Radiohead tunings.

The tabs on Songsterr and Ultimate Guitar, the Radiohead gear site The King of Gear (which keeps a list of the band's alternate tunings, partly drawn from their guitar technicians' set lists) and Wikipedia's song articles agree that the band's normal parts are in standard tuning; Wikipedia says so outright for Paranoid Android and Karma Police. The exceptions:

• Drop D (D A D G B E): Stop Whispering, Optimistic, I Might Be Wrong, 2 + 2 = 5, Bodysnatchers and Give Up the Ghost, plus House of Cards with a capo at the 3rd fret.
• Double Drop D (D A D G B D): Electioneering.
• Drop C (C G C F A D): The Numbers.
• DADGAD: Desert Island Disk, with a capo at the 5th fret, and Little by Little as The King of Gear lists it (one tab has Drop D).
• Half a step down (E♭ Standard): Vegetable.
• One or two strings moved: (Nice Dream) and Airbag (E A D G A E), The Tourist, Nude and Separator (E A E G B E, Separator with a capo at the 6th fret), My Iron Lung (E G D G B E♭), Ful Stop (E G D G B E), There There (D B D G B E), Jigsaw Falling into Place (D A D F♯ B E), Morning Mr Magpie (C G C F C E) and I Can't (the high string down to B, or to D in one tab).
• Capos in standard tuning: Exit Music (For a Film) and How to Disappear Completely (2nd fret), No Surprises (3rd fret on the acoustic, 15th on Ed O'Brien's electric), Present Tense (1st fret, in one tab), Let Down (7th fret on Ed's part) and Street Spirit (12th fret on Jonny's harmony line).

Several of these belong to one guitarist only. On My Iron Lung, The Tourist and Nude it is Jonny Greenwood who retunes while Thom Yorke and Ed O'Brien stay in standard; on Airbag, (Nice Dream) and There There it is Thom. TuneLit lists the special tuning for the song when that part is the one people come to learn, and the song notes say who plays what.

A tuner judges every note against a reference A, normally 440 Hz. A record can sit a few cents above or below that grid for many reasons: the band tuned to a keyboard that was itself off, a tape machine ran a little fast or slow, a song was recorded at one speed and played back at another. A cent is a hundredth of a semitone. Under about 5 cents nobody hears it; at 10 to 15 a careful ear notices a sour edge; at 20 or more, playing along at A 440 sounds plainly out of tune.

The only published hints we found are tab writers' warnings about The Bends: a chord sheet for Planet Telex says to tune about a quarter tone sharp, a tab of Just says to tune every guitar up a quarter step, and the most-voted chord sheet of the title song says the recording is not at concert pitch. Wikipedia adds two tape stories: Nigel Godrich had the band record No Surprises at a faster tempo and slowed the playback for the vocal, and the band slowed the tape for the introduction of Daydreaming. Everything else here is TuneLit's own measurement.

The owner's Radiohead collection is vinyl only: the 2016 XL Recordings reissues of the first six albums (OK Computer as the 2017 OKNOTOK set, of which only the original album's sides were measured), the first LP pressing of In Rainbows and the XL LPs of The King of Limbs and A Moon Shaped Pool. A turntable that runs 0.3 % fast or slow moves a whole needle drop by about 5 cents. There is no CD in the library, so TuneLit checked the speed another way: it compared each LP's track lengths with the CD track lengths listed on MusicBrainz. A turntable running fast makes every song a little shorter and a little sharp, by the same proportion. For most albums the two agree within about 0.3 %, but not for all, and the album sections below say where it matters. Differences between songs on the same record are not affected by any of this.

