Why It Always Sounds WEIRD When We Play Along w/FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS!

-Why It Always Sounds OFF When We Play Along w/FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS!
I just always thought it was me. ;) Thanks for watching!
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[@TheArtofGuitar]

Lots of comments saying “You’re only realizing this now?” Remember that when I was playing along to Metallica songs back in the day it was on cassette. Warbly-ass cassettes on boom boxes. We did know what tuning anything really was and just went along with it. 🤣

[@mallninja9805]

I'm more appalled by the fact that you took the sample out live without rehearsing with it at least once 🤣

[@shugzkeckley1006]

Lol the good ol days Records and Cassettes

[@nohrtillman8734]

Take this as a compliment, but you’re to young for cassettes.😊

[@citizeny3795]

@@mallninja9805 You are appalled that one of the best musicians on youtube made a mistake? You?

[@armelind]

I am 50. I was playing this song when I was 16. I am completely self taught by ear. And my ear knew that the song was off when I was 16. Not gonna beat you down for it, but all I had was 3rd gen recorded cassettes and VERY cheap boom boxes to practice with. When I wanted to jam cover songs, my first step was to find their E. I tuned my guitar to it and played on. Its how I knew Slayer was also a half or full-step down. I dont remember at the moment which tho.

[@rvixs6945]

Majority of the Ride The Lightning album is actually a little bit sharp, there's a pitch shifted version of the entire album to practice to in perfect standard tuning. If you just search up Ride The Lightning Pitch Shifted you'll find it, that's what I've been using when practicing that album.

[@metalblade25]

Yep, whole album sounds so much warmer and James' vocals more like puppets.

[@djay6651]

I noticed that with ''Creeping Death''. It's pitched sharp enough that playing along with it is a bit annoying.

[@ExpTube1969]

The Pitch is 432 Hz....?

[@metalblade25]

@@ExpTube1969 There's a pitch shifted version of the album here on the tube that's Standard E 440 hz. It makes the whole thing sound more organic.

[@jbjohnson4728]

Look it up where?

[@liamg9334]

Here's a fun fact as well. Ride the lightning is slightly sharp but Megadeth's Peace Sells is the opposite being slightly flat, in between standard and Eb. You'll find a similar pitch problem from playing along with that album.

[@slayer91340]

Both 1st 2 megadeth albums..

[@evanhooper1]

This is also true for Killing is my Business and So Far, So Good...So What! It wasn't until Rust in Peace that they went to proper E standard

[@MaestroKatProductions]

Pantera tunes halfway flat too, E Standard is actually in between E and Eb

[@GillRigged]

Some musicians prefer 432-435Hz. In fact, I prefer 435Hz (not that I consider myself a musician)

[@unoriginal_name7091]

Isn't most of Megadeth's old stuff between E and Eb, at least until Dave's voice aged too much and they went to D?

[@noenduringcity]

Almost every song on the album is slightly sharp by ~29 cents. They wouldn't have sped up the whole album just to match the pitch of an anvil hit. It would be much easier to lower the pitch of the anvil hit which has already been lowered anyway. I think they probably just sped the album up to give it that little bit more energy and make the transients a little tighter. Definitely sounds better to play along with the album in tune!

[@silverjaw138]

That’s exactly what they did. Speeding up or slowing down the whole album was pretty common back then.

[@mattjns]

I heard rumours of a slightly out of tune piano in the studio. 😂 We’ll never know.

[@Cthulhu_Awaken]

Wasn't the mastering process responsible for the increase in pitch?

[@barrythebee7363]

20 cents roughly, 445 Hz

[@eliasmsv3156]

@@Cthulhu_Awaken i heard that it was because if power issues in the studio

[@cpeduardo21]

You can look up the guitar hero track. That's the one i use and sounds right. They corrected several songs. It's also common knowledge guitar hero pretty much corrected death magnetic issue with the volume.

[@Exspazament]

And that's why most fan remixes from those stems sound different and dare I say, better. :-3

[@Kylora2112]

Neversoft got the master tracks BEFORE they got brickwalled in final mastering.

[@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo]

​@@Exspazament only Ahdy khairat sounds better....... everyone else's are fucken trash.............

[@mihneazoican2479]

Yeah, bc they use the stems, so everything’s before the mastering process. You can master it yourself if you feel like it lol

[@fcshadow5793]

K.

[@TheNamesJER]

I’m so glad you made this video. This is one of the earliest songs I learned as a kid and since then I’ve never thought the E chord was the correct chord. It always sounded slightly off but I could never figure out why and just assumed it was a more complex chord than just E. I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one.

[@jakefriesenjake]

Lol. You must tune your guitar to every song. Some are out. I knew this when I was 14. I'm like 42 now. Lol

[@modestmex]

@@jakefriesenjake lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol.

