SinisterMinisterX said:
This makes sense, since TNOTB is in the key of D.
However, does anyone know when he started doing this?
I ask because Adrian plays parts of that song on the Classic Albums "The Number Of The Beast" DVD - and he is clearly playing in standard tuning there, not dropped-D.*
I'm also too lazy right now to look up when that DVD was made, but I'm pretty sure it was post-reunion at least.
As far as I'm aware, that DVD was about the
studio album version of 'The Number Of The Beast'...he started playing it with a downtuned guitar live after the reunion.
As to what 'Drop-D' tuning means, the lowest string on the guitar (the E string) is downtuned by 1 whole tone, to a D. This means that a single finger is needed to play a power chord (the simplest form of chord, used in rock and metal music), as opposed to two or three. This allows the guitarist to change power chords very quickly.
It also means that playing the first two or three strings (D-A-D) open (as in, without pressing the strings down) gives you a lower power chord, a D5 (this one just happens to be rooted in the D below Middle C...I believe). It's this lower D5 that gives the 'dirty' feel to the riffs, which in turn can lead to the production feeling dirtier (if this is accentuated during mixing and mastering).
Similarly, if you listen to any death metal that is downtuned to, say, B or A (Demilich and Eucharist being examples), there is even clearer audible evidence that the guitars are downtuned; certainly, Demilich's songs cannot help but being downtuned, the notes are so low! Other DM acts that tune to, say, D or C, may not be so obvious in their downtuning, except when they move down to the lower tones on the bottom strings.
As to the Blaze-era being a 'different band', I find that to be partially true. The peculiar combination of events surrounding the recording of 'The X Factor' certainly helps with its dark sound, and the more simplistic form of Virtual XI is somewhat unexplainable; the simple drums and somewhat bland production could be a marketing move to attempt to break into the commercial market, or it could be an attempt to produce some 'rockier' music, like Steve would have listened to when he was younger. However, it is still Maiden. Futureal, Man on the Edge and Lord of the Flies are the quintessential Maiden singles, but The X Factor seems to be a threshold in Maiden's songwriting. After the evident success of 'Fear of the Dark', from the previous album, we can see a greater number of epics on the next two albums, and a greater emphasis on the 'epic' side of the songs, as opposed to the more rapid-fire songs from the 'classic' period...yes, songs like Powerslave and Rime (and many others) can easily be defined as epic, too, but the emphasis from the Blaze-era onwards seems to be on music that
marches, rather than
gallops.
Of course, this a
huge generalisation, with quite a few exceptions, but I feel it may explain some of the polemic directed at the Blaze-era...a new direction and a new voice might make it appear that a different band is writing the music.
... 