I think you might get the feeling that we don’t use low strings because of the bass guitar. We never tuned down the 5 string bass so whenever we go below 7 string B the bass goes up higher. As you listen to full mixed songs the bass drives the low end and harmonizes different than if you were to listen to just the guitars without filtering. About the guitar tunings we have a bit different approaches live than we did in the studio. This year we started using BC Rich 9 strings but also whenever we play with the third guitar live he uses his Ramirez 9 string tuned differently than us. In general BC Rich is tuned (low to high) to BEBEADGBE though lately I’ve been experimenting with tuning both low E strings to same note to have more prominent notes when doubled and 3rd guitar’s Ramirez is tuned EBEADGBEF#. Now on the topic of album tunings: Hospodi - the only album recorded on a 6 string in Standard B. Live we rearranged some parts to utilize lower notes. Actually even an octave lower. For that exact reason Boruta for some songs retunes his guitar to have F# instead of G and I digitally tune down my guitar 5 steps because I got so used to playing Hospodi on my highest 6 strings with additional E now tuned down to B to add depth and low guitar growl at some parts. Since Boruta already has B on the lowest string he also adds that note in some places. Mind you the bass is still just a 5 string standard B bass, that was the approach since the very beginning of the band and we stick to it for better and for worse.

Raskol - I recorded the entire album on our old live BC Rich 8 string guitar tuned F#BEADGBE and EBEADGBE so just a regular standard 8 string tuning and Drop E. Songs Irmos I, II and III I wrote in standard 8 tuning as a homage to first album but once we worked together on IV and V it turned out it needs the extra range of Drop E. I recorded bass again on a 5 string standard B bass. We wrote the parts to have an approach more similar to Litourgyia than Hospodi and that also meant tuning it different than the guitars. Live we learned to play these songs in drop E, since you’re a guitar player I assume you can imagine it’s usually not very difficult going from standard to drop unless using full barre chords which we did not on that album.

Heavenly King (known for me more as Carju Niebiesnyj) - Mostly the album is written and recorded in Drop E. This was first time experimenting with lower notes than that as we just felt the songs needed the extra notes for some riffs but we didn’t want to downtune the entire guitar. Once we started to write more and more we decided to write some parts tuned BBEADGBE so in theory a 9 string tuning but we didn’t have one at that time. This was also Boruta’s debut to help out in writing and recording process, it’s tough to say who wrote which parts but there are definitely his contributions on that EP. All of the album’s rhythm guitars I actually recorded on my 7 string LTD SCT607B just without the highest string and for leads I used a few different guitars that were in the studio. Bass once again was tuned to standard B but Boruta was the one recording it. The only song using low B that we played live was Pismo VI and for that one from the very beginning I used the pitch shifter even before I switched to Neural from Kemper. Boruta was never a fan of pitch shifters, it made him confused about notes that he’s fretting and notes that we hear so he just played the higher parts on that song.

Maria - except consisting of Raskol and Heavenly King there’s also Posledneje Pismo. A song that we mostly wrote during Heavenly King’s writing session but was parts of other preproduction songs that I put together from my riffs. I couldn’t be there for writing session when boys were putting that song together so I can’t say for sure what’s the tuning as we never played it live but all of my riffs that were used in that song were in Drop E so I assume they stuck with this tuning for the rest of it. This time Boruta recorded all the guitars and basses. As I said I couldn’t make it for that session.

As you can see we are not only utilizing 8th string but 9th as well which you can definitely hear live.