[@MrHumpah12]

The same thing for “Dance The Night Away” by Van Halen. Eddie has a half step out of tune B string. He didn’t use tuners, but instead went by what sound he liked and wanted. I always got frustrated that I never could match this song until recently and I’ve played for 18 years lol

[@tman1133]

It’s like that for most of their songs :p

[@IncendiaDivinus]

Hey Josh , please elaborate...couldn't understand your statement 🤔? 'B string out of tune? Are you referring to most of Van Halen early work being tuned to E flat ? or is the B string tune some how out of harmonic balance? Also , if it is..what other Van Halen songs that you might know of have this peculiarity . Thank you !!!

[@mattgilbert7347]

Andy Timmons talks about this. He says something like "your guitar tuner lies to you..tune your guitar using the tuner, then tune your guitar to your ear while playing until it sounds right..somewhere in between is the truth" Paraphrased, but you get the idea.

[@andym2612]

There's a downloadable version were someone has recorrected the tuning, ie, A=440Hz. But the entire album is tuned to A=444HZ

[@MashaT22]

Yeah that makes sense -- but why would only certain notes sound out of whack them? Isn't he only complaining about the E sounding weird, or am I misunderstanding that? Anyway, I might have to try using 444 when I play along next time. 😊🤘🏻🎸 Which tuning do they use live, btw?

[@andym2612]

@@MashaT22 In live situations they use a standard tuning every time I heard them, whether it be A=440Hz (standard guitar tuning) or A#=440Hz (Eb guitar tuning)

[@bradr9903]

@@MashaT22 Good info man. Had I read this prior, I wouldnt have left my comment. \m/

[@fcshadow5793]

Wow.

[@pablosrf3881]

​@@MashaT22 Its not that they tuned to 444hz, they changed in the tape machine during mastering. The recording was done in 440hz, using the same instruments that were made to play in 440hz. If they played in 444hz they would need specific instruments otherwise the metric of the scales would be wrong. They recorded and mixed in 440hz and during mastering the tape speed put it sharper. Thats why since the beginning of the 80s they always played live in 440hz and the albums sounded out of tune. You can find some specific strikes, chords, that sound out of tune with the album, but the was the way they were striking the strings (too strong) while playing. One example is Dyers Eve that James play a specific note in the main riff thats only an open string, but people keep hearing a 0-1-0-1-0-1 riff. The illusion comes because of how strong the string was vibrating, but the album as a whole would sound in tune with itself, just not in tune with 440hz A.

[@BruGaleen]

I know that Accept's "Balls To The Wall" is tuned higher as well, and it always used to give me headaches until I figured that out, LOL. Thankfully, I found a version here on YT that's detuned back down to E. Love your videos. \m/

[@sjab5987]

Metallica would never be out of tune, everyone else in the universe must be flat.

[@NBTKDA]

I always play along with live versions because of this

[@NBTKDA]

Also aren’t fade and creep higher by like a quarter tone too?

[@wedontgiveasht]

@@NBTKDA I always sound out of tune while playing along to the studio version of fade. I know that the guitar hero versions of RtL are tuned normally and when I made some backing tracks for Bellz I bumped the tuning so it would sound like the album

[@andym2612]

@@NBTKDA The whole album "Ride" is tuned A=444Hz

[@Tom-oz7wk]

I always play to the live versions too because they're faster and usually in d# tuning which means I can also play along to stuff off load/reload without getting a different guitar

[@mattjns]

@@Tom-oz7wk Eb not D. 👍🏼

[@CapRullman]

YESS!!! I remember my friends convincing me I was crazy for doing this but I knew I could not have been the only one to hear it. Thanks Mike

[@wintyrqueen]

The whole album was mastered slightly fast in order to make it sound more aggressive, & tighter. File under: “things the engineer told us decades ago”

[@martinkuliza]

The whole thing was also mastered with Puppets while riding the lightning :P

[@e_knees8816]

That was puppets.

[@baronrogers806]

They used to speed up tapes for a tighter sound usually the sharper the song the lighter it feels

[@ultragkart6789]

Whoaaa that crazy! Love learning about “strange” things like this is songs. Great vid as usual! 🤘

[@springbloom5940]

I blows my mind that all these youngsters have these problems. Ive used a tuner like a dozen times in my life. You *always* tune to your environment. Hit the #6 string(its not always the E and that's the point) and tune it until it sounds right with whomever you're playing with, in the space your playing. Then relative tune from there. What sounds good in one space, may and often does sound really bad in a different space with different acoustics. As well, even if everyone is technically in tune, different scale lengths, resonance and equipment can make instruments sound out of tune with each other. I cant recall a time I ever researched to find out what tuning a band uses, I just tune by ear until it sounds good. This, BTW was a necessity in the days of cassettes, because every player was a little different, tape gets stretched and batteries get progressively weaker from the moment you hit play; the irony being all the times you rewind to do a section, stretches the tape and kills the batteries more and more, leading to the illusion that your guitar doesnt hold tune.

