Submission Red Hot Chili Peppers - Power Of Equality

[Jloch86]

It's rare that every single track of an album contains a masterpiece bass line. This is one of them.

There are two narratives that surround playing this particular track:
1. Flea tunes the entire bass a half step down.
2. Flea tunes just the E string down a half step.

1. I contend that Flea does not tune down a half step at all. In the performance of this song at Slane Castle, at 3:43, you can clearly see him fretting the eighth fret for the outro. If the bass was tuned a half step down, he'd have to fret the ninth fret to get the correct pitch.

2. If you listen to his isolated bass track and slow down the tempo, play an open E on your bass at the same time Flea plays his open E, and you'll find both tones match.

Flea doesn't tune down at all.

 

[Whousedtoplay]

Here is RHCP live in Poland. Check Flea around 1:44, 1:55, Slap around 2:10, etc...

 

[AidanHampson]

I completely agree about the standard tuning - you can find my transcription of it in this book:

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Bass transcriptions (PDF)

Aidan

 

[mouthmw]

Here is RHCP live in Poland. Check Flea around 1:44, 1:55, Slap around 2:10, etc...

Check around 0:29. Flea tunes his E string half a step down. He does the same thing on Slane Castle:



(1:34:20)

Also, here:



Probably more live performances where he does that.

I can't figure out for the life of me if the studio version has the E tuned to standard or half a step down. A lot of the song is based on E flat riff (the verses), which sort of would make sense to have an open E octave, but he doesn't really play much of the E, and it's so quick and slightly muted, I can't figure it out.

 

[mouthmw]

It's rare that every single track of an album contains a masterpiece bass line. This is one of them.

There are two narratives that surround playing this particular track:
1. Flea tunes the entire bass a half step down.
2. Flea tunes just the E string down a half step.

1. I contend that Flea does not tune down a half step at all. In the performance of this song at Slane Castle, at 3:43, you can clearly see him fretting the eighth fret for the outro. If the bass was tuned a half step down, he'd have to fret the ninth fret to get the correct pitch.

2. If you listen to his isolated bass track and slow down the tempo, play an open E on your bass at the same time Flea plays his open E, and you'll find both tones match.

Flea doesn't tune down at all.

Yea he definitely does not tune the entire bass half a step down. Most likely, just like Frusciante, he only tunes his E to E flat. Now, I'm absolutely convinced that he does it live (check my post above), and am trying to figure it out if he did it on the studio version as well.



Check out the bass master track. I tried to play the open E string to his open E tones, and it's half a step down, I'm positive. I even tried slowing it down to 50%. Try playing it with the regular tuned E along his track. You get that half a step atonality happening. Tune the E half a step down - all good.