Drop C tuner: C G C F A D, free, with your mic

This is a free online guitar tuner, already set to Drop C. The strings become C G C F A D, which is Drop D with the whole guitar a step lower. Press Start, play one string on its own, let the note settle, then aim for 0 cents. The tuner widens its analysis window on this preset, because the low C is a slower wave than anything in standard tuning. No account, no download. It sits alongside the rest of our free guitar tools.

What Drop C tuning is

Drop C reads C G C F A D, from the thickest string to the thinnest. The name is slightly misleading, because far more than one string moves. Drop C is really two changes at once: the shape of Drop D, where the lowest string is dropped out of the regular spacing by a whole step, applied to a guitar that has already been taken down a whole step.

That matters in one practical way. The intervals between the six strings are identical to Drop D, so nothing you learned there has to be relearned. Every riff, every fingering, every position transfers unchanged and simply sounds two frets lower.

The bottom three strings are C, G and C: a root, the fifth above it and the octave above that. Those are the intervals a power chord is made of, which is why one finger laid flat across those three strings at any fret gives you a chord with no shape to learn. It works exactly as it does in Drop D, and like there it only works on the bottom three strings: the upper three are still spaced as they were in standard tuning.

The other half of the appeal is the attack. With the whole instrument lower, palm muted eighth notes on the sixth string come out thick and still articulate, which is the sound a lot of modern metal and heavy alternative rock is built on. For four reference points, two in each tuning: System of a Down, Chop Suey, and Architects, Doomsday, are in Drop C; Queens of the Stone Age, No One Knows, and Alter Bridge, Blackbird, are in C standard, which is the near neighbor the FAQ below tells apart. Listen to the sixth string in each and you can hear which of the two it is.

Why the low C needs heavier strings

This is the real cost of Drop C, and the reason it is not simply a lower Drop D. In Drop D a single string loses a whole step of tension. In Drop C every string loses tension, and the sixth loses two whole steps of it. A light set that felt right in standard tuning goes slack.

• The pitch stops holding. A slack string bends under its own picking. Dig into a palm muted riff and the note goes sharp on the attack, which no tuner can fix for you.
• The low strings rattle. Less tension means a wider swing, and on a guitar set up with a low action the string meets the frets. That buzz is mechanical, not a tuning problem.
• The neck relaxes. Six strings pulling less hard means less bow in the neck. A small truss rod or action adjustment at the bridge is often the fix, and it belongs after the new strings are on, not before.
• The intonation moves. Different gauge, different tension, different compensation at the saddle. Check the twelfth fret harmonic against the fretted note and set the saddles to match.

For gauges, a set in the 11-54 range is the usual starting point in Drop C, and 11-56 if you attack hard or your guitar has a short scale length. If you are going to C standard instead, where the spacing between strings stays regular, 10-52 or 11-52 is the more common choice.

How to tune to Drop C from standard

Start in standard tuning. Drop C built on a guitar that was already out of tune is just out of tune lower down. Then take each string to its target, and let the tuner read it rather than guessing from the previous string.

The reference pitch menu offers A at 432, 440 and 442 Hz. It opens on 440, which is what those frequencies assume. Change it and every target moves with it, which is what you want if you are playing along with something recorded elsewhere.

1. Go round all six strings once, roughly. Do not try to make the sixth string perfect while the other five are still pulling on the neck: each string you loosen changes the tension on the ones you already did.
2. Go round a second time, properly, aiming for 0 cents. This pass is the one that holds.
3. Stretch the strings gently, a hand under each one, and go round a third time. Strings that have just dropped this far will settle for a few minutes whether you help them or not.
4. Finish by tightening up to each pitch rather than loosening down to it. The string then sits against the nut with the tension pulling the right way, and it stays put.

There is an ear check for each step, and it is worth knowing because it works when you have no tuner at all. In Drop C the intervals between strings are 7, 5, 5, 4 and 5 frets, reading upwards. Fret the seventh fret of the sixth string and it gives you the open fifth string. The fifth fret of the fifth string gives the open fourth, the fifth fret of the fourth gives the open third, the fourth fret of the third gives the open second, and the fifth fret of the second gives the open first. Only the first of those differs from standard tuning, and that is the dropped string.

Drop C sharp and other drop tunings

Drop C sharp, written Drop C# and sometimes Drop Db, is Drop C a half step higher: C# G# C# F# A# D#. It gives you most of the weight of Drop C with noticeably more tension under the fingers, which is why plenty of players end up there after trying both.

There is no Drop C sharp preset in the menu, so here is how to get there with the one this page opens on. Leave Drop C selected. The reading is chromatic: the tuner names the nearest note to whatever you play and shows how far off you are in cents, whichever preset is loaded. So tune each string a half step above its Drop C target and read the name rather than the string label.

1. Keep Drop C selected. That is deliberate: the preset is what loads the wider analysis window, and the lowest string needs it just as much a half step up.
2. Take each string up a half step. You are tightening, which is the direction a string holds best, so this one is easier than going down.
3. Read the note names as they land: C#, G#, C#, F#, A#, D#. The tuner writes sharps, so you will not see Db, Ab or Bb. They are the same pitches under other names.
4. Go round twice, as always. Then check the twelfth fret: a half step of extra tension is small, but it is not nothing.

One shortcut, if you want the half step down feel without a dropped sixth string at all. Eb standard puts the whole guitar a half step below standard, keeps every interval where it was, and has a preset of its own: the half step down tuner opens straight onto it. Drop C sharp is that tuning with the sixth string taken one whole step further down, which is a useful way to think about it when you are switching between the two.

Below Drop C we stop promising things. There is no preset for Drop B or Drop A, and while the chromatic reading will still name what you play, the analysis window was measured on the low C and no lower. A tuning page that claimed otherwise would be guessing on your behalf.

Drop C vs Drop D

Same shape, two different places on the neck. Everything that makes Drop D easy to live with is true of Drop C as well, and everything that makes Drop C demanding comes from the whole guitar moving rather than one string.

Here is the test that settles it. Put a capo on the second fret in Drop C and the open strings sound D A D G B E, which is Drop D exactly. The two tunings are the same instrument at two pitches. So if a riff was written in Drop D and you are sitting in Drop C, a capo at the second fret plays it as written, with no transposing in your head.

Which to choose. Stay in Drop D when you want the low note without changing anything about your guitar: a standard set of strings is fine, and you are back in standard tuning after one turn of a peg. Come to Drop C when the music genuinely needs to sit lower and you are willing to fit heavier strings and check the setup. Going back and forth between the two on one guitar with one set of strings is the thing that satisfies nobody.

For every other preset, including Eb, the open tunings and DADGAD, go to the online guitar tuner. If what you actually want is a looser feel without changing a single chord shape, the half step down tuner is the gentler door.

Who made this

Guitar Social Club is the work of Yohann Abbou, a guitar teacher in Paris. He teaches adults, which shapes everything here: people with jobs, limited practice time and a clear idea of the songs they want to play. The tools come out of his lessons, which is why none of them asks you to sign up before it works, and why this one shows you cents rather than a green light. The rest of our free guitar tools work the same way.

More about Yohann and how these tools are made.