[@nohrtillman8734]

In the 80’s no one researched “what the band tuned to.” That wasn’t a thing. The band tuned to each other (far more important) and possibly the piano (most difficult to adjust tuning, so it was the standard) Recording equipment back then almost always had a speed strobe, and a pitch control. Some recording studio hacks played games. Others calibrated their speed each session. Still others would drag their finger on the tape reel to “fix” a passage that raced along and didn’t sound right. Todays sterile digital recording environment takes all that fun away.

[@mattgilbert7347]

I'd like to quote both of these comments in FB threads on this subject. You've clearly expressed something I've always thought to be the case.

[@punkinmyvitamins1]

I can’t tell you how many songs I’ve learned that I had to tune slightly down or up to match the recording. Elliott Smiths Kiwi Mad Dog 20/20 is one of them.

[@dcf601]

seems im not the only one who always found it odd while playing along to

[@janneranta7373]

Drove me crazy as a kid. Tuning my guitar everytime I played along to the album, since the whole thing is off. Then going on to MOP songs and being out of tune again...

[@magenticka]

Flemming Rasmussen: "we actually tracked the recordings with the tape slowed down, and the instruments tuned down, so that WHEN WE SPED THE TAPE BACK UP, everything sounded tighter and faster". This is why all the tunings are off, so no, Hetfield isn't actually down picking that fast on any of their albums, and the sharp tuning on the records has NOTHING to do with tuning their instruments up to match a sample.

[@TheChenny73]

He’s not? Hmmm…he actually playes the songs faster live and downpicks them 😂

[@snottydoggmlgdank]

oh yeah, classic varispeed shenanigans, this was a thing that was way too common when analog recording was the standard, it happens on the entirety of ride the lightning, some songs from kill em all (way more subtly) and a more modern example in metal that i can think of is slipknot's self titled, in rtl and slipknot's debut, they did it because both the mixing engineers and the producers thought it made the music sound more "energetic" and "tighter", hell i think there even was a janet jackson record that suffered from being sped up, thats how common it was, it makes the recordings sound more unique though, thats for sure, because honestly its kind of a weird feeling to listen to the guitar hero stems for ride the lightning or the rough mixes for slipknot's self titled because i'm so used to hearing the studio versions of these songs tuned sharp from 440 and hearing them at regular pitch just feels odd, i much prefer playing these songs on guitar in standard pitch though lol

[@ianhebert91]

I like your reasoning, could be, I would bet they just sped the whole thing up a bit. Speeding up tape machines for mixing and masters and even to make recording fast parts more easily (for the musician) was not uncommon back in the day. I've heard the latter was very common for Metallica, just hearsay though. Honestly both could've happened simultaneously and only Lars would be the one not willing to tell us.

[@queuedjar4578]

The Bell Tolls for those who are out of tune. We finally found out for Whom after 40 years.

[@juanalfaro3526]

Bro could u pls do a review for simply guitar , I just been using the app for a few days but I don’t know if it’s that that useful so I would like to get the opinion of a pro

[@jasonrhames6182]

I was just commenting on the tabs for that song being wrong. Back in the 80s and 90s it never sounded good when I would try to play along with it. Now I know why.

[@calebbean1384]

I already guessed this before I clicked ha I have a copy pitch shifted to a standard version to play along with

[@raysachs2397]

noone had good tuners back then they tuned to another instrument.or tuning fork or something...and they were always drunk

[@That80sGuitarist]

Another great video, man. Keep up the great work!

[@donakahorse]

:) They definitely use some unique tunings throughout their career. They tuned to the bell most definitely. We knew back in the day because we used tuning forks to tune, and you could easily differentiate between true and changed pitches.

[@revolution6661]

Yeah most definitely, who th has time to find another bell that perfectly resonates to an E😅

[@irishRocker1]

They dont use those tunings. they are in normal tuning and the tape is sped up or slowed down. When you hear a song that is a quarter step down like megadeth killing is my business for example, the tape was slowed down. Nobody is tuning to those tunings. The whole album is tuned the same so they didn't tune a whole album to match one bell. the bell has been pitch shifted too

[@Roberto-nn6kb]

That didnt even the bell actually, but anvil

[@sam8404]

@@irishRocker1 why would they change the speed instead of just using a different tuning? Wouldn't they have to use a different tuning live anyways to match the recording? Not trying to argue, just curious.