The short version:

• Pablo Honey and OK Computer run about 10 cents sharp (A ≈ 442.5), and the running times say that is the record, not the turntable: Pablo Honey's LP matches the CD within 0.05 %, and OK Computer's cleanest tracks within 0.03 %.
• The Bends reads about 16 cents sharp (A ≈ 444) on the LP. Its songs run about 0.45 % shorter than on CD, worth some 8 cents, so a CD or a stream should sit nearer 8 cents sharp.
• In Rainbows reads about 14 cents sharp on the LP, but that is the turntable. The LP runs 0.8 % shorter than the CD, which accounts for all of it: on CD or a stream, expect concert pitch.
• Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief and A Moon Shaped Pool sit near concert pitch on LP and CD alike (within about 5 cents). The King of Limbs reads 7 cents flat on the LP and should be about 12 flat on CD.
• Single songs move far from their albums, on any copy. Planet Telex, Just and Black Star sit about 30 cents above the rest of The Bends, and Street Spirit (Fade Out) almost 40 below it. No Surprises is 27 cents below the rest of OK Computer, Nude 21 above the rest of In Rainbows, Ripcord 22 above Pablo Honey and Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief 23 above A Moon Shaped Pool.

The Tune buttons use the values measured on the owner's LPs. To set one by hand, pick the tuning, tap the A 440 chip and enter the song's value: 444 for most of The Bends LP, 452 for Planet Telex, Just and Black Star, 434 for Street Spirit, 436 for No Surprises. If you play along with a CD or a stream of The Bends, In Rainbows or The King of Limbs, use the CD figures in the album sections instead. A measurement hears the result, not the cause, so it cannot say whether a sharp song was played on sharp instruments or sped up on tape.

The Bends gets its own section because it is the album where playing along at A 440 goes most wrong. As a whole it reads about 16 cents sharp: High and Dry, Fake Plastic Trees, Bones, (Nice Dream), My Iron Lung and Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was all sit between 12 and 18. Four songs are far higher. Planet Telex (47 cents), Just (46) and Black Star (48) sit almost exactly halfway between E and F, and the title song is 36 cents sharp. Street Spirit (Fade Out), the closing song, goes the other way: 23 cents flat, almost 40 cents below the rest of the record. Sulk is close to concert pitch. The LP's songs run about 0.45 % shorter than on the CD, so on a CD or a stream everything sits about 8 cents lower: the album near +8, Planet Telex, Just and Black Star near +40, still almost a quarter tone, and Street Spirit near −31.

Halfway between two notes is awkward for any tuner. A string 47 cents above E is the same pitch as one 53 cents below F, and the measurement alone cannot say which semitone the band tuned to, so the album page offers two readings for these songs and asks you to check by ear. Everything points to a sharp E: every tab writes these songs in E Standard, the tab writers who mention the pitch say to tune up, and TuneLit's semitone check from the audio hears the low open string as a sharp E on Planet Telex, the title song and Black Star. Use the Tune button, or set the tuner to A 452 (about A 450 for a CD) and tune to E Standard.

The sessions were spread over RAK Studios in London, the Manor in Oxfordshire and Abbey Road. Wikipedia says Planet Telex was written and recorded in a single evening at RAK and that Black Star was recorded by Nigel Godrich and the band while the producer, John Leckie, was out; nothing we found explains why those songs sit so high.

A few of these come back more than once, so they are worth knowing by shape.

• E A D G A E, the B string down a whole step (Thom: (Nice Dream), Airbag). The top three strings give G, A and E, so open chords pick up close, ringing intervals.
• E A E G B E, the D string up a whole step (Jonny: The Tourist, Nude; both on Separator, capo 6). On Nude the chorus pull-offs land on the open E strings.
• D A D F♯ B E (Jigsaw Falling into Place): Drop D with the G string down a half step, so the open strings ring a D chord with an added sixth and ninth.
• D B D G B E (There There): the low string down a whole step, the A string up one.

Moving one string is quick with a tuner, but the strings tuned up (D to E, A to B) carry more tension, so put them back after the song. The Tune buttons open the tuner with these strings already set.

