Why are some songs recorded out of tune?

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  • Elected by Alice Cooper is another. Everything is detuned slightly for some reason.

    @ICBM "I've always said that boy would make a cracking country and western singer." John Peel, immediately after the 1997 Glastonbury set by Radiohead.
    If you must have sex with a frog, wear a condom. If you want the frog to have fun, rib it.
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  • Because it's close enough for Rock N Roll, as one of my old band mates used to say.
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  • rlwrlw Frets: 4671
    I have an entire B.B. King album somewhere that is impossible to play along to as every song is between definite keys.   Probably recorded from wobbly 78s.....
    Save a cow.  Eat a vegetarian.
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  • notanonnotanon Frets: 604
    I tried playing along to the wall movie and they definitely slowed that down. I play along to Gilmour live and no problem matches perfectly.
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  • ReverendReverend Frets: 4974
    The first Sepultura album drifts as it progresses. Theybcouldnt afford tubers and so just times up themselves.
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  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 11262
    A lot of Chuck Berry's early stuff was speeded up to make him sound younger.

    Apparently Barry White's natural voice is almost identical to Joe Pasquale's. Maybe.
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  • I've found a lot of stuff is out of tune when I play along with it.

    Of course, you have Pantera's funky tunings.  I can't remember the exact tuning right now but when Dime tuned down to what we'd call flat, he called that E standard.  When some of their songs sound as though they are down a whole step, Dime called this E flat IIRC.  The actual cents of the tunings were quite strange.  I wonder how he came up with this?

    The guitars on the Racer X album Second Heat aren't exactly flat.  From memory, I have to adjust the cents on Transcribe to something like +75 to get my guitar in tune with the album. 

    Suede also have some out of tune sounding guitars, not quite flat and not quite in standard.  I'm not sure if this was done to suit Brett Anderson's voice or to just add to their trashy type sound. 

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  • Tuning is relative.

    If everything is tuned to A=442 then it’s not out of tune.

    Out of tune is when the notes are out of tune relative to each other.

    I know I’m being a bit pedantic but there’s a difference. I think guitarists tend to think A=440 is the only valid tuning when that’s not the case, as I posted earlier many orchestras tune to different references, this doesn’t make them out of tune, it’s just a different tuning standard
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  • guitarfishbayguitarfishbay Frets: 7953
    edited November 2017
    The other thing is how the guitar is tuned.

    The way this can happen is if you tune only to the decay of a note, but then play with a heavy pick and heavy attack style on songs that are fast enough/have enough notes that the note never has time to settle back down to the decay pitch.  This is how some recordings end up a bit sharp of the intended reference pitch, usually in heavier styles.

    Guitar is actually a poor instrument for keeping to a reference pitch as the pitch of the notes is so tied to the dynamics, but some styles demand dynamics that will put the guitar out of tune (most specifically metal).  While the sound of the guitar being picked hard can be very pleasing for heavy rock playing the tuning will often be sharp way before the guitar is being hit too hard to ruin the tone, if that makes any sense.  If you listen to some dual guitar band live recordings with a keen ear you can sometimes pick out that one player hits a lot harder than the other and they'll end up slightly out with each other.  Most of the time it isn't a problem and sounds fine, but it happens.

    These days for recordings people either keep retuning and punching in on out of tune parts, or use an Evertune bridge (several rock/punk/heavy music albums have been recorded with these now, including the latest Blink 182).  But historically there are loads of heavy guitar albums that are just a bit out either consistently or on certain notes (usually the low string which typically has the lowest tension and is hit the hardest) and sometimes that can be the player and not down to speeding up/slowing down of recordings.  This is a reason many producers will track guitar first - then if when the bass goes down the guitar has ended up slightly sharp on some notes it's easy to retune a single note to where it sounds in with the guitars than it is to go re-do a load of guitars. 

    If a recording is in tune with itself the majority of people are happy.  People who have perfect pitch maybe have a different experience but I'm not one of those people and I don't understand how that works with different tuning standards.

    It is annoying if you just want to play along with another guitar track but I think there are apps to slightly re-pitch songs as necessary.

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  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 11262
    Back in the old days guitarists would tune to the most stable instrument. This was often a piano, and if the piano itself was off-key then everything else would be as well.
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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11789
    The other thing is how the guitar is tuned.

    The way this can happen is if you tune only to the decay of a note, but then play with a heavy pick and heavy attack style on songs that are fast enough/have enough notes that the note never has time to settle back down to the decay pitch.  This is how some recordings end up a bit sharp of the intended reference pitch, usually in heavier styles.