[@TL-angzarr]

​@@sam8404 why does live have to match the recording? it's much easier to adjust the speed of the tape than retuning and rerecording parts. You can easily sit in the booth and adjust the tape speed and listen to it and compare it to the original.

[@christopheranderson2158]

I figured that out in 1988! Kids today don’t know the struggle. When I started playing guitar and playing along to my favorite songs, I discovered there were TONS of pitch differences because of how music was recorded with analog tape. When I got my first 4-track, I was really able to zero in on pitch issues. I just matched up my guitar tuning to the guitar on the record because it was the easiest way to match up the tuning.

[@itookallthenames]

Tascam army

[@doctorsatansrobot]

Absolutely. The premise of this video is so strange to me. 'Out of tune bell sounds out of tune'. I can't imagine a world where every song is dead on pitch.

[@Tricklarock]

Not to mention that cassette tape stretches, leaving them in a hot/cold car, etc. You're absolutely right, these computer kids have it easy! Making/editing mix tapes, or hell, editing vcr vids - it was work! But we learned and now understand more because of it!?

[@jeffchabotte]

I feel so old, yelling at the screen that we all knew it was tuned up way back 35+ years ago

[@nathanms6890]

"Kids today" -👴

[@eddominates]

I just got used to tuning my guitar to the music I was playing. shit was all over the place in the 90's

[@rome8180]

I agree with your second theory. They tuned to the bell. But this is far from the only song that's not in concert tuning. "Strawberry Fields Forever" is in A half sharp because it's a splice of two different takes played in different keys and tempos. Several Oasis songs are about 10 cents sharp due to them speeding up the tape after recording.

[@Exspazament]

A lot of Metallica songs (or really any analog recorded song for that matter) sounds slightly off when you play along. I sware tape play back always makes things sound different.

[@UncleGhoulieTv313]

Huh, So that's why "I" sounded right when playing along. Early on, pre tuner ownership, I would use songs with a solid open E to tune. So, whenever I went to play along I would tune to that long E, which, apparently, is .50 cent over E. Pretty sure the guitar books said E standard.

[@elduit5923]

When i play Ride the lighting along with the recordings i tune at A 444 instead of A 440. It sounds pretty good that way.

[@ryanslauderdale]

Yeah. I heard somewhere that they experimented with different tuning frequencies. The MOP album is apparently at 435hz, which is interesting, because to my ears, it sounds slightly flat.

[@DarthV506]

Wait, you just noticed this now? Back in the 80s, it used to drive me crazy trying to learn songs from different bands/albums with a floating floyd rose. Maybe I just have very good relative pitch (def dont have perfect pitch). One of the reasons I always have a pitch shifter block in all of my QC presets, quick dial in for whatever I'm playing along with or learning.

[@chuckbowie5833]

This is very common in records from back in the day. I don't think it's only this track. Other albums I can think of are Megadeth's Peace Sells, Dokken's Back for the Attack, Celtic Frost's Dethroned Emperor, and even Falco's Einzelhaft. The original vinyl edition of the last mentioned is notably sped up relative to later CD editions. I assume this is an occasional glitch of the manufacturing process.

[@icecreamget]

lol peace cells

[@vulvarinevulva4524]

@@icecreamget piece cells but whose by-ing

[@williamgabrielski8740]

Might be sped up a bit to fit in on the album. Very limited recording time on vinyl, and if you try reducing the width of the grooves, it degrades the sound quality.

[@leviathan_is_me]

Hella yea MUH-FUH@IN FALCO AND SH!T!...LOL

[@chuckbowie5833]

@@icecreamget Haha ty mate. Fixed.

[@jacobfurst4266]

Don’t remember where when or why I heard this but I’ve known for a little while that it is sharp, and swear I heard the story was they recorded most of it and had some sort of power surge in a storm which messed the tape up a little… not sure that’s how that works but it would be funny if ride the lightning rode the lightning

[@zostron4279]

Same. It was a recent article too if i believe. (At least the one that I read). It said something along the lines of the studio having shitty electrical wiring that messed with the tapes. It was like this on kill em all and RTL if im not mistaken.

[@slayer91340]

444hz first 2 albums, also on Justice, except To Live is To Die. Learned this in Jr high learning everything by ear.

[@JimBoom92]

nice frank sticker bro. underrated movie...

[@DanzoSrife]

Imho, I used to hate it, but then I thought well maybe the up tuning gives RTL album its flair? Literally few people do it and sounds old school where pitches werent' always perfect. I also have a Whammy DT pedal and I use the software version in bias fx to play along to the song.

