This might be the dumbest question ever. If you play guitar, you know how dramatic it is to simply lower the E-string to "D" from "E." Artists have made careers from this sound. That low bass note is seriously cool. Everything from James Taylor's "Country Road" to "Copperhead Road" by Steve Earle.

Just curious if anyone has ever figured out a way to capture any kind of nuance like this on a keyboard. In any way.

If I'm playing styles, my left hand is making chords. Well, I don't play in full-fingered mode, so maybe that's a killer there.

Yeah, probably a dumb question. Guess I'll just pick up my guitar and strum away.

Transpose down a key?
DonM

Well, actually, I do that almost 100% of the time. I like the sound of the lower octave in my right hand. That's a valid comment but I was specifically wondering about the sound of that one basss note. When you're playing dropped D tuning on guitar, you usually strike that low string only occasionally.

It just gives it a unique sound. Subtle but powerful.

We keyboard players play dropped 2 chords but what you want is something different...Right?

I don't know what a dropped 2 chord is.

It's probably a dumb question but here's the point: For guitar players, discovering dropped D tuning is like a "Eureka" moment. To quote Neil Young (I think it was): "It changed my life; I've never been the same." It's just a very cool sound.

So, if there is a way when playing a song, especially with guitar in it, if there is way to capture that unique sound. But I doubt there is. It's a guitar thing. You get the low bass note and some complimentary ringing due to the lower pitch or whatever that term is... other strings ringing in a different way.

Sometimes when I'm doing country, I use the pitch bend in many ways. Usually assigned to a pedal. If I want to drop two tones I set up the drop and assign to the pedal and can make it when I want, only thing is I havn't found anyway to assign to just one piano key, you have to make the note a solo or it drops everything on the right hand, but great for the last note of a song. Usually you can work the right hand in such a way to get everything off the board except the E for just a instant and get the drop.

Maybe Yamaha could put 61 guitar tuners right under each key in the front LOL.....Pose

SemiLiveMusic,
I play guitar too. You're right about the power in that particular tuning. However, I don't know how you'd accomplish this on a keyboard. If yout board had the ability to load samples you could do it that way. Wait strike that, just had an idea. How about splitting the keyboard?? Use the same guitar sounds in the split. Set the left hand part of the split to where you can have that really nice low note. Keep the range small so you can also have more room to solo on the right. Hope that made sense.

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 05-31-2005).]

It wasn't such a dumb question. That's interesting.

Some day, it will be seriously cool to actually produce real guitar sounds on keyboard. They have a long way to go yet, it's amazing already.

Some kind of guitar style that contains the Dropped D note could be cool.

Hey Semi, how about keyboard companies make guitar voices with (alternate tunings) not just in drop D..???? It wouldn't be hard for them. There are a lot of guitarists who play the keys as well. Those voices alone may attract more buyers (possibly guitarists).

Squeak