Pablo Honey (1993)

E Standard +10 ¢12 songs, each with a Tune button

Radiohead's debut, recorded in three weeks at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in Oxfordshire with Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie. The tabs use standard tuning for almost every song, including Creep, which is built from just four chords: G, B, C and C minor. Three songs differ. Stop Whispering is in Drop D on every guitar, with the bass dropped too. Vegetable is a half step down (E♭ Standard), as The King of Gear and two tabs have it. On I Can't the high string comes down to B, in unison with the B string (The King of Gear), or to D in the Songsterr tab.

TuneLit measured the 2016 XL LP about 10 cents sharp (A ≈ 442.5), and its songs run within 0.05 % of the CD's lengths, so the turntable is not the cause: the CD should sound the same. Creep, Lurgee and I Can't sit at concert pitch instead, about 10 cents below their neighbours; Thinking About You is about 7 cents flat and Ripcord 32 cents sharp (A ≈ 448). The semitone check from the audio hears Vegetable's low string as an E♭, which confirms the half step down.

The Bends (1995)

E Standard +16 ¢12 songs, each with a Tune button

Produced by John Leckie, with Nigel Godrich engineering. Standard tuning, apart from (Nice Dream), where Thom's B string goes down to A, and My Iron Lung, where Jonny tunes E G D G B E♭ while Thom and Ed stay in standard. Street Spirit (Fade Out) is Thom's arpeggio played by Ed O'Brien in standard tuning, with Jonny's harmony line capoed at the 12th fret. Just is in standard tuning too: its high, piercing solo comes from a DigiTech Whammy pedal, not a tuning. The My Iron Lung on the album is a live recording from the London Astoria in May 1994 with a new vocal.

The pitch, about 16 cents sharp on the LP and 8 on CD, with four songs far higher and Street Spirit far lower, is covered in the section above.

OK Computer (1997)

E Standard +10 ¢12 songs, each with a Tune button

Recorded with Nigel Godrich in the band's Canned Applause studio in Oxfordshire and at St Catherine's Court near Bath. Most of the album is in standard tuning. The exceptions: Airbag (Thom in E A D G A E), Electioneering (Double Drop D, D A D G B D; some tabs keep the high E on Jonny's and Ed's guitars) and The Tourist (Jonny in E A E G B E). Exit Music (For a Film) is Thom's acoustic with a capo at the 2nd fret, No Surprises has capos at the 3rd fret on the acoustic and the 15th on Ed's electric, and Let Down puts one at the 7th fret on Ed's part. The chiming opening of Lucky is Ed strumming the strings above the nut.

Measured from the album sides of the OKNOTOK LP, the record sits about 10 cents sharp (A ≈ 442.6), with almost every song within 7 cents of that. Track lengths on the OKNOTOK sides do not line up neatly with the CD's, but the two cleanest, Paranoid Android and Fitter Happier, match it within 0.03 %, so the 10 cents belong to the record. Two songs stand apart. Exit Music (For a Film) sits at concert pitch. No Surprises is about 17 cents flat (A ≈ 435.8), 27 cents below the rest; a tape slowed down after the band played would lower the pitch like this, though a measurement cannot prove the cause. Fitter Happier, a computer voice over piano with no guitar, is not measured: its reading lands halfway between two notes and says nothing useful about a tuning.

Kid A (2000)

E Standard10 songs, each with a Tune button

The album where the band turned to synthesisers, samples and processed sound. Everything in Its Right Place is Thom's chords on a Prophet-5 synthesiser, Idioteque a home-built drum machine and a sampled chord phrase, Treefingers Ed O'Brien's guitar loops processed into an ambient wash, and The National Anthem a looping bass riff with a brass section. Where there is a guitar part, the tabs use standard tuning, with two exceptions: How to Disappear Completely has Thom's acoustic capoed at the 2nd fret, and Optimistic is in Drop D on the guitars and the bass.

The 2016 XL LP sits at concert pitch (A ≈ 440.6; its running times match the CD's within about 0.2 %), and so do the band songs In Limbo, Morning Bell and Motion Picture Soundtrack. The electronic pieces sit lower: Everything in Its Right Place about 19 cents flat, Idioteque 23 and Treefingers 25. Optimistic is about 12 cents sharp, How to Disappear Completely 6 flat.

