after-the-fact. I remember being very frustrated with those way back as a kid. I was used to songs being tuned down a whole step (or more), but those AC/DC songs were like a 1/4 step off.
 
Some Beatles on Rubber Soul are also in the wrong pitch.

BenoA, that looks like a great tool but I am on a Mac. How would it work if I switched to Chrome and use Tidal for my service?

If I use my phone also Apple, and have Tidal on an app is there a solution there?
 
There's a ton of them. Fade to black is in A 445, so I never play it.
 
thegame said:
Exactly. Is it that hard?
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It can be. For example since the master tape was either slowed or sped up then after playing 10 songs you hit one of the off cycle, retune by ear, practice then retune to the next one which might be slightly slower. I just leave them off my practice list or if they are on it when the list changes they are forgotten. Maybe your experience is different and I can respect that. A good practice for me is 30 to 40 songs or about two hours.
 
hbcalisurfer said:
It can be. For example since the master tape was either slowed or sped up then after playing 10 songs you hit one of the off cycle, retune by ear, practice then retune to the next one which might be slightly slower. I just leave them off my practice list or if they are on it when the list changes they are forgotten. Maybe your experience is different and I can respect that. A good practice for me is 30 to 40 songs or about two hours.
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Not to mention.. if your guitar has a floating Floyd Rose.

🤦‍♂️
 
WizardAmpIphoneClip said:
I would just.....tune my fiddle to the song
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As a kid learning to play this is just what I did with everything. I would tune to whatever standard pitch using a pitch pipe and if a song I wanted to play sounded off I would just adjust until it matched up. I can recall coming across a lot of stuff on albums being off by some random amount of cents.
 
hbcalisurfer said:
It can be. For example since the master tape was either slowed or sped up then after playing 10 songs you hit one of the off cycle, retune by ear, practice then retune to the next one which might be slightly slower. I just leave them off my practice list or if they are on it when the list changes they are forgotten. Maybe your experience is different and I can respect that. A good practice for me is 30 to 40 songs or about two hours.
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Or you can buy, setup and maintain 100 guitars, all tuned in 1 cent increments from a quarter tone below A440 to a quarter tone above A440. That should cover most variations of E standard tuning. Now, for any songs tuned to D, you’ll need another 100 guitars following this principle. It’s foolproof I’ll tell ya.
 
WizardAmpIphoneClip said:
I would just.....tune my fiddle to the song
Click to expand...
That's what I did when I was younger.

I couldn't afford a decent tuner in high school, so my guitar was never really in tune anyhow.

Nowadays I'm lazy, so I'll just find a youtube lesson or gp file.
 
DanTravis62 said:
There's a ton of them. Fade to black is in A 445, so I never play it.
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So is half of master of puppets. At first I thought it was just me, then I saw a video of Wes Hauch talking about it. He assumed the tape was slowed down but 3 or 4 songs were tuned to 435hz then sped up.
 
PiggySmallz said:
So is half of master of puppets. At first I thought it was just me, then I saw a video of Wes Hauch talking about it. He assumed the tape was slowed down but 3 or 4 songs were tuned to 435hz then sped up.
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Yeah it's to get the downstrokes tighter, and make it easier for lars to piece the drum tracks together in 30000 takes because he isn't very good, lol.

That's the quiet part no one says.

It's funny because everyone shits on pro tools, for good reason, but Metallica and a handful of other bands used the "analog" versions of quantizing, etc back in the day
 
DanTravis62 said:
Yeah it's to get the downstrokes tighter, and make it easier for lars to piece the drum tracks together in 30000 takes because he isn't very good, lol.

That's the quiet part no one says.

It's funny because everyone shits on pro tools, for good reason, but Metallica and a handful of other bands used the "analog" versions of quantizing, etc back in the day
Click to expand...
Lars had some moments of brilliance in their prime. Likely by mistake but man I just won't spend money to see them live anymore. Between him and Kirk it's not worth the cost of admission.
 
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