Pantera · The Great Southern Trendkill · song 9
Floods tuning.
Floods (Pantera, 1996) is in D Standard at A 424, about 64 cents flat, measured by TuneLit from the record.
Song tuning
D Standard A 424
About 64 cents flat (A 424).
Measured by TuneLit
64 ¢ flat
Measured on this song itself: Tune sets the reference A to 424.
Pantera · The Great Southern Trendkill · 1996
About Floods
Floods is the long, slow epic of The Great Southern Trendkill (1996), from its clean, eerie opening to one of Dimebag Darrell's most famous solos. The guitars are in D Standard (D G C F A D), but in an even flatter version of it than the rest of the album.
TuneLit measured the album about 50 ¢ below D (A ≈ 427.6) on the CD and Floods lower still, about 64 ¢ (A ≈ 424), so its Tune button sets D Standard at A 424. The song was also checked by ear: the CD was re-pitched to E Standard and played along with a guitar, and it fit. A normal A 440 tuner reads the record's low string as C♯ +36.
That reading is why the tabs disagree. Songsterr's original tab says C♯ Standard, later ones D Standard or Drop C, whose upper five strings match D Standard. TuneLit lists D; earlier versions of its own pages had Floods a semitone too low, in C♯. With the reference at A 424, the D Standard tab lines up with the record.
Tip: Set the reference to A 424, a few hertz below the rest of the album, then tune to D Standard and check the open strings against the clean intro.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to D Standard at A 424, the notes Floods 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. Floods sits 64 cents flat on the record: at A 440 your guitar would sound that much sharp against it, which Tune already corrects.
- Then play Floods 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 Floods 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 424. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Floods moves up 2 half steps and 64 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 Floods in?
D Standard at A 424: D G C F A D, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.