Dropped A tuning

Drop A tuning.

Dropped A tuning is an alternate tuning for a 7 string guitar where the lowest string is tuned down ("dropped") from the standard B by one whole step to A as follows A1-E2-A2-D3-G3-B3-E4. Also, for a 6 string guitar, dropped A tuning is achieved by tuning all strings down a 4th with the lowest string tuned 1 additional step down as follows A1-E2-A2-D3-F#3-B3. This is a "drop 1" tuning in the key of B (i.e. tune the whole guitar down a perfect fourth from standard tuning, then tune the 6th string a whole step down). As a result, it uses the same fingering as drop D tuning and drop C tuning.

An alternate dropped A tuning utilizes a guitar tuned to E Standard with the 6th string dropped to a low A, resulting in AADGBE with the 6th and 5th strings an octave apart.

Another variation of this tuning is AEADGB, which imitates a 7 on a six-string, excluding the high E.

Another dropped A tuning is AGCFAD ("drop perfect fourth in the key of the D", i.e. whole guitar is tuned down one step, then the lowest string is dropped to A).

AEADGBE / AEADF#B

• 208 Talks of Angels (on the song "Spiral Of Silence")
• Amaranthe (on some songs)
• Amon Amarth (on some songs)
• A.N.I.M.A.L. - from "Poder Latino" to "Combativo" albums.
• Bloodbath
• Blotted Science
• Carnifex
• Chelsea Grin
• Chunk! No, Captain Chunk
• Coheed and Cambria (on the song "Gravity's Union")
• Conquering Dystopia
• Crowbar
• C.J. Pierce of Drowning Pool (on the song "Turn So Cold")
• Delain
• Desolated
• Distoriam
• DragonForce (on the song "Three Hammers")
• Emmure
• Fei Comodo
• Filter (in the songs "Columind" and "The Missing" from The Amalgamut)
• Zoltan Bathory and Jason Hook of Five Finger Death Punch (on the songs "Remember Everything" and "Dot Your Eyes")
• Lzzy Hale of Halestorm (on the song "I Am The Fire")
• Peter Tagtgren of Hypocrisy
• Ill Niño (on its Dead New World album)
• Impending Doom
• In Extremo ("Nymphenzeit", "Sagrada Trobar" (AEADGB), "In diesem Licht", "Unsichtbar")
• In This Moment
• Ty Tabor of King's X (on the albums Please Come Home... Mr. Bulbous and Ogre Tones)
• Lacuna Coil
• Gaped (Band)
• Buzz Osborne of The Melvins
• Motionless in White
• Muse (on the songs "Citizen Erased", "Liquid State" and "Supremacy".)
• My Victory In Sight
• Like Moths To Flames
• Nile
• Oceano
• Pain
• Pallbearer
• Periphery (on their cover of Slipknot's "The Heretic Anthem")
• Pickaxe to the Forehead
• RED
• Slipknot
• Suicide Silence
• Sunn O)))
• The Southern Oracle
• Thy Art Is Murder
• Volumes
• Whitechapel
• Winterfylleth (on some songs)
• Within Temptation (on some songs)

AADGBE

• Every Time I Die on "Moor" from From Parts Unknown and "Indian Giver" on Ex Lives
• Filter (on "Welcome to the Fold")
• Foo Fighters (on "Stacked Actors")
• Helmet (on "Biscuits for Smut")
• Weasel Walter of Lake of Dracula
• Melvins (on "Boris")
• Neurosis (the album Through Silver in Blood and on)
• Oxygen Thief (on "Self-Righting Mechanism" from album The Half-Life of Facts and EP One Day This Will All Be Fields)
• Radiohead (on "Bangers + Mash")
• Them Crooked Vultures (on "No One Loves Me & Neither Do I", "Warsaw or the First Breath You Take After You Give Up" and "Caligulove")
• Dez and Jo of The Safety Fire
• Torche
• Muse (on "Citizen Erased")
• Opeth (on "Sorceress")

AEADGB

• Coal Chamber (on some songs)
• Mike Mushok of Staind (usually tuned 1/2 down, but uses standard drop A on songs such as "King of All Excuses")

AGCFAD

• Apey And The Pea
• Alter Bridge (half a step higher)
• Architects (half a step lower)
• Black Label Society
• Doomsday
• Enabler
• Krokodil
• Kylesa (Also used 1 full step lower)
• Mastodon
• Nothing More
• Periphery
• Sevendust (1/2 and 1 full step lower)

References

How to tune drop a