Amnesiac (2001)

E Standard11 songs, each with a Tune button

From the same sessions as Kid A. Pyramid Song is piano and strings, Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box and Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors are electronic, Life in a Glasshouse has Humphrey Lyttelton's jazz band, and Like Spinning Plates grew out of an early synthesiser version of I Will. The guitar songs (You and Whose Army?, Knives Out, Dollars and Cents, Hunting Bears) are in standard tuning; I Might Be Wrong is in Drop D, its riff built on the open low D, with the bass dropped too.

The 2016 XL LP is the steadiest Radiohead record TuneLit measured: the album sits at A 440 and every song but one within 8 cents of it. The LP runs about 0.27 % longer than the CD, so a CD may sit some 4 or 5 cents higher, still close to concert pitch. I Might Be Wrong is the exception, about 14 cents sharp (A ≈ 443.6).

Hail to the Thief (2003)

E Standard14 songs, each with a Tune button

Recorded mostly live, in two weeks at Ocean Way in Los Angeles. Standard tuning for most of it, including Go to Sleep, whose stuttering guitar comes from software, not a tuning. 2 + 2 = 5 is in Drop D, and There There has Thom's guitar in D B D G B E (the low string down to D, the A string up to B) while Jonny's and Ed's parts stay in standard; Ultimate Guitar's tabs write the song in standard tuning. Sit Down. Stand Up., Sail to the Moon, We Suck Young Blood and A Punchup at a Wedding are built on piano, Backdrifts and The Gloaming are electronic, and Myxomatosis is driven by a fuzz synthesiser bass.

The 2016 XL LP sits at concert pitch (A ≈ 439.3), and a CD should too: the LP runs 0.1 to 0.3 % longer, worth 2 to 5 cents. Where I End and You Begin is about 13 cents flat, I Will 11 cents sharp and 2 + 2 = 5 about 7 sharp.

In Rainbows (2007)

E Standard +14 ¢10 songs, each with a Tune button

Recorded at Tottenham House and Halswell House, the Hospital Club in London and the band's own studio, and first released as a pay-what-you-want download. Standard tuning for 15 Step, Reckoner, Faust Arp and the three interlocking arpeggios of Weird Fishes/Arpeggi. The exceptions: Bodysnatchers in Drop D on all three guitars, House of Cards in Drop D with a capo at the 3rd fret, Jigsaw Falling into Place in D A D F♯ B E, and Nude, whose chorus part needs Jonny's D string tuned up to E. On All I Need, Ed O'Brien strung a guitar with four low E strings for a thick drone, but the song rests on synthesisers, piano, glockenspiel and strings.

The XL LP reads about 14 cents sharp (A ≈ 443.6), with Reckoner and Jigsaw about 4 cents higher and House of Cards and Faust Arp about 3 lower; Nude is about 35 cents sharp (A ≈ 449) and Videotape, a piano song, about 28 (A ≈ 447). But the LP's songs run 0.8 % shorter than on four different CD editions, worth 14 cents: this needle drop played fast. On a CD or a stream, expect the album at concert pitch, Nude about 21 cents sharp and Videotape about 14. The Tune buttons follow the LP until a CD is measured.

The King of Limbs (2011)

E Standard −7 ¢8 songs, each with a Tune button

Built by looping and editing samples of the band's playing, with very little conventional guitar: Bloom, Feral, Lotus Flower and Codex are built on loops, synth bass and piano. Where Thom and Jonny do play guitar, the tunings are unusual: C G C F C E on Morning Mr Magpie, DADGAD on Little by Little (one tab has Drop D; the four low strings are the same), Drop D on Thom's acoustic for Give Up the Ghost, and E A E G B E with a capo at the 6th fret on Separator.

