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Re: GNR issue statement about Robin
With all the money sunk into this album and masses of rented gear etc etc (according to the Zutaut interview), surely they could have afforded a guitar tech to tune the guys bloody guitar before he starts playing?
Plus what was everyone else in the studio doing - were they deaf? Im a total hack on my guitar but even I can tell if it's out of damn tune.
WTF does "tuning issues" mean?
Sounds to me like the CD recording sessions boiled down to one giant clusterfuck.
Like I mentioned in a different thread, this whole saga was likely not nearly as ambitious as we had been led to believe. Instead of some masterpiece being created over a decade, the sessions were spotty, erratic at best, and would certainly explain the cycle of band member departures. Finck's gone now, and apparently there were "tuning issues"?
They should have sorted out those issues back in 1999.
Re: GNR issue statement about Robin
i think you guys are misunderstanding things....i read it as he said that they were tuned to a different key than axl wanted to sing in...
for instance standard tuning the top sting of the guitar is an E note...a half step down is E Flat...that is what all the old GnR songs are tuned to....or maybe Robin had it way down a full step so the top string had become an "F" or there could have been alternate tunings...Open G or Drop D...etc etc...maybe Axl liked the idea of a certain chord structure or riff but wanted it redone in a different tuning...it doestn mean the guitars were "out of tune"
if any of that makes any sense 
but as instrumental songs and vocal melodies were meshed its quite conceivable to rework things
Re: GNR issue statement about Robin
Sounds to me like the CD recording sessions boiled down to one giant clusterfuck.
Like I mentioned in a different thread, this whole saga was likely not nearly as ambitious as we had been led to believe. Instead of some masterpiece being created over a decade, the sessions were spotty, erratic at best, and would certainly explain the cycle of band member departures. Finck's gone now, and apparently there were "tuning issues"?
They should have sorted out those issues back in 1999.
That's very true - due to the rumoured dollars spent and the extraordinary amount of time this has been "in the making", you get a perception that it is some kind of masterpiece, that they're effectively reinventing the wheel in there. There has been no expense spared and the best minds in the business are working on it, a studio setup that would look at home in a NASA control room, a room full of engineers and producers in the studio with white jackets and clipboards etc etc.
But the reality is probably more like a few guys sitting around on milk crates jamming every now and then - with a neighbour from over the fence operating the mixing desk most of the time etc etc.
James, clusterfuck does seem to be the most appropriate adjective to described the whole journey.
Re: GNR issue statement about Robin
i think you guys are misunderstanding things....i read it as he said that they were tuned to a different key than axl wanted to sing in...
for instance standard tuning the top sting of the guitar is an E note...a half step down is E Flat...that is what all the old GnR songs are tuned to....or maybe Robin had it way down a full step so the top string had become an "F" or there could have been alternate tunings...Open G or Drop D...etc etc...maybe Axl liked the idea of a certain chord structure or riff but wanted it redone in a different tuning...it doestn mean the guitars were "out of tune"
if any of that makes any sense
I think you have probably hit the nail on the head. Although surely you would have worked this shit out after only one or two sessions. You wouldn't get to the point where you have recorded all his guitar parts only to then discover it should have been say tuned down half a step or something, because it didnt' sound right with everything else or fit with the key Axl was trying to sing in etc.
Re: GNR issue statement about Robin
well by past articles and interviews i understand that most of the studio work was individual people fucking around on their instruments and recording everything to send to axl to review...from there he would take 30 seconds of one thing and a minute somewhere else...
he could have taken one part of a song in drop D and a second part in standard then meshed them together....of course you cant play 2 separate tunings on the same guitar in the same song (unless you havea double or triple neck ) so they would have had to be brought back in to make it all fit properly, practically and logically for a live setting...
take better for example...it seems to be 3 different songs in one...and that breakdown part is pretty heavy stuff so it was obviously recorded with a metal mentality (to which drop d or full step is common place) the intro and verses could have been done in half step down..so voila (not saying this is what happened but just using examples of what may have transpired
more proof that alternate tunings were played with is Robin's rendition of KOHD...he plays it in a drop D tuning...where as Slash played it half step down
Re: GNR issue statement about Robin
more proof that alternate tunings were played with is Robin's rendition of KOHD...he plays it in a drop D tuning...where as Slash played it half step down
That's interesting - I never noticed that. I knew Slash played all his stuff down a half step, but I never picked up on the dropped D tuning for KOHD from Finck.
Re: GNR issue statement about Robin
Aussie wrote:Neemo wrote:i think you guys are misunderstanding things....i read it as he said that they were tuned to a different key than axl wanted to sing in...
for instance standard tuning the top sting of the guitar is an E note...a half step down is E Flat...that is what all the old GnR songs are tuned to....or maybe Robin had it way down a full step so the top string had become an "F" or there could have been alternate tunings...Open G or Drop D...etc etc...maybe Axl liked the idea of a certain chord structure or riff but wanted it redone in a different tuning...it doestn mean the guitars were "out of tune"
if any of that makes any sense
I think you have probably hit the nail on the head. Although surely you would have worked this shit out after only one or two sessions. You wouldn't get to the point where you have recorded all his guitar parts only to then discover it should have been say tuned down half a step or something, because it didnt' sound right with everything else or fit with the key Axl was trying to sing in etc.
If nothing else, it was definitely worked out by the first live shows some 8 years ago now.
Was it though, Axl had a hell of a time hitting some of the notes at the start of The Blues, maybe tuning issues meant they had to be done in a different key to get to where Axl could hit it consistently.
Re: GNR issue statement about Robin
maybe his vocal chords changed and he had to rework how things were composed
Thats what happens when you start recording an album in your 30's and try and finish it when you're approaching fifty.
This album may turn out great, but I bet its going to be a mess.
