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

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. 🤣

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

I always play along with live versions because of this

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/

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

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.

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

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”

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.

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

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.

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

:) 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.

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.

Unreal! it amazes me when a tune, from way back, that many of us here set out to conquer in our childhood rooms with guitar & amplification (usually on a school night) can still be unlocked, some 30+ years later, by some Dude (Mike) who we’ve never met, has continued to sit alone & for real conquer it. amazing. thanks for making me feel better about things some 30+ years later, Mike. you’re one hell of a disciple.

I always love how clearly explained and relatable your videos are. I definitely listened intently from beginning to end.

Oh man, after so many years trying to jam along with the album version and always sounding off, FINALLY you shed light to the mystery!

I learned this many years ago and I used to tune my guitar up so I could play along with the CD. I never knew why but now I understand why they tuned up for this song.

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

this videos are kinda like the answers of all my questions i used to do to myself when i was learning guitar

whenever i play pantera stuff i listen the tuning of the open e to whatever it is in that song and then tune by ear from that string. always matches perfectly

I never knew that lol, its amazing how everyone notices little things in songs that gives them more appreciation

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

All of your playing sounds the same to me, and it sounds great. But I’m glad you figured this out for yourself.

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.

funny how I decided to learn the song yesterday and today this pops up in my recommendation.

I knew it was sharp but didn't know about the anvil part of the story. Cool!

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.

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.

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.

Dude!! This is why I love your channel!!

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.

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

34 years... that's how long I've wondered why tf it sounded off when I played along with the tape. Thanks for clearing this up! Ruberets ain't got $#!t on you.

When I learned this song, oh so many bells ago, I would tune my guitar up to match. This was always a tough one to know why. And you just answered it. Thanks. On a side not, tabbing it out for band mates and then they go 'but it doesn't sound right when I play along with it.' I told ya, tune up. ugh!

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

I always assumed it was because they felt like the song sounded a bit slow after they recorded it, so they sped the recording up a tiny bit to match the tempo they wanted. The same thing happened with Jump In The Fire. Great vid. I never knew about the tone of the bell.

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

I just started learning this song today and then you make this

I'm fascinated with your eye squinting in this one

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.

Only been playing for 30 years and just worked this out this week!!!!!! Same as master of puppets , I get it all queued up ready and then bang , not in e standard either me thinks , cheers Mike for bringing this up!!!!

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.

There was a reason we used to say when learning songs in the 80's, hell even 90's "It's in E or around that, tune to the first song and you'll be good"..if I recall Pantera had some of this shit as well. ha!

Yup, I had this exact problem when I did my cover of this song. Tuning up solved the issue although it was real tricky to find where my guitar needed to sit for it.

Since they openly mentioned the clean stuff is pitched shifted up on everything to make it brighter and stand out, and i always strobe tuned myself before playing along i realized early on it was out. Im 46 i had cds and tapes i feel u.

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.

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

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.

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

I didn't have a tuner for years so I always tuned by ear to match whatever I was playing with.

Yep. I figured this out playing the bass part.

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.

Great vid. Informative and to the point, from actual experience. This was a joy

That explains it all!! Thanks!!

THANK YOU!!! This was driving me nuts lol I was like is my tuner broken wtf

When i was a teenager, i was always check the big E because of this tunes.

I was wondering about this the other day, thank you.

I always used to play along to the live version do this was never a problem

I noticed this a year ago when teaching this song to a bass student. I kept thinking one of us is out of tune and checking the tuning before I realized the recording is sharp.

hoooly shit dudes, the kirk hammet interview on the gibson icons series is so good. just 80 minutes of kirk with no interruptions.

What a nightmare back then when I didn't know all this stuff, self-learning guitar and trusting that sound was the real E hahahhaa this song was my turner in those early days

mike almost at a million congrats bud

we had a KORG analog tuner back in the day and if the battery was low it would be a little out, but as long as we all used the same tuner, we were all good...

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

The entire ride the lightning and master of puppets is like this I think. I've always gotta look up pitch corrected versions when jamming them haha

Thanks for this video. Have only just started playing metal - played punk for 15 years - and had just learnt this song, but with the live Day on the Green version. Swapped to the album and absolutely thought it was me or my tuning that was wrong... So glad it's not just me 😂

This was indeed fun, interesting and informative

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

In the days of tape recording, “vari-speed” was often employed (especially for radio singles) to make a song sound more exciting when it was sped up, plus it shortened the duration of the song.

Man, I would HAPPILY watch that whole show if it was posted.

Set tuner to 455 hz sound perfect

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 😅

"Every girls crazy about a sharp tuned band" 🎶 🎵

I used to always look up “For Whom the Bell Tolls in E standard” to play along. Every now and then I would actually tune up a bit lol.

I’ve always tuned my guitars to the recording. I would have never realized this was an issue, as I had always assumed my POS guitar was not holding a tune.

I have to give accolades to my brother here. I've played with, way too many guitarists...including my brother, and he always sounded, strangely more "in tune" than other guitarists. I also noticed he was one, if not the only, guitarist who didn't use a tuner. Now, I usually wouldn't notice unless there was a back to back rehearsal, or playing with him and another guitarist at the same time. And usually what he'd do is have the other guitarist not use the tuner, and instead tune to him. He would use a reference note, but after that he'd tune by ear. He mentioned something about imperfect tuning one time, but I really forget his logic. But I do remember him saying 'why do you think piano tuners get paid so much'...

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.

The other thing to note, back in the analog days, most players would tune to a piano on site, then tune to eachother. All of these things led to less than tuner perfect tunings. Several AC/DC tracks from the Bon Scott era have minor tuning issues….

Now I had time to watch this. Still on my front page recommendations :) Great video. Songs not being at A=440 hz concert pitch confused the hell out of me for the longest time. It's just one of those things no on tells you. I think it was trying to learn Thin Lizzy songs that taught me about it.

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!

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.

When I was 15 (40 now 😞) I just tuned my low E string to the sustained E chord in the song paused the tape used harmonic tuning for the rest and bam sounded just like it

Literally went through this a few days ago! I thought my guitar was out of tune

you are a lifesaver thx.

So many old tracks are slightly sharp or flat. It used to drive me nuts trying to solo along to them haha

There's an interview somewhere with Flemming Rasmussen where he confirmed that the track was sped up and that's why the pitch is off. I can't find the original interview. But it's out there somewhere if anyone can find it.

LOL, there's a lot of albums where this happens. You just re-tune your guitar to the track, although indeed these days with modern recording software it's usually easier to tune the track to your guitar! I had this very same issue with For Whom the Bell Tolls a year or so ago, when I made some special embellished versions of the track for a radio show - jamming along with Cliff was rather fun! :) From what I remember, I found the deviation to be at 53 cents sharp with the version I had, which was from CD. In the days of analogue tape recording there could be differences in the speed of the tape machine recording the session and that of what was used for the mix down. Sometimes even if it was *the same machine* - different days could yield slightly different results with analogue stuff. Although 50 off cents out does seem beyond the scope of accidental errors - this gear was made very well. However, the speed error could accumulate throughout the processing chain, such as when the mixes were transferred to the master tape. Sometimes, the mix engineer even deliberately altered the speed of playback to give a more preferred "feel". This happened a lot in RNB, probably not as much in metal, though undoubtedly it did happen. However, your theory about them tuning their instruments to the bell is an interesting one. Although one would think they would have probably dubbed the bell on afterwards, and at that point they could have vari-speeded the multitrack when laying down the bell onto it.