How to tune a bass guitar

Four-string bass is E A D G, an octave below the bottom four strings of a guitar. Exact pitches for four and five string, plus why bass is the instrument where a bad tuner does real damage.

July 29, 2026

A four-string bass is tuned E A D G, the same letters as the bottom four strings of a guitar but a full octave lower.

Four-string

Five-string

The added string is a low B below the E. A handful of players run the fifth string high instead, tuning it to C above the G, but B is overwhelmingly the standard and it is what TuneHaven’s preset uses.

Why bass is where tuners fail

Look at that B0: 30.87 Hz. That is below the bottom of most people’s ability to hear pitch clearly, and it is well below what a phone speaker can reproduce at all. Even the E1 at 41.20 Hz is in territory where things get difficult.

The problem is not just that the note is low. It is that on a low string, the fundamental frequency is often quieter than its own harmonics. Pluck a low B and the loudest thing coming off the instrument may well be the second harmonic at 61.74 Hz, an octave up. A pitch detector that simply finds the strongest frequency in what it hears will report that octave, decide you are flat by twelve semitones, and tell you to tighten.

Follow that advice on a bass string and you are pulling toward a break, on an instrument where the strings are expensive and the tension is high enough to matter.

This is the single reason TuneHaven exists in the shape it does. Its detector evaluates octave candidates rather than trusting the loudest peak, and when it genuinely cannot tell which octave it is hearing, it says so instead of picking one. The octave error guide explains the mechanism properly.

Practical notes

Give the note time. A low B needs a good fraction of a second before the pitch is even well-defined. Pluck it firmly, let it ring, and read the tuner after the initial attack has passed rather than during it.

Play over the neck pickup. Plucking nearer the neck emphasises the fundamental and gives the detector more of what it needs. Plucking near the bridge does the opposite.

Do not tune to the harmonic. The old trick of tuning using the fifth and seventh fret harmonics works on guitar but drifts on bass, because those harmonics are not in the same temperament as the fretted notes. On a long scale length that error is audible.

Double bass

The upright is tuned to the same four pitches as a four-string bass guitar: E1, A1, D2, G2. Everything above about low strings applies with more force, since an upright is quieter and its attack is slower still. Bowing rather than plucking gives a tuner a far steadier signal to work with.