System of a Down · Toxicity · song 6
Chop Suey! tuning.
Chop Suey! (System of a Down, 2001) is in Drop C at concert pitch (A 440), measured by TuneLit from the record.
Song tuning
Drop C
At concert pitch (A 440).
Tune like thisPlay alongToxicity
Bass: Bass Drop C Tune bass
Measured by TuneLit
At concert pitch
The album's value, measured on the CD.
System of a Down · Toxicity · 2001
About Chop Suey!
Chop Suey!, the lead single from Toxicity (2001), starts with a strummed acoustic part and then slams into fast, palm-muted riffing. Everything is in Drop C, C G C F A D: the main tab gives three acoustic guitars, credited to a Gibson J-200, the same tuning as the electric parts, so you never retune inside the song. Oddly, the heavy riffs hardly use the open low C at all; they move along String 6 between frets 6 and 12, with fret 7, a G, the most common note, while the lead part plays double stops on the two top strings.
TuneLit measured Toxicity at concert pitch, but Chop Suey! reads about 10 ¢ flat. That is not far enough from the album for its own setting, so the Tune button sets Drop C at A 440 and the check from the audio confirms the C.
Those 10 cents are noticeable on the long acoustic chords: lower Fine-tune a little if they beat. The other trap is the tab itself. Some of the most viewed versions on Songsterr are rewritten in E Standard or Drop D; they put the song in a different key from the record, however carefully you tune.
Tip: After tapping Tune, play along with the acoustic intro and lower Fine-tune by up to 10 ¢ until its chords stop beating.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to Drop C, the notes Chop Suey! was recorded in.
- From E Standard: String 6 down 4 half steps (E → C), String 5 down a whole step (A → G), String 4 down a whole step (D → C), String 3 down a whole step (G → F), String 2 down a whole step (B → A), String 1 down a whole step (E → D).
- Turn String 6 to String 1 until each shows ✓ in tune. Chop Suey! sits at concert pitch on the record, so the tuner stays at A 440.
- Then play Chop Suey! 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 Chop Suey! instead. Add your own copy, for example from your CD (it never leaves your device); the link already says the song is in Drop C. Choose Drop D at A 440 and Chop Suey! moves up 2 half steps and 4 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 Chop Suey! in?
Drop C: C G C F A D, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.