Doom Metal Guitar - The Drop Tuning You’ve Never Tried | Pentagram All Your Sins TAB

Gear Used For This Lesson:
'92 Gibson Les Paul Standard
MXR Distortion + (the pedal Victor used in his early days with Pentagram)
Two Notes CAB M+

Drop Bb in Eb Standard Tuning: Bb-Ab-Db-Gb-Bb-Eb
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In this Doom Metal Guitar Fundamentals lesson we're discussing the "Drop B In Standard" tuning used by Victor Griffin in the early 80's era of Pentagram. The video contains a full playthrough for all of the riffs in All Your Sins, which is one of my favorite songs to feature the tuning.

The name "Drop B in Standard" is a bit of a misnomer as Pentagram tunes to Eb Standard, but the idea is simple: with your guitar in some form of standard tuning, you drop the pitch of the 6th string to match the pitch of the 2nd string. In doing so, your standard 6th string rooted, Root-5th power chord shape will produce octave chords.

A guitar that was in E-Standard tuning E-A-D-G-B-E would end up at B-A-D-G-B-E. Since Pentagram tunes to Eb-Standard, their tuning goes from Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-Bb-Eb to Bb-Ab-Db-Gb-Bb-Eb.

When Victor first started using this tuning he was playing 9-46 strings, so the 6th string would be very loose forcing him to adjust his picking technique.

My favorite example of this tuning in use is All Your Sins from Pentagram's Relentless record, their first featuring Griffin on guitar. I always wondered why that song and a few others on that record sounded so uniquely heavy for the era, and this tuning is certainly the main reason why. We had some great reference footage to use putting this TAB together, and I'm really excited about how accurate we were able to get the transcription.

All Your Sins is in the key of Bb Minor.

#droptuning #pentagram #doom
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[jpbguitar]

Mastodon does this but half a step down, so drop A from D standard, it sounds real cool as well

[joshww]

One of the heaviest nastiest tunings / albums ever! Incredible man you nailed it .

[keithmjali]

0:18 That TONE though . . .so filthy, I Love It.

[ferox]

I own Victor's Les Paul from the 2010 Maryland Deathfest performance of this song. He sold it to me fir a great price, I still have it. It's the same colour as the one in this video. Best Les Paul I've ever owned. Victor is an awesome dude and I'm proud to call a friend.

[numberneinlarge]

The Melvins used a similar Drop A tuning on Boris and Koollegged but it’s a full octave between the A strings.

[davelanciani-dimaensionx]

Go a step further - the tuning that Neurosis often uses is A-A-D-G-D-E (the 6th string is an octave below the 5th string, the rest of the guitar in E Standard). So now play a position 2 power chord (root on the 5th string) and you barre over the 6th for the octave bass note of the chord.

[fullmetalguy]

I've been obsessed with Victor Griffin's riffs for years and throughout those years I've made an attempt to learn just about every Pentagram (and some Place of Skulls) riffs. I remember being stumped by All Your Sins because there's a lick on the solo that's played on the E string, and I used to thing the song was just in Eb. When I read that interview that Victor did, it finally made sense - I tuned down to drop-Bb in standard and my mind was blown by how those octave chords sounded. IIRC the only other songs he played in that tuning are Death Row and *I think* Life Blood, which is a rather tricky song to cover, I will admit.

Thanks a bunch for bringing this to people's attention! Victor Griffin is one of my favourite guitarists and his riffs and guitar tone are unparalleled. He deserves much more attention.

Also, I never like "self-promotion", but I've got some cool old Pentagram / Death Row live and rehearsal stuff on my channel if you're interested!

[nofrillsnoskillsguitar]

These videos are amazing. No frills, no bullshit. Just a dude with a guitar telling me to slack my strings till they fall off and drone until I die.

\m/

[BSIII]

Easily the greatest Doom band. Victor's riffs and tone is ridiculous.

[afanofblacksabbath]

Tony Iommi also used this tuning on Can't Get Close Enough from Sabbath's Forbidden album.

[Rockmusic]

Thanks for always having good input and pointers on the riffs of so many heroes. I appreciate your show not only for myself but also because i know so many others do as well. Oh,
and thanks for wearing the Witchpit shirt too. ;)
Best,
Zach

[notoredplague]

I tried this a few years ago according to an interview i readed from Victor about 4-5 years ago. I used an Agile LP, an old BOSS HM-2 and a Marshall Valvestate 8080, it was mindblowing how heavy sounded.

[bungdilly]

I did this in C Standard dropping the top string to G so it would match the second string, nice droney sound

[intothevoid]

I've used this tuning before. I like how the open a is the minor 7. Took me a while to adjust to the scale positions but it's a totally awesome tuning

[sebastiansallean]

This tuning style gets lots of use in the metalcore band Periphery, especially in their last two records it's been employed a lot and it's effect works great for that style too, very versatile!

[alexjonatas]

Soundgarden used this Tuning in Holy water

[analozada]

Pentagram is such an underrated bad ass band! 🖤🔥🤘🔥

[alexanderlumberjack]

Thank you! Been having a blast using this tuning

[garethsigrist]

Awesome video on this tuning. It’s definitely got a sound of its own and always sparks a cool riff whenever I try it.

Victor Griffin and Pentagram are so underrated in the history of rock and metal. Victor’s tone is so thick and syrupy. I first discovered him via the Place of Skulls record he did with Wino.

Mastodon and Zakk Wylde were probably the ones who I associated it with most when I was younger and before I familiarised myself with where the tuning came from. Wino himself uses it here and there and a bit of a left field one is Tom Morello who busts out drop B for a couple of songs.

[the_nondrive_side]

I just use my Bass.. It's a conversion Acoustic but it's tuned up ADGC because it's short.. I run a humbucker across the soundhole and fuzz into one amp. Sometimes I drop G the thing for brutal tones... It also helps matching with a banjo or mandolin being root G tuning.