[@kmbs4913]

I'm supriced that You don't know that the whole album is a bit out of tune. It's different theories why but most logic one is that it was during mixing it did happen

[@TheArtofGuitar]

I’m just talking about the most out of tune song. Compares to Bells the rest are pretty passable without retuning. Maybe Creeping Death is the second most. :)

[@47279J]

I think at least For whom the bell tolls, possibly the entire album is a little sharp. Which can be really confusing, because these are the first songs you'd learn as a kid. And you'd wonder why my guitar sounds like crap along to Ride the Lightning but Black Album works just fine.

[@erskinepatton3247]

I used to play along with all of Metallica's cassettes in the 80s and definitely noticed this when the end of "'Ride the Lightning" gave way to the beginning of "For Whom the Bell Tolls". I always wondered why it sounded sharp compared to the rest of the album. Now I know thanks to you. Ancient mystery solved.

[@liamdstein]

I don't know if this is correct, but I have heard that they actually played it slower and then sped it up in order to get just the more tight sound for RtL, similar to what you said about MoP. Maybe that is the culprit! I was very confused why I sounded so bad playing it too lol

[@magenticka]

Exactly mate. Fleming Rasmussen said it in his own words, they played/recorded slower and then sped up the final tracks, so is it any wonder the pitches are off. Everyone goes on about how tight Metallica’s old records are, and how accurate James down picking is, that’s because they kinda cheated lol Funny to see so many people in the comments confused about why the tuning is out when Fleming has spoken about this a few times. Even Mike is wrong, they didn’t tune up to the bell tone, they recorded everything slower and slightly detuned, then the tracks got speeded up. That’s it, the oldest trick in the book

[@springbloom5940]

Puppets isnt sped up, just a couple iterations of 'the Riff' at the beginning and the middle, where Hetfield is isolated. You can tell where they do it, because the tone and gain structure is different. It wasnt due to a limitation in their playing, but in the recording technology; which made it sound mushy.

[@NickYngveSamios]

@@magenticka "Everyone goes on about how tight Metallica’s old records are, and how accurate James down picking is, that’s because they kinda cheated lol" Even by cheating, is impressive how James could play tight each guitar, left and right. He still had to record every rhythm guitar from scratch. They didn't do copy-paste back then. Get what I'm saying? So even with cheating with the pitches, he already had the "right hand of doom"

[@guiltyhxc]

@@NickYngveSamios and also doing it live whilst singing

[@williammcguane6951]

Set tuner to 455 hz sound perfect

[@TalicZealot]

First time I encountered this was playing alongside Mayhem 10 years ago. The entirety of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is tuned to 430hz making everything darker.

[@heatnationwpb]

Funny, when I was a kid in the 80's I got my first guitar - a Peavy Mystic. I didn't have a tuner of any sort, so I always tuned my guitar to the E in Eye of the Beholder, or any Metallica song really. They were my tuner when I was 15 lol

[@stefanloof1643]

Mike, it’s just amazing the time and effort you put into this and shared it us. Highly admirable! 👍

[@guy4036]

Always funny thinking “man this metallica stuff sounds really good I wonder why it’s almost as if every single line/song/riff has a funny/intricate backstory behind it, a solid thought process. Good video as always man

[@AlphaStormMusic]

This will get buried, but there seems to be a lot of misinformation about what the cause of this is. I don’t know where this narrative of the band tuning up the instruments came from, that seems… weirdly counter productive to me, especially since I don’t think the pitch of the anvil in the song was even it’s natural pitch. Furthermore, with Creeping Death being in a similar boat for weird tuning mishaps, why is that tuned up almost a quarter step if it doesn’t have the anvil in it? Equally, Kill ‘Em All and Master are all slightly tuned up too, just not enough to be immediately noticeable. The REAL reason (and most common theory backed up by other 80s recordings) that Bell Tolls is a quarter step sharp is because the track itself is actually sped up too! A common practice was to have a band play a song slightly slower and flat compared to what the final product would be, because when it was sped back up, the result would be a tighter feeling performance. Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears is slightly between D and Eb Major for the same reason (I believe). And since this was done on an analog tape machine, you don’t get the same artifacts that you get out of digital DAWs today. It was a smooth speed up. You wouldn’t notice the track was sped up since it was super subtle. I’m kind of amazed that there’s another narrative in what the culprit of the song’s tuning is when I honestly thought that the real reason was super well documented. Most music from the 80s that you’ll listen to will be slightly sharp and actually will be slightly faster than what was recorded raw. This didn’t mean the musicians were talentless or wrote music they couldn’t play, but rather that a simple shortcut was used for the benefit of the music. Metallica were no exception to this.

[@Dmitry9000YT]

According to Andriy Vasylenko, Flemming Rasmussen (Metallica's mixer) sped up a lot of the tracks on RTL to make it sound more thrash, making it slightly higher pitched. A quick way to fix this (that I do) is by palm muting further into the string to make the palm mutes slightly higher pitched and also fretted/bent the notes a bit further Didn't finish the video yet, so he might've brought this up, but here you go anyway.

