Bass Standard 4-String Tuner — Tune to Standard 4-String in Your Browser

Standard 4-string bass tuning is E A D G, low to high — E1, A1, D2, G2 in scientific pitch notation. Each string is a perfect fourth above the previous one, identical to the lowest four strings of a guitar but sounding one octave lower. The lowest E vibrates at 41.2 Hz, which sits at the bottom of what most home speakers can reproduce cleanly.

The all-fourths layout is what makes the bass feel logical under the hand. Scale and arpeggio shapes repeat from string to string without the major-third break that complicates the guitar. A pattern learned on the E and A strings transfers identically to A and D, and to D and G. This is why bass technique books focus so heavily on box patterns and finger-per-fret runs — they all just slide across strings.

Standard tuning is the assumed default for almost every published bass line, method book, and tab on the web. Rock, funk, jazz, country, reggae, R&B, and pop all use it as the baseline. Famous bass voices — James Jamerson at Motown, Paul McCartney, Flea, Jaco Pastorius, Carol Kaye — all worked primarily in standard. There is no genre where standard 4-string EADG is unusual.

If you are starting on bass, stay in standard for at least the first year. Every tab you open and every teacher you watch will assume it. The first physical habit to build is anchoring the right-hand thumb on the pickup or the lower string while alternating index and middle fingers on the string you are playing. The first useful pattern is the major scale starting on the open E or A string — it teaches the box shape that everything else in bass is built on.