Slayer · Seasons in the Abyss · song 5
Dead Skin Mask tuning.
Dead Skin Mask (Slayer, 1990) is in E♭ Standard, about 5 cents sharp (A ≈ 441), measured by TuneLit from the record.
Song tuning
E♭ Standard +5 ¢
About 5 cents sharp (A ≈ 441).
Measured by TuneLit
5 ¢ sharp
The album's value, measured on the CD: Tune moves every string +5 ¢.
Slayer · Seasons in the Abyss · 1990
About Dead Skin Mask
Dead Skin Mask, from Seasons in the Abyss (1990), is one of the album's slow, creeping songs, built on heavy riffs that take their time. It is in E♭ Standard (E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B♭ E♭), half a step down like everything on the record.
Here the challenge is restraint rather than speed. The riffs move at a slow, steady crawl, with heavy downstrokes and eerie, dissonant intervals, so every note is exposed. Work on letting each chord sustain for its full length and then cutting it off cleanly with your palm or fretting hand, since a string that keeps ringing into the next figure muddies the mood. Once the main riff feels steady at the record's tempo, play along with the whole song without stopping.
TuneLit measured the album about 5 ¢ sharp (A ≈ 441.2) on the CD, and Tune uses that value. Dead Skin Mask reads about 1 ¢ flat, the lowest song on the album and effectively concert pitch. The gap is small enough that the album setting works, and a plain E♭ at A 440 works just as well.
Because the song is slow, with long held notes, small tuning errors are easier to hear here than in the fast songs. If you hear beating against the record, check String 6 first, then the rest. TuneLit's check from the audio agrees on E♭, and tabs labelled "D♯" are the same tuning: Kerry King uses that name for E♭.
Tip: Tune to E♭ Standard; plain A 440 sits right on this song, and the slow riffs make any leftover beating easy to hear.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to E♭ Standard, every string +5 ¢, the notes Dead Skin Mask was recorded in.
- From E Standard: Every string down a half step. No tuner that knows E♭ Standard? Clamp a capo across fret 1, tune to E Standard as usual, then take it off: every string drops to E♭ 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. Dead Skin Mask sits 5 cents sharp on the record: at A 440 your guitar would sound that much flat against it, which Tune already corrects.
- Then play Dead Skin Mask 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 Dead Skin Mask instead. Add your own copy, for example from your CD (it never leaves your device); the link already says the song is in E♭ Standard +5 ¢. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Dead Skin Mask moves up 95 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 Dead Skin Mask in?
E♭ Standard +5 ¢: E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B♭ E♭, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.