[@ReZhorw]

Yeah I've seen that video too! But how are u gonna get that E5 sharper though? Just seems way easier to try to match the tuning

[@Dmitry9000YT]

@@ReZhorw I usually do it on Ride The Lightning, I don't really play For Whom The Bell Tolls tbh. Seriously though, when you dig in those palm mutes, it really gets you that sound I love.

[@DenverStarkey]

metallica always tunes sharp in studio so they don't beat their strings flat durring recording the song. knew this years ago. i also grew up playing along to casettes and even on casette unless you play the casette so many times the tape is worn out on it , it'll still always be sharp on the recording.

[@somarriba333]

I never noticed. I haven't played the song in decades though. This is an odd one. What about the Transformers metal theme by Lion? Is that one sped up too or are they really playing in F?

[@thegodless2904]

Never mind the Bell, the part that's always bugged me with FWTBT is Kirks riff from 1:17. I SWEAR it is NOT in time throughout and I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it. For years this has annoyed me!

[@Atlas65]

Kirks riff. Are you referring to the lead in the intro.. Which is played by Cliff Burton on Bass?

[@Neo-Midgar]

Ride the Lightning is sharp in sound, Puppets is a bit flat, though not as flat as 80s Exodus or Megadeth's first 2.

[@ArcadeMusicTribute]

Interesting stuff : D When you started this video I was 90% that either the tape was sped up which is what the usuallly did or the tuning just wasnt standard 440.

[@benmannion4381]

It's slightly tuned up

[@TheNickJonathan]

I KNEW IT!!! for years I kept telling my friends this song was out of tune and no one believed me

[@robertgraham1573]

Dude 😂 You won’t believe it but I was at my guitar shop Wednesday and was talking to the guy there, and I was telling him the exact same thing. That is so weird. Thanks very much for this. Love your content.

[@FrancoCatrin]

May be it's just a coincidence but the live version from Cliff 'Em All is out of tune between the instruments

[@mech14Nine]

Well at least somebody made a video about this. Our band figured this out in 98 tho:)

[@bjones8470]

It’s funny because I play with a younger guitarist that’s phenomenal but he learned a lot of what he knows from tab and other sources and he’s sometimes amazed that when I pick out something that’s not working and go to the record and listen I can fix it. That’s because I learned to play completely by ear by listening to records. It’s a needed skill.

[@M2TrD]

i've never had this problem i actually like having my tunning more sharp and I'm guessing that's why to me it sounds like kirks guitar is almost always too sharp

[@IncendiaDivinus]

For what it's worth..🤔 Hey guitar community...'Paranoid'= slightly sharp from standard 🙄!! 'Iron man' = Not just bend the low 'E' but rather .. low 'E' bend at the same time fret 'E' at 4th string 2d fret 🤫!!..Kiss 'I was made for loving you' = slightly flat from standard 440hz...sort of AC/DC and Pantera tunings ..🤗🤗🤗🤗!! Then again 🤔🤔??...Please don't listen to me....I'm tone deaf 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄!!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣!!!!!

[@guitarist4life00]

When I was learning this song and others, I always just tuned to the album it self. I was so frustrated of being out of tune while playing along. So I said screw it and tuned to the song itself. I've done this for many years now.

[@sgflyingv]

I used to use amazing slow downer app to put the pitch back to 440 standard

[@ricksandleeches]

It's tuned to A444, which was the standard European tuning for a long time. I blame Flemming Rasmussen XD. The whole album is like that. A444 usually sounds a little brighter, and a lot of pop acts use it, too. (For example, Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" is too, and sounds way better and sadder at A440.) Every once in a while I'll find something that's not quite right, and that's why. Tom Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance", Radiohead's "Street Spirit (Fade Out)", etc.

[@adamberes1246]

Same goes for Pantera's I'm broken... Something always feels off about it, it's c# standard but it sounds a bit sharper... I don't know what they were doing... didn't they realize that something was off?

[@mutantkoffee]

Nice insight, for real its very richful to see those pitches, the same happens to One and other songs in the og AJFA, Orion in MoP ,its better to get the frequencies right, and exploring between those frequencies like I said it can be very richful and nice to grow as a musician, tuning are sometimes underestimated, PS. the same happens to the og album Pantera´s Cowboys From Hell and the first album with Anselmo: Power metal, I think Dimebag used lik 432hz or 437hz or something, if you try to play along in E standard 440hz within those albums, it will sound out of tune. Other examples are Accept´s Balls to the Wall, and Midnight Rover I think, another example if Im not wrong its Van Halen´s Ain´t tallking bout love which isnt really in Eb standard, its like Eb standard 428hz or somth, I dont know right, and theres a lot of songs of that era, Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies, Tool which used drop D but in 435hz etc... maybe something with the custom guitars, or production things

[@SMAAAASHTV]

Flemming Rasmussen said he thought it was from an anvil, but also said he couldn't remember 100% and said they may have taken it from a sound effects vinyl album. It is 100% a sound effect of a tubular bell, as there's no way you can make an anvil sound like that. Perhaps they layered an anvil hit with it, but a majority of the sound is a tubular bell.

