Pantera · Far Beyond Driven · song 2
Becoming tuning.
Becoming (Pantera, 1994) is in D Standard at A 429, about 44 cents flat, measured by TuneLit from the record.
Measured by TuneLit
44 ¢ flat
The album's value, measured on the CD: Tune sets the reference A to 429.
Pantera · Far Beyond Driven · 1994
About Becoming
Becoming, from Far Beyond Driven (1994), is a pounding, stop-start riff song with all six strings tuned a whole step down to D Standard (D G C F A D). Dimebag Darrell built its riffs and solo around his first DigiTech Whammy pedal, so the squealing jumps in pitch come from the pedal, not from a different tuning.
The heart of this song is the picking hand. The riffs come in short, palm-muted bursts on the open low D, broken up by rests, so the gaps between notes matter as much as the notes themselves. Dime's Whammy pedal throws some of those notes up in pitch, which gives the riff its yelping character. Practise the muted pattern dry first, locked to the kick drum, and add a pitch-shift pedal only once the timing sits; without one, the plain riff still works for playing along.
TuneLit measured the album about 44 ¢ flat (A ≈ 428.9) on the CD. Becoming reads about 49 ¢ flat, close enough to share the album value, so its Tune button sets D Standard at A 429. That puts the record almost exactly between C♯ and D, which Wikipedia also notes.
Because it sits in the middle, tabs and players name it either way, and the main tab's D Standard is the one TuneLit follows. Do not try to match the Whammy parts by retuning: tune your open strings to the plain riffs and let the pedal handle the jumps. If the record still sounds a hair flat against you, lower Fine-tune by a few cents.
Tip: Set A 429, tune to D Standard and check the open low D against the main riff, not against the Whammy squeals.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to D Standard at A 429, the notes Becoming was recorded in.
- From E Standard: Every string down a whole step. No tuner that knows D Standard? Clamp a capo across fret 2, tune to E Standard as usual, then take it off: every string drops to D Standard. Check each string again afterwards, since a capo pulls the strings a little sharp.
- Turn String 6 to String 1 until each shows ✓ in tune. Becoming sits 44 cents flat on the record: at A 440 your guitar would sound that much sharp against it, which Tune already corrects.
- Then play Becoming along with the record: its lowest open note and your String 6 should ring together without a wobble.
Or the other way round
Move the record into your tuning
Rather keep your guitar as it is? Let Play along move Becoming instead. Add your own copy, for example from your CD (it never leaves your device); the link already says the song is in D Standard at A 429. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Becoming moves up 2 half steps and 44 cents, at its own speed. Slow it down or loop a few bars to learn it, and save the result as a WAV file.
Questions
What tuning is Becoming in?
D Standard at A 429: D G C F A D, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.