Steelers Fans who are musicians thread

Oh hell no. I'm an amateur/weekend warrior musician. I'm an IT geek/nerd by day.

Bass/music/recording is one of my 3 expensive hobbies... along with Skiing and Road Cycling/Mountain+Gravel biking. I used to play golf... but I quit. Thank the godz for that.

 

My folks still hate it. I couldn't impress them if I received a gold album, a Grammy, and a Rock in roll HOF. I'm serious. My Grandparents on the other hand (God rest their souls) were behind me.
I'm a serious disappointment to my Mother.

 

Finally bought something for my guitars.... Digitech Drop Tune pedal. I can tune all 3 of my guitars in standard or standard drop D.... and nail Alice In Chains, Roth-era Van Halen, Guns'n'Roses...all strings half step down. Plus... I can nail the Korn whole-step down, Low A tuning on my 7-string. I can turn my Fender Strat into a Baritone guitar.... Rock Lobster- B-52's, The Cure songs, James Bond Theme song, etc. Freakin' cool as hell.

 

Cost a lot?

 

Drop Tune pedal normally sells for $235.... I got mine from Amazon for $130, thanks to rebate I had for returning a Keurig coffee maker that broke a week after I got it.

 

Keurig's seem hit or miss. We also had a clunker and had to take the loss. There is an old nasty one at the golf course that gets abused daily and damn thing keeps working. Has to be 7-8 years old.

 

Yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with Keurig coffee makers. I found one from Walmart that was better and cheaper than the "lemon" I bought from Amazon. The new ones have the stupid 5 hole needles on the top... and it's hard as hell to find POD coffee filters for ground coffee that will fit the "new wave" Keurigs. The old design (single needle) worked just fine... hate when good products change things up.

 

I may need one of these, does it sound natural?

I have a a pitch shifter, but it makes things sound very digital and compressed. It's a cool sound and a usable effect, but not for just wanting a different pitch.

I prefer to tune in Eb, but since I play pretty often, we are always in standard tuning, so having a pedal to drop me to Eb or D without having to retune all the time would be amazing.

 

I had a Digitech Whammy I bought in the late 90's... that would drop tune and it sounded like you described. Digital glitches and unnatural sound. This pedal retains the natural tone of the guitar, dynamics, etc... as long as you're going no lower than Low A. I can drop my Strat down 5 steps to Baritone (Low B) and it still sounds good. Octave effect is better than average for guitar. Alice in Chains songs in Drop D, one-half step down sound awesome... Them Bones, Dam that River, We Die Young. Only thing is... make sure the acoustic sound of the strings is drowned out and the amp is loud enough to cover it up. Also make sure it is the very first pedal you plug into in your pedalboard to get the most natural sounds... before wah, compressor, etc.

I love this pedal because I can use standard 10 gauge strings on all guitars while playing dropped tunings. 9's feel like dental floss and I don't like 11's thru '13's... thick SRV gauge strings. My 7-string's Low B is a 56 gauge.... and that's about as heavy as I like to go. Korn guitarists used 60 gauge strings on their Ibanez Universes for the Low A.

 

I played with one of those one day at the music store I worked at. Hell it's been out for awhile, because it has to be about 11 or so years ago that I'm talking about.
I never drop only one string, like a drop D, but I do keep one guitar regular tuning EADGBE(I use 11s on it) and one guitar one whole step down DGCFAD(I use 12 on it), and I like to play songs in both. I get a kick how some songs sound so different higher, or lower.
Although know matter how You tune the guitars, the notes, and chords are still there.