[@haydenkinley5266]

Oh yeah, I thought this was about the funky pitch on that album. I've ran into this problem with a bunch of older recordings and also with Pantera and Machine Head before I knew better. I've learnt to recognize this better over the years.

[@ICEIOKYI]

easy its in a slightty off tuning

[@Fister_of_Muppets]

I had some skeptical person the other day question me about Lars hitting the anvil with a hammer... I thought it was relatively common knowledge amongst fans of the music but maybe not. What interests me more is what that anvil strike sounded like in real time, because it surely was manipulated a lot to sound like a bell on in the mastering and mixing.

[@jackrose6996]

Or you can just drop to Eb minus a bit and play the song with the bell dissonant, because it's supposed to be disturbing on a certain level. After all, it's not exactly a celebratory thing. Granted, I'm the weird guy who thinks tuning to "E" at 413hz sounds cool. You probably shouldn't take my advice. I've never made a dollhair (much less a dollar) from my love of music, which is why I respect dudes like you.

[@Scotty_Russell_Music]

This is usually an old school studio engineers trick to get a record finished. The record is getting mixed and everyone is getting tired of hearing the same songs over and over. Suddenly the playback seems to have more life in it, it sounds a little tighter, the harmonics seem to pop more. What just happened? The engineer/producer sped the tape up by less than a semitone. Before anyone had even noticed it's slightly sharp you've all agreed whatever was just done made the record sound killer and "don't change anything!". Et voila record finished , band happy and the expensive session finished on time.

[@sergeymirzakhanyan4705]

It all because we all are digitalized dehumanized musicians, trying to understand, what happens. Don't try to understand the music, just feel it. Throw the tuner away, forget about E note, 50 cents and other rappers. We can feel, music theory fools you. And Metallica knows it. Just believe me.

[@joeyd3324]

Lots of 70s albums, AC/DC especially, are off a little,,, I always figured tuners were not as readily available, but you'd figure a studio would have a strobe tuner...

[@Beholders_eye]

Standard 440Hz Vs 444 Hz. Yea, they sped it up because of the bell. But the frequencys is a topic that you should have better look. Try tune your acustic guitar to 432 Hz and tell that doesn't sound better or listen to remastered first Megadeth albums. Nirvana Something In The Way is out of tune but sound great etc.

[@djentleman5129]

I also recognized the different tuning when playing FHTBT in Rocksmith, so I tuned my guitar off. I have good ears so I qickly came to that solution 😅

[@dieerstenummer1]

Because the Pitch was higher on the album. Instead of 440hz it was like 445 or 450. Thats Why the album Sounds so different from all the other albums

[@Owen_plays_music1049]

I have the same problem with some early AC/DC songs (T.N.T. & Highway To Hell etc...) Anyone knows the reason ?

[@warlock____]

dude, you've GOTTA either stream the next show or upload a song from it. You have no idea how much we would love to see Sanctus KICK SOME ASS!

[@sydhamelin1265]

I think things like this can float under the radar for years, or even decades, because 99.99% of covers won't go the extra mile of bringing in the sample. So the band is in tune with itself. Bringing in the sample (great touch) creates that tuning conundrum. Also, for every "you're only realizing this now" moment, there are a million other realized moments that take its place. I just think this channel gives out a ton of useful info, so to peg it as being behind on an epiphany is just...well...wrong.

[@peppermark1]

Ok so i watched this vid some days ago and it was awesome, didn't know that at all and it's hella interesting that metallica tunes their instruments weirdly in some albuns. Some days later i come across a brazilian talking about the same "problem" but didn't referenced this vid, wich i find suspiciously weird. Even the title is pretty much the same when translated to portuguese. He took a more technical approach to this problem but i can't help finding thi super weird. Here's the vid: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oKvZXmdvasSjn9E

[@velosouk]

No freaking rocket science, Fleming Rasmussen did speed up the tape before mastering (his own words), A=444Hz... \m/

[@nohrtillman8734]

No anvil has ever ever sounded like that. Pitch is too low and cast iron doesn’t “ring” with sustain. Maybe it was pulled from a 1950’s Roadrunner/Coyote cartoon, but not real life.

