How to tune a guitar down to bass?

A bass guitar is tuned to the same notes as the lowest four strings on a regular guitar, E, A, D, and G.

Just go down one octave for all four strings (won’t sound too good on a regular guitar), or you can just keep the tuning where it is.

Tuning is what @PerryDolia said.You could just take the top 2 strings off an old guitar, but it won’t really help you learn. The strings on a bass are fatter and more widely spaced. Fretting is at the same intervals, but the technique is a lot different, viz., you don’t play too many chords on a bass.

Listen to Patrick O’Hearn or Chris Squire if you want to know what a really great player can do.

it’s not really going to sound very good, (too much vibration) and you won’t get a feel for fret placement or string control, you’re best off just finding a crappy 50–100 Bass, it won’t be the prettiest thing in the world but you’ll actually be able to learn something on it.

If you tune down the strings a whole octave you won’t even be able to play them. If you really want to try this, you could go get bass strings and put them on the guitar, but it would sound crap too (I’m not even 100% sure if the spacing is the same). Just play the first 4 notes and you’ll be fine for now :)

@Jack79 spacing is much different. frets and their quantity also varies, he really wouldn’t be learning anything from it.

Get a bass it’s better for you hands and training , the neck is thicker the fret spaces would then be wider . If you just want to play like a bass take off the b and high e leaves you four strings . I play guitar and bass after playing bass and jumping back to guitar , it feels as tho you can make bigger stretches just cause the necks are different .
Dont buy a 5 string bass buy a 4 or 6 , 5’s are stupid you can copy them with a 6 string or even a 4 string , mainly cause 5 string basses they dont use all 5 strings in a song .

Bass and guitar sound, feel, and play completely differently. If you are looking to muck around with a bassy sound, just go to the nearest guitar store. They’ll let you plug in a bass and play away!

What everybody said about tuning down the strings sounding bad, they’re right. If you just want to play a little bass here and there, and don’t want to actually buy a bass, you can buy a pedal to plug your guitar into (assuming it’s electric or acoustic-electric). The pedal plugs into your amp, and you can set it so that the output is an octave lower. This would be as close to playing bass on your guitar as you can get.

Turn Bass up mids to about 6 and treble off on the amp , turn the tone knob all the way round on the guitar . Will save you money from buying the pedal or bass .

@sandystrachan That’s not changing the octave of the note, though. It’s only changing the sound of the note. Maybe it’s a quick fix, but I don’t think that would emulate the feel of the lower note.

It gives the same sound as a bass , i do it when i cant be ersed plugging in my bass. The best thing to do is buy a bass its really the only way to get a BASS sound !!.

The advice on going to the nearest guitar store and trying out a bass sounds like a good idea, also the octave pedal is a good idea. The string spacing on a bass is also different from a guitar as well as how you play it. You can use a pick (which I think it weird on a bass) or use your first two fingers on your right hand, but there’s a whole finger picking technique that you have to get down in order to sound decent and be able to get around.