[suicidebounce19]

Hi, I am a newbie here, the name is William, and I have this very odd problem. I have my electric Fender Starcaster(sounds like a fake stratocaster, lol), but anyways, I have it tuned for dropped D tuning, so I can just mess around. So I am playing Tool-Eon Blue Apocalypse, or learning how to play it, so to say. I usually would do the fifth fret test to see if it is in tune, and I am not sure on what setting to put on the chromatic tuner I have, so I just leave it at that. So I am just reading off the tab sheet and playing the song and for some weird reason, whenever it told me to play the dropped d, it wouldn't sound like the song at all. The same goes with Pink Floyd-Wish You Were Here, it would say to play the beginning of the song using the first string and I would have to go to the fifth fret to goto the sound, unless the tab music is way off. Am I just reading bad tabs or is there something up with the first string? I just got my guitar restrung, so I am sure it isnt the strings. I am sorry that I am a bit vague as I am just getting back into playing and still learning the basics. Any ideas? I am just thinking it is my guitar but who knows. Any thoughts would be great. Thanks a bunch in advance.

Will

[Teddy Madison]

Sounds like you may be the victim of bad tabs. I can tell you that Wish you were here is not a drop D tune. Tune back to standard and have a go, you will see it sounds fine.

Wayne

[starsailor]

Hi Suicidebounce, I agree with Terry Madison as far as I know, Wish you were here is in Standard tuning, so you won't get the right sound in Drop D to the best of my knowledge, I'm fairly confident it isn't your guitar so head back to standard and get back to us.

Cheers

Chris

[Stratrat]

+1 on "Wish You Were Here" being in standard tuning. I can imagine it would sound pretty wrong if attempted in Drop D. I assume that you're referring to the low E string (the bottom/thickest string) as the "first string" - it's actually called the sixth string. The way I learned WYWH, the beginning of the intro is played from a G chord, so the first note should be a G (sixth string, third fret). If you're tuned to Drop D, that note will be an F - so it's definitely not going to sound good when you move up to the A string to play the '0h2' that comes next.

You also might want to have a look at X4StringDrive's lesson on using a tuner - CLICK

You don't use the fifth fret when using a tuner - that's only when you're tuning one string against another ("relative tuning"). When using a tuner, all strings are played open.

[suicidebounce19]

Sweet, I got some input, lol. Well I am guessing some people just assumed it was Dropped D, and not really playing electric ever and playing acoustic a tiny bit when I was young, I am still a newb. I will try tuning back to standard tuning and see what I can come up with. And here is kind of opinionated question, I might be able to trade my fender starcaster for a baby v dean, but I don't really know the quality of them, soo....yeah. Assuming that the electronics aren't crap and everything like that, what should I do? Sounds like a good deal? Who knows. Thanks again guys.