Death metal bands that play in dropped tuning on 6 strings

TheBloodstained

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The guys from Cannibal Corpse use 6-stringers a lot of the time, and I know they've done some drop A stuff.
 

iamaom

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The Zenith Passage, Deviant Process, Wintersun (some), Braindrill- Drop C
Tomb Mold, Gatecreeper, Wretched, CoB (later), Ulcerate - Drop B
 

vilk

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Iirc Cephalic Carnage uses drop A and drop B

Interesting! I learned to play Endless Cycle in B standard but they do have certain tracks that seem like it's probably dropped tuning (I'm thinking Piecemaker).
 

bostjan

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I always want to contribute to threads like this until I realize that I know fuck all about which bands fall into which subgenre buckets, and even less about which tunings are actually used. I'm typically pretty stubborn about sticking with the tuning I learned the song in. For example, I've been playing Lamb of God songs in D standard since I first heard of them, shortly after Ashes of the Wake came out, because I learned a lot of those songs off of the radio. It wasn't until I saw them perform live, years later, that I noticed the one-finger chords and thought "Oh shit, I bet that's way easier to play that way!" But I still play those songs in D standard.

In fact, unless there are some big chords that make use of open strings, I'd argue that there's no way anyone would be able to tell for certain without the guitarist telling you.
 

vilk

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I always want to contribute to threads like this until I realize that I know fuck all about which bands fall into which subgenre buckets, and even less about which tunings are actually used. I'm typically pretty stubborn about sticking with the tuning I learned the song in. For example, I've been playing Lamb of God songs in D standard since I first heard of them, shortly after Ashes of the Wake came out, because I learned a lot of those songs off of the radio. It wasn't until I saw them perform live, years later, that I noticed the one-finger chords and thought "Oh shit, I bet that's way easier to play that way!" But I still play those songs in D standard.

In fact, unless there are some big chords that make use of open strings, I'd argue that there's no way anyone would be able to tell for certain without the guitarist telling you.

This reminds me of when for some reason I thought The Sword played in dropped C and I learned Age of Winters front to back but all in dropped tuning and then years later I read an interview and it turns out that album was in C standard. I swear it is easier and makes more sense to play those songs in dropped tuning.
 

CTID

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to echo mr jazz hands i know for certain that a LOT of faceless material is Drop C. i think everything on planetary duality and autotheism is, not sure about akeldama. most of in becoming a ghost is as well, but i know black star is 7 string drop A
 

Pippo

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Chris Wiseman of Shadow of Intent uses Drop B/Drop A# mainly. Pretty good guitar player and songwriter, too.
 

KnightBrolaire

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I always want to contribute to threads like this until I realize that I know fuck all about which bands fall into which subgenre buckets, and even less about which tunings are actually used. I'm typically pretty stubborn about sticking with the tuning I learned the song in. For example, I've been playing Lamb of God songs in D standard since I first heard of them, shortly after Ashes of the Wake came out, because I learned a lot of those songs off of the radio. It wasn't until I saw them perform live, years later, that I noticed the one-finger chords and thought "Oh shit, I bet that's way easier to play that way!" But I still play those songs in D standard.

In fact, unless there are some big chords that make use of open strings, I'd argue that there's no way anyone would be able to tell for certain without the guitarist telling you.
lol Lamb of God is pretty much always in Drop D.

Amon Amarth is usually in Drop B iirc
Slipknot also uses drop B a fair bit
Karnivool uses BF#BGBE
I think Nile used Drop A a bunch.
 

HeHasTheJazzHands

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I could have sworn Fate of the Norns and Versus the World albums were Drop B.
As far as i'm aware it's been like 95% standard tuned guitar, with the great majority being B standard, the other minority being C standard, and the handful of songs tuned to drop A.
 

Sir_Shreddington

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Not sure how popular Soilwork is but I know the the Panic Broadcast, the last album with Peter Wichers on it, was in drop B. I actually really like that album. PW is an awesome song writer.

I think the newer In Flames stuff is also in drop B, but I'm almost 100% positive that they were in standard C for most of their careers (or at least when Jesper was in the band). I remember watching a video with Jesper and Bjorn after Clayman came out and they were demoing / teaching Bullet Ride and Bjorn said that the song was in C standard. I think it was a Young Guitar lesson.

Weren't Children of Bodom, and Arch Enemy in drop C too? I think the albums with Chris Amott were in drop C.

Cool thread btw
 

HeHasTheJazzHands

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Not sure how popular Soilwork is but I know the the Panic Broadcast, the last album with Peter Wichers on it, was in drop B. I actually really like that album. PW is an awesome song writer.

I think the newer In Flames stuff is also in drop B, but I'm almost 100% positive that they were in standard C for most of their careers (or at least when Jesper was in the band). I remember watching a video with Jesper and Bjorn after Clayman came out and they were demoing / teaching Bullet Ride and Bjorn said that the song was in C standard. I think it was a Young Guitar lesson.

Weren't Children of Bodom, and Arch Enemy in drop C too? I think the albums with Chris Amott were in drop C.

Cool thread btw
In Flames started using Drop A# for Colony. It was like half and half for Colony, Clayman, and Reroute. After Reroute, everything was done in drop A#.
CoB started using drop C with Hate Crew. With Are You Dead Yet and Blooddrunk drop C was the main tuning, then I think with RRF it became the secondary tuning again while D standard (and C# Standard) became the main tuning.
Arch Enemy is like... almost all standard tuning. If not, all. C for the Liiva era, B for the Angela and beyond stuff. They MIGHT have the occasional dropped-tune song, but for the most part I think even their lower-tuned songs are standard tune with baritones (IE: Savage Messiah, Symphony of Destruction, Leader of the Rats, etc).
 

Alex79

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In Flames started using Drop A# for Colony. It was like half and half for Colony, Clayman, and Reroute. After Reroute, everything was done in drop A#.
CoB started using drop C with Hate Crew. With Are You Dead Yet and Blooddrunk drop C was the main tuning, then I think with RRF it became the secondary tuning again while D standard (and C# Standard) became the main tuning.
Arch Enemy is like... almost all standard tuning. If not, all. C for the Liiva era, B for the Angela and beyond stuff. They MIGHT have the occasional dropped-tune song, but for the most part I think even their lower-tuned songs are standard tune with baritones (IE: Savage Messiah, Symphony of Destruction, Leader of the Rats, etc).

In Flames, Arch Enemy, Amon Amarth have all been through several tunings oder the years.

It seems to me that they use a lot of standard tunings and then dropped the low string on some songs as well.
Like Clayman (the song), or Only for the Weak,I can play that in C standard. Similarly, Amon Amarth had a lot of songs on Deceiver that were Drop A, but some like As Loke Falls are in standard B. On Berserker, you find dropped and non-dropped tunings, but everything there is a half a step up anyway.
My understanding is that old Arch Enemy is mostly B, newer is C, and there's a songs here and there that differ from that (Savage Messiah, The World is Yours) that use drop tunings. One of the newer songs was recorded in B in the studio and is played in C live, but I forgot the name.

The main reason I know this is simply because I like to play along to many of the songs of these bands and I only have guitars tuned to C and B standard, so the drop tunings always represent a bit of a problem when I do that.

COB used Drop B on I Worship Chaos btw.
 

Edika

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Aborted have quite a few songs in drop A (all the ones I mainly want to play with my B standard tuned Floyd guitar lol).
Ingested are tuned in drop A#.
Alustrium on songs with 6 strings are tuned to drop C#.
 
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