This is the hardest Radiohead album to measure. Loops cut from different recordings need not share one pitch, and Bloom, Morning Mr Magpie and Separator gave readings too weak to use. The LP sits about 7 cents flat overall (A ≈ 438.2, carried mostly by Lotus Flower), Little by Little about 17 cents flat, Codex 4 sharp and Give Up the Ghost about 20 sharp (A ≈ 445). The LP runs about 0.33 % shorter than the CD, so on CD every value is roughly 6 cents lower. For Morning Mr Magpie and Separator, start from the album's value and trust your ear.

A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)

E Standard11 songs, each with a Tune button

Recorded at RAK Studios, the band's studio in Oxford and La Fabrique in Provence, with strings and choir arranged by Jonny Greenwood. Burn the Witch is built on strings struck with plectrums instead of bowed, Daydreaming and Glass Eyes are piano songs, and True Love Waits, played on stage since 1995 and long known from a live recording with Thom alone on acoustic guitar, became a piano piece. The guitar songs: Desert Island Disk in DADGAD with a capo at the 5th fret, Ful Stop with Jonny's A string down to G and a small capo on the top two strings, The Numbers in Drop C (C G C F A D), and Decks Dark, Identikit, Present Tense (capo at the 1st fret in the one tab) and Tinker Tailor in standard tuning.

The 2016 XL LP sits at concert pitch (A ≈ 440.5), with running times within 0.3 % of the CD's. Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief is about 26 cents sharp, Ful Stop 14 flat, True Love Waits 12 flat and Identikit about 7 flat.

TuneLit measured 99 songs from the nine studio albums, all from the owner's needle drops: the 2016 XL reissues of Pablo Honey, The Bends, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief and The King of Limbs, the album sides of the 2017 OKNOTOK set, the first LP of In Rainbows and the first LP of A Moon Shaped Pool. The method listens to 90 seconds of each track from 0:45 and compares the strongest notes with the A 440 grid. The album value is the middle of its songs, weighted by how clear each reading was; a song gets its own value when it sits 8 cents or more away from its album with a clear reading.

What stands out, beyond the short version above:

• The 1990s guitar albums run sharp, the later ones do not, once the In Rainbows LP's fast playback is set aside.
• The Bends spreads by 70 cents on one record, from Black Star a quarter tone sharp to Street Spirit 23 cents flat.
• Electronic pieces drift on their own. Kid A's synthesiser and sample pieces sit about 20 cents below its band songs, and The King of Limbs scatters from 17 cents flat to 20 sharp.
• Creep sits at concert pitch while the rest of Pablo Honey runs 10 cents sharp.

Limits to keep in mind. A turntable running 0.3 % off moves a needle drop by about 5 cents. There is no CD in the library, so the speed check rests on comparing the LPs' track lengths with the CD lengths on MusicBrainz; it is good to a few tenths of a percent where many tracks agree (Pablo Honey, The Bends, In Rainbows, The King of Limbs) and rougher where the vinyl side breaks blur the lengths (OK Computer, Kid A). The gaps between songs on one record are not affected. Six albums are 2016 reissues; an original Parlophone pressing could differ by a few cents. Songs built on synthesisers, samples or orchestra give values that matter little for guitar. Values within ±4 cents count as concert pitch.

The audio semitone check, which tests whether the record's lowest open string really sits where the tuning says, agrees with 71 of the 99 songs, among them Vegetable in E♭ Standard, the Drop D songs (Stop Whispering, Optimistic, I Might Be Wrong, Bodysnatchers, House of Cards, Give Up the Ghost), Electioneering, There There, Jigsaw Falling into Place, Little by Little, Morning Mr Magpie, Desert Island Disk, The Numbers in Drop C, and the sharp E of Planet Telex, the title song of The Bends and Black Star. Six songs point a half step away. No Surprises points to F: it is in F with a capo, and its open low E is never played, which is the method's known mistake. The other five (Sit Down. Stand Up., Lotus Flower, True Love Waits, Idioteque, Treefingers) are piano, synthesiser or loop pieces, where the method's premise, a low open string that the bass and guitars keep returning to, does not hold. None was moved. Twenty-two songs gave no sure answer.