[@jakefriesenjake]

Dude, everybody knows that every song from Metallica is tuned differently. You always retune your guitar to every song. They mess with it. Every body knows this. Tune to the song

[@davidkulmaczewski4911]

It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Want To Rock 'N' Roll) by AC/DC is sharp by quite a bit, probably so the band is in tune with the bagpipes.

[@Glenn-tj3fk]

Search the youtubez for "For Whom the Bells Toll; retuned A-440 tuning" and play along without a hassle ! (ye he wrote 'bells toll' :) )

[@bradr9903]

Good vid man. I never tried to tune to Lightning, but I know if I want to play along with Puppets, I have to set my tuner to 435hz, then Im right with it. Kinda makes me wonder if Lightning is above 440....Now Im gonna have to dig into this haha. \m/ Update: 445hz on my tuner puts me in.......weird. Almost every band I was in, back in the day played that song, and I never once noticed it haha. We also didnt have anything to recreate the bell tho either. They must have been playing around with frequencies on the early albums.

[@killermustache5043]

they sound fine, the music industry makes everything bad im refering to 440hz vs metallicas 445hz which is closer to 444hz, this is meant to b informative before you comment countering this go inquire about water molecule experements particulary the one where there exposed to sound frequencys and then immediatly frozen into a snowflake and captured in a picture at the milecular level

[@ChrisHopkinsBass]

I think Flemming Rasmussen said that they tuned to the pitch of the bell

[@sheevthewireless110]

It does not sound weird because we are not idiots and we play along A440 corrected versions.

[@intehelt8606]

This really demonstrates why I recommend tuning to a reference note rather than using a tuner. Tuning to a reference note forces you to think about what you hear. I actually got a bit disappointed in this video, because I expected some real mystery. Not something a half descent amateur musician would identify in a split second. And why would you assume that all recordings have been tuned to A=440? There's no reason to assume such a thing. However, this does point out a common problem, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, you miss a very good opportunity to teach people here. You almost make it sound like Metallica has fooled us or have done something wrong. The real problem is musicians who have not trained their ears properly. Could it be that they sped up the tape? Yes. But it could also be the case that it was just an accident. Maybe they tuned the guitars after the bass which just happened to be a quarter tone sharp. No matter the reason, your ears should be able to tell you not only that your instrument is out of tune relative to the record, but also in which direction and approximately by how much. It's no stranger than being able to identify intervals with your ears. I would not consider myself a good musician. I am very far from professional. But if my guitar or bass was a quarter note out of tune to whatever I'm playing to, I would have tuned it to an ok (not perfect, but ok) state in a minute, and I would not stop playing while tuning either. Of course I would have to sacrifice a bit, but I would get by with using tapping chord notes with my left and tune with my right. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be elitist here. This is not magic that only a few lucky ones with perfect pitch (which I most certainly do not have) can learn. Almost anyone can learn this, and the only thing you need to do is to throw your tuner in the garbage. If your ears cannot tell you what's wrong, then you need to practice, and tuning by ear gives you that practice. Not being able to tune by ear is like a chef who cannot tell if a stew needs more salt or not.

[@arkaitzcarrasco2216]

I don't know if you realice that back in the analog days it was almost impossible to get in perfect sync all the recording and reproduction machines used during all the process. You start recording in one studio with one brand and model, then mixed in other studio with other multitrack made by other brand or model, but even you use the same brand and model there were differences between machines, not to mention that like in this case, the recording was made in Europe 220v and the Mixes I think in the USA 120v........ Then you mixed down to an other tape 2Track recorder with it own speed, then send it to the mastering studio with another 2track repro machine, mastered and cut it to vinyl or recorded to another tape to for the cassette copies (remember ich machine with his own attitude). Later it got better with the implementation of SMPTE time code, but you have to waist two tracks out of, lets say, 24 tracks if you were lucky to have. And not too many people was capable to do it. So in the end, it was a miracle if your boombox sounded perfect pitch.

[@jayyoutube8790]

Bro this same anomaly exist in a lot of their songs. Tune your guitar to play fade to black, then try and play along with “one” and “nothing else matters”… it’s very frustrating

[@anthonysilva5934]

Lmao. I've never had this problem because I've always tuned my guitar to the recording. Your guitar tuner is worthless here. 😂

[@MetalMike87]

IIRC I had the same problem with Dokken's "Alone Again" which was tuned to 436Hz

[@davidfuller581]

Yeah, the track is sped up a bit. I don't remember by how much, but it's enough to bring that E up to _about_ an F. It's not just For Whom The Bell Tolls, Creeping Death is tuned way sharp too.

[@tomt.5799]

That's amazing discovery and explanation, as always. But why didn't Metallica just tune down the bell, like you?