    Guitar is actually a poor instrument for keeping to a reference pitch as the pitch of the notes is so tied to the dynamics, but some styles demand dynamics that will put the guitar out of tune (most specifically metal).  While the sound of the guitar being picked hard can be very pleasing for heavy rock playing the tuning will often be sharp way before the guitar is being hit too hard to ruin the tone, if that makes any sense.  If you listen to some dual guitar band live recordings with a keen ear you can sometimes pick out that one player hits a lot harder than the other and they'll end up slightly out with each other.  Most of the time it isn't a problem and sounds fine, but it happens.

    These days for recordings people either keep retuning and punching in on out of tune parts, or use an Evertune bridge (several rock/punk/heavy music albums have been recorded with these now, including the latest Blink 182).  But historically there are loads of heavy guitar albums that are just a bit out either consistently or on certain notes (usually the low string which typically has the lowest tension and is hit the hardest) and sometimes that can be the player and not down to speeding up/slowing down of recordings.  This is a reason many producers will track guitar first - then if when the bass goes down the guitar has ended up slightly sharp on some notes it's easy to retune a single note to where it sounds in with the guitars than it is to go re-do a load of guitars. 

    If a recording is in tune with itself the majority of people are happy.  People who have perfect pitch maybe have a different experience but I'm not one of those people and I don't understand how that works with different tuning standards.

    It is annoying if you just want to play along with another guitar track but I think there are apps to slightly re-pitch songs as necessary.

    Evertune makes a big difference, especially on the bass strings like you say
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  • Xanadu by Rush is slightly speed up on the album. Down to trying to fit it onto a side of vinyl I guess. Much prefer the Exit Stage Left... version anyhow.
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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11413

    I do suspect that guitar bands (with no keyboards) in the days before tuners would have just tuned one with itself and then tuned everything else to that, or they all tuned to the same studio piano that was a bit out. 

    I was trying to play along to something on Youtube recently where it was about half a semitone out.  From memory it was a reasonably recent recording so shouldn't just have been a video tape at slightly the wrong speed.   I think there were Hammond organs or something along those lines involved.  Do they ever drift off of concert pitch?

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  • I think The Song Remains The Same is sped up as well....if you listen to percy’s voice, it sounds higher than usual

    A lot of Chuck Berry's early stuff was speeded up to make him sound younger

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  • DiscoStuDiscoStu Frets: 5382
    edited November 2017
    I would be amazed if a band like Radiohead working with producers like John Leckie and Nigel Godrich would ignore using tuners and/or not notice the tuning was out on some songs, so in the cases mentioned it looks like the glockenspiel to blame!
    Metallica use a bell sample in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' so I guess they had to tune the guitars to the sample. I think it would have been easier to slow the sample down to match the pitch of the guitars.
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  • frank1985 said:
    I think The Song Remains The Same is sped up as well....if you listen to percy’s voice, it sounds higher than usual

    A lot of Chuck Berry's early stuff was speeded up to make him sound younger

    There are a few examples of Robert being sped up (Four Sticks definitely) - I think his voice went between IV and HOTH. It's the main reason they used a 1972 gig for How The West Was Won - he could still do the songs in his high register. All of the 73 shows I've heard have his later/current voice. It's a pity that as their catalogue expanded their ability to perform it went south. 
    "A city star won’t shine too far"


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  • prowlaprowla Frets: 4896
    Xanadu by Rush is slightly speed up on the album. Down to trying to fit it onto a side of vinyl I guess. Much prefer the Exit Stage Left... version anyhow.
    In 2112 his guitar is way out of tune!
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  • Paul_CPaul_C Frets: 7671

    There's a Beatles song (can't remember which*) that IIRC is two different takes in slightly different keys and George Martin had to speed up one and slow down the other to fit them together.

    * I googled it - Strawberry Fields Forever.

    https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/strawberry-fields-forever/2/ ;

    "I'll probably be in the bins at Newport Pagnell services."  fretmeister
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  • DesVegasDesVegas Frets: 4510
    Golden Brown is between keys I was once told
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  • There's a few tunes in 432hz, so when anyone plays along with a 440hz standard tuned guitar it sounds horrendous.

    Alot of the Definitely Maybe album sounds off pitch, and Don't Look Back In Anger is played at 455hz, was wondering why for years my guitar never sounded in tune with the recording!
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