Every tuning on the album pages has a status label:

• Official: a band member or his technician said it. We found no interview where Thom, Jonny or Ed names a song's tuning, so no song carries this label.
• Widely reported: independent sources agree, usually The King of Gear's tuning list and a tab (Songsterr, Ultimate Guitar, Howard Wright's transcriptions), or Wikipedia. Most of the alternate tunings and capos are at this level.
• Community: tabs only. The standard-tuning albums and The Bends' quarter-tone warnings rest on tabs.
• Disputed: the sources disagree. I Can't (high string to B or to D) and Little by Little (DADGAD or Drop D).
• Measured by TuneLit: our own pitch analysis of the owner's LPs, giving the offset in cents. Only the numbers are published; the audio is never stored or shared.

A measurement knows the offset only within a semitone, so the tuning's name (E Standard, Drop D, D A D F♯ B E) comes from the sources above and the measured cents go on top. If a song still sounds a little off, move the reference by a hertz: near 440 Hz, one hertz is about 4 cents.

This page covers the studio albums only. The EPs (Drill, My Iron Lung, Airbag / How Am I Driving?), the B-sides, the bonus disc of OKNOTOK and the side projects (Thom Yorke's solo records, Atoms for Peace, The Smile) are not included.

• Pablo Honey (1993): E Standard +10 ¢ (A ≈ 442.5). Creep, Lurgee and I Can't at A 440; Thinking About You −7 ¢; Ripcord +32 ¢. Stop Whispering in Drop D, Vegetable in E♭ Standard, I Can't with the high string at B.
• The Bends (1995): E Standard +16 ¢ on the LP (A ≈ 444; about +8 ¢ on CD). Planet Telex +47 ¢, Just +46 ¢, Black Star +48 ¢ (A ≈ 452), the title song +36 ¢, Sulk +5 ¢, Street Spirit −23 ¢ (A ≈ 434). (Nice Dream) in E A D G A E; My Iron Lung in E G D G B E♭ (Jonny).
• OK Computer (1997): E Standard +10 ¢ (A ≈ 442.6). Airbag in E A D G A E, Electioneering in Double Drop D, The Tourist in E A E G B E (Jonny). Exit Music capo 2 at A 440; No Surprises capo 3, −17 ¢ (A ≈ 436).
• Kid A (2000): E Standard at A 440. How to Disappear Completely capo 2, −6 ¢; Optimistic in Drop D, +12 ¢. Everything in Its Right Place −19 ¢, Idioteque −23 ¢, Treefingers −25 ¢ (electronic pieces).
• Amnesiac (2001): E Standard at A 440. I Might Be Wrong in Drop D, +14 ¢.
• Hail to the Thief (2003): E Standard at A 440. 2 + 2 = 5 in Drop D (+7 ¢); There There in D B D G B E; Where I End and You Begin −13 ¢; I Will +11 ¢.
• In Rainbows (2007): E Standard +14 ¢ on the LP (A ≈ 443.6), which plays 0.8 % fast; on CD or a stream about A 440. Bodysnatchers in Drop D; House of Cards in Drop D, capo 3; Jigsaw Falling into Place in D A D F♯ B E; Nude in E A E G B E (Jonny), +35 ¢; Videotape +28 ¢.
• The King of Limbs (2011): E Standard −7 ¢ on the LP (A ≈ 438; about −12 ¢ on CD). Morning Mr Magpie in C G C F C E; Little by Little in DADGAD, −17 ¢; Give Up the Ghost in Drop D, +20 ¢; Separator in E A E G B E, capo 6.
• A Moon Shaped Pool (2016): E Standard at A 440. Desert Island Disk in DADGAD, capo 5; Ful Stop in E G D G B E (−14 ¢); The Numbers in Drop C; Tinker Tailor +26 ¢; True Love Waits −12 ¢.
• Golden rule: most songs are standard tuning; check the song's tuning for one moved string, and its A value on The Bends, before you suspect your ears.