John Petrucci drop C tuning

[MikeGGuitars]

anyone know exactly how JOhn tunes his guitar in the drop C mode?

[koogie2k]

C-F-Bb-Eb-G-C - I am told this is the tuning he used on "As I Am" and "Honor Thy Father" from the Train of Thought album.....I have not tried this tuning however, so I cannot confirm this as 100%.

[OrangeChannel]

Koogs is correct. It's not really a drop tuning in that you're tuning the whole guitar down 2 steps. Drop tunings usually denote something like Drop D where you're dropping the E string only.

[Tabs]

Yeah, it's not "Drop C", it's what would be termed "C standard" - just take standard EADGBE tuning and drop the whole guitar two full steps.

The songs on Train of Thought that use this tuning by the way are:
As I Am, Honor Thy Father, In the Name of God

This Dying Soul is a 7-string in standard tuning, Endless Sacrifice is D standard (full step down), and Stream of Conciousness is Eb standard (half step down).

Ryan

[koogie2k]

Thanks Tabs for the info on the other tunes......

[francric]

If he uses 9's and 10's how does he keep his strings from becoming spaghetti like when he uses a C tuning?

[OrangeChannel]

he plays 11's on the C tuned and below tuned 6 string guitars....10's on the D's and 9's on the E standard and Eb....the 7's have a 7 set of 9's...

[BoneTrain]

JP uses "not even slinkys" to tune down to the "c" tuning. The strings are really heavy...I have a guitar set up with these ( not a Petrucci guitar ) strings and the string tension is really high...but you get used to it. The gauges are : 12, 16, 24, 32, 44 and 56. If you work with your eq a bit and avoid the "sludge"...it sounds really good.

[OrangeChannel]

Wrong...

I have a reliable source that coughed up those gauges...he did at one point use the Not Evens, but he moved them down a notch to 11's...in fact he moved all of his strings down a notch as 9's are the standard tuned ones...

[BoneTrain]

Well if I'm wrong oh well....maybe he did change the guages...About the time Train of Thought came out he was using them... I'm using the Not Even Slinkys with very good results...and that's ultimately what counts.

[samuel_js]

Wrong...

I have a reliable source that coughed up those gauges...he did at one point use the Not Evens, but he moved them down a notch to 11's...in fact he moved all of his strings down a notch as 9's are the standard tuned ones...

Do you mean 11, 13, 18, 30, 42, 52?