Baritones

[Haole Jim]

Warning! Resurrected thread.

The Fender VI, while actually an octave guitar rather than a baritone, can be played as one, up the neck.

The Dano 30" scale 6-string baritone/bass can have the bridge and nut jived with and wear Bass VI strings, for about 20% of the Fender VI's price tag...and the Fender is currently out of production, bi=oth USA and Japan.

Personal preference for baritone sounds are jazz-pop pieces found in tenor sax books. In this opinion the 30" bass is ideally suited for them, either 4 or six-stringed, and a gob of fun to play.

'Dunno about chords with a bartitone, though. Somebody else can address that.

A modern Mo-clone with a guitar and 6-string 30" octave neck could be a bunch of fun.

[Strat-o-rama]

Dave Gonzalez plays his style of rockabilly/blues/roots music using a Fender Custom Shop designed baritone Jazzmaster, and he plays chords with it. They sound like what you would expect...big and deep. The Bari-Jazzmaster shares time on stage with a Telecaster for regular tunings.
Also, the Fender Bass VI is still available, but is a special order with the Custom Shop. It's big bucks, so the Danos seem to be the best bet. For Dano style with a better build quality, check out Jerry Jones guitars out of Nashville.

[Strat-o-rama]

Here you go:

http://www.jerryjonesguitars.com/JJO_Sh ... ritone.htm

I've heard nothing but good things about these and they are well made and don't have the "problems" the Dano reissues have.

[juan_10]

here's a link to the Eastwood sidejack baritone ...
http://www.eastwoodguitars.com/Other/si ... LX_frm.htm

The only ones that are both baritone scale and mosrite look-alikes. They do both a stop bridge and the jazzmaster style trem.
Think of the exta four frets you get to play jv.

[Haole Jim]

'Appreciate the new info on baritones, as well as that the Fender VI is still avaialble.

The 28" scale is nowhere near as intersting to this picker as the 30" 6-string octave tuning.

But a query, please: What is the tuning of a 28" scale?

[juan_10]

HiJim ..
Wade Hampton here , http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/foru ... 65602.html

says '

10-07-2009, 06:57 PM
The whole issue of baritone guitars and what is the "real" baritone tuning is open for discussion, a lot of baritone players/builders don't consider only tuning down a whole step to be the intended application for baritone guitars.

Well, it's really just a different thing entirely. Tuning down a whole step on a standard guitar is one thing, baritone guitars are another.

As for there being such a thing as a "real baritone tuning," I've been monitoring and participating in online guitar forum discussions for more than a decade now, and I can't ever recall ANY discussion where anyone made claims that any baritone tunings were somehow less authentic than any others.

Is there a "standard" baritone tuning? Hmmmm.....probably the closest would be the B to B tuning that I use that maintains the same intervals as standard six string tuning. But all sorts of people use all sorts of tunings on their baritones, and always have.

At this point, anyway, every acoustic baritone guitar player out there who actually uses the instrument is a self-starter, and as a result the playing of these marvelous instruments is all over the map, stylistically and every other way.

I'm not trying to dog you on any of this, Teleplucker, it's just that I see the whole field as being totally wide open.

Yes, the question often arises whether standard scale acoustic guitars can somehow be converted to baritones. And, frankly, most of us with hands-on experience with the real thing (either as players or builders) tend to express our doubts that that can be successfully achieved.

Yes, you can put heavier strings on, tune really low and sort of muddle through, just as you can put REALLY heavy strings on a standard guitar and tune it like a bass.

That doesn't mean that either attempt will work all that well.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller '

So it seems the B to B using the same intervals as 'normal' tuning would be the answer for the 28 '' neck, but you'll see a couple of others mentioned in the thread ... . jv

[jtr654]

Theres a DeArmond Jet Star Baritone on ebay and it has a 30" scale.

[JimPage]

All this talk of baritones inspired me to get my 2003 Danelectro Standard baritone from my son, who had "borrowed" it a couple of years ago to use in his metal band. When I took it out of its case yesterday, it was in serious need of a good cleaning and going over, and it had three strings left on it. Looked to me like Aaron had been trying to string it as a six-string bass.

The cleaning went well and once I got it back in acceptable condition, I looked around on the Net for info on strings and tuning.

My old pal Wade Hampton Miller is right about the tunings being undefined for these guitars. Wade is the fellow who inspired me to get this thing in the first place.

The baritone's original strings, I believe, were D'Addario 13/62s and I couldn't find any here. I had some medium Gibson L5 strings, 12/56 gauge, and they were long enough to handle the 30" scale. So I slapped those on and began seeing what I could tune them to.

After a nasty high-E string break, which caused a trip to the medicine cabinet, I finally ended up with an E-to-E standard guitar tuning. Didn't have time to really experiment much, but it sounded okay and playing nut chords was very pleasant.

I plan to order some of the D'Addario baritone strings tomorrow and see what I discover in some different tunings.

--Jim

[Strat-o-rama]

I've heard B to B and A to A are the most popular.
I dig baritones! Here is a bit of I-IV-V rockabilly jammin' on a bari-Telecaster. My ear is telling me he is tuned B to B, but I'm at the office and don't have a guitar handy to check.
Showing off some serious chops on a baritone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY4XJCRh ... re=related

[Veenture]

...interesting sounds! Here are two more...(the acoustic one with 'capo tuning')...
.