D♭ tuning

D-flat/C-sharp tuning.

D♭ tuning, also called C♯ tuning, is an alternative guitar tuning. Each string is one and one half steps lower than in standard tuning, or one half step lower than D tuning. The resulting notes can be described as D♭-G♭-B-E-A♭-D♭ or (less often) as C♯-F♯-B-E-G♯-C♯. "Extremely slack,"^[1] it is very popular amongst alternative and heavy rock bands because it has a darker and lower-pitched sound compared to E standard.

Used by

• A Pale Horse Named Death
• A Perfect Circle - nearly all of their songs are in this tuning.
• Akercocke
• All That Remains (since Overcome)
• Amorphis (on Tales from the Thousand Lakes)
• An Isle Ate Her
• Architects (they also drop the low string to G♯/A♭)
• Behemoth
• Between the Buried and Me
• Black Sabbath^[2] - many songs from Master of Reality onward to at least Never Say Die! (because Tony Iommi had two damaged fingertips).^[1] They still use this tuning on some songs from later albums.
• Blink-182 (on the songs "Obvious" from their self-titled album, "Time to Break Up", and for live performances of "Adam's Song")
• Bolt Thrower
• Breaking Benjamin
• Candlemass
• Cannibal Corpse ("Mummified in Barbed Wire", "Disfigured", "Absolute Hatred", "Eaten from Inside", and "Orgasm Through Torture")
• Chevelle (on three songs from Wonder What's Next: "Comfortable Liar", "The Red", and "Don't Fake This")
• Children of Bodom (on their first album Something Wild and on 2 songs from their latest album I Worship Chaos)
• Coldplay (on their song 'God Put a Smile Upon Your Face')
• Comeback Kid^[3]
• Creed (on 4 songs from Full Circle, although most of the rest of the album has the low string dropped to B and, on one song, G♯/A♭)
• Dark Tranquillity
• Decapitated
• Down
• Dying Fetus
• Dream Theater (on the songs, "Along for the Ride", "New Millennium", "Vacant", and "You Not Me")
• El Caco
• Epica (on the songs, "the Last Crusade", "Blank Infinity", and "Another Me in Lack'ech", from the Consign to Oblivion album. All the other songs from the album are in C tuning.)
• Eyehategod
• Godflesh (prior to Us and Them)
• Gorguts
• Hate Eternal
• Iced Earth (on most songs)
• Isis (band)
• I the Mighty
• Judas Priest (on "Jugulator", "Blood Stained", "Death Row", "Decapitate", and "Abductors")
• Kalmah
• Las Cruces
• Limp Bizkit
• Lykathea Aflame
• Machine Head (tuned 40 cents sharp)
• Mark Tremonti (on "So You're Afraid" and "Doesn't Matter" from All I Was)
• Metallica (on "Bad Seed" from ReLoad, "The More I See" from Garage Inc., and live performances of "The Thing That Should Not Be" since 1987)
• Monte Pittman^[4]
• My Dying Bride (on all songs except "A Doomed Lover", "One of Beauty's Daughter's", and "The Blue Lotus", which are all dropped to Drop B.)
• Nirvana (On certain recordings of Old Age)
• Omnium Gatherum
• Orange Goblin
• Pantera on The Great Southern Trendkill, War Nerve, Drag the Waters, 13 Steps to Nowhere, and Floods from The Great Southern Trendkill
• Pianos Become the Teeth
• Rains
• Reverend Bizarre
• Sent By Ravens
• Sinergy (on the album Beware the Heavens)
• Skillet (on some songs from the albums, Hey You, I Love Your Soul and Collide)
• Slash (on "Crucify the Dead")
• Slayer (on the albums Diabolus in Musica and God Hates Us All)
• Sleater-Kinney
• Slipknot (on "Snuff" and "Before I Forget")
• Sodom (in several songs from "'Til Death Do Us Unite")
• Stone Sour
• Stormlord
• Suffocation
• Superjoint Ritual
• Testament (since Low)
• Therion (on most songs in every album from 1994-present and their death metal demos)
• Truckfighters
• Venom (some albums)
• Woods of Ypres
• Within Temptation (on most songs from the album Mother Earth and some songs from the albums, the Heart of Everything and the Unforgiving)

Sources

1. Hunter, Dave and F Gibbons, Billy (2010). Star Guitars: 101 Guitars That Rocked the World, . ISBN 978-0-7603-3821-6.
2. Wilkinson, Paul (2007). Rat Salad: Black Sabbath, The Classic Years, 1969-1975. ISBN 978-0-312-36723-7.
3. Bean, Perry. "Rig Rundown - Comeback Kid". Premier Guitar. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
4. Dirks, Rebecca. "Rig Rundown - Madonna's Monte Pittman". Premier Guitar. Retrieved 5 February 2014.