baritone guitars for non-doom usage?

[dubkitty]

i guess that’s the first thing to try, restringing the CVJM so it’s more playable tuned to B or C. that’s cheaper than a Chinese neck and a set of tuners that’ll accommodate big fat low strings. i have a Chinese baritone Strat neck on my eBay watch list that seems a bit more plausible than the multiple ads that all use the same photo. if i really take to the low tunings—and i’ve found it intriguing so far—that’ll be Phase II.

i can foresee the tuner question being really problematic…i’ve seen folks online talk about their troubles with electric guitar tuners that won’t accommodate strings in the .058-.060 range, and that would never work with the Fender/Ping locking tuners on the Kondor.

the sound of the Gretsch in that demo really got under my skin. it’s practically perfect, which is weird considering how everybody hated those odd mini-hums in the Pro Jets. i could be happy with one of those with the Bigsby, i think.

[Zork]

I fitted .068, .070 and even .072 strings in standard tuners in the past. Even the Bass VI uses normal guitar tuners and my low E string is a .100. The tuners on your CV JM are probably the same they put on the VI. I once carefully drilled out a hole in a Gotoh style tuner to widen it a bit, though, but even this sounds more scary than it actually is.

[Gone Fission]

I'm pretty sure Allparts has a Bari conversion neck. Should be cheaper than Fender-branded, almost certainly better quality than random Chinese eBay or Ali necks.

I've done a thing following from a past and maybe still current Joe Gore practice of just putting really big strings on a 25.5" scale guitar tuned to a bit of a higher baritone zone. The easy path is to find a bigger 7-string set, leave off the high E, and move everything over. But this is gonna be more pleasant of a conversion if you don't have to take off the neck to turn the truss rod for a bit of relief. And you'll want a new nut to do this right. And I feel like this would be better with flats, though those sets aren't as readily and cheaply available.

Cocteau Twins drives a lot of my interest in this zone--a lot of Bass VI, sometimes used as bass, sometimes used in a more intermediate manner. So hearing that and also just trying to do rut-busting things.

[dubkitty]

i’m pleased to say that as a Squier my JM’s truss rod adjustment is at the head.

i hadn’t thought about the nut. hmmmm. i just looked and i think going any higher than .049-.050 would require a new nut. now, Fender nuts are dead simple to make, but i’d prefer not to. and i think that to go down to C would require something more like .052-054 to be stable. B would want more like .060. at least that’s my best guess based on experience down-tuning. an acoustic with a .056 barely works in C.

i guess i’ll see what the heaviest plausible set is in the shops and go from there. i think they carry .054 electric sets. don’t know if they’ll have 7-string sets at Arts & Music LOL.

oh, hey, i just remembered that i have to go to Richmond after work where there’s a GC close to my destination, so i’ll get some strings and perhaps a blank nut if they’re not too dear. looking forward to being able to play low without the awful tuning and intonation problems doing that with Regular Slinkies.

[dubkitty]

I'm pretty sure Allparts has a Bari conversion neck. Should be cheaper than Fender-branded, almost certainly better quality than random Chinese eBay or Ali necks.

i’ll look into it. the Fender necks are $400, and i could buy a whole-ass used Gretsch for $500. NOT ECONOMICAL. i haven’t seen any used Fender bari necks at all.

i’m surprised Allparts hasn’t mentioned it given the continuing barrage of promo e-mails i get from them. check out our expensive Jazzmaster hardware from Greece!

couldn’t find anything useful on Temu, and i haven’t fucked with AliExpress yet. i’m reluctant considering some of the awful Chinese guitars i see on the Awesome Cheap Guitars group on Facebook. some are almost convincing, but the faux Gretsches are atrocious.

[dubkitty]

unfinished necks for $218. truly peculiar 27.78” scale.

[dubkitty]

you know what would be the best thing on earth? a Guild Surfliner baritone. it’s got the right sound, the right style, and a JM-esque tremolo.

[dubkitty]

i got the heaviest strings they had at Guitar Center, Ernie Ball Not Even Slinky .012-.056. i couldn’t find any 7-string sets. this might work for C tuning, but i’ll be surprised if they work in B. i’m just going to stick them on there and see what happens. the vintage-style JM bridge will be fine…it’s the nut that concerns me.

[dubkitty]

well, i found that the Not Even Slinkies actually do tune up (to an extent) and are playable in C; B is still right out. the intonation is awful and i doubt that setting everything up would help all that much. the big problem is that with the shorter scale length the strings are still tweaky. they’re very loose and will go out of tune if you look away for a moment. it’s almost impossible to play a four-note chord with all the notes in tune.

it is possible to play some of my ideas for what i’d use a BG for, though. i do little rotatey arpeggio patterns and alternate bass/treble bits in a style influenced by Kate Stables and Rozi Plain.

current plan is to work more with it and most importantly to run it through the pedalboards so i can see how it behaves. if everything seems to be working then i’ll consider the next move. logic would dictate a baritone Strat neck, but another reason i need to work with it more is that i don’t find the JM pickups that great for C tuning. i have no idea what i would like better, and there’s a lack of demos by folks saying they have the answer. if i shelve this it’ll because there’s just too much thinking and analysis for my tired old brain.

[Zork]

What strings do you use on your JM usually? Best approach would be to use the strings you're used to but move them one up in their position. Than put a single string in the low b position. You can use this tension calculator to determine the gauge: https://rodrigocfd.github.io/string-tension-calc/

Like I said before, the Ernie Ball Slinky Baritone works on standard scale, too: https://www.ernieball.com/guitar-string ... -72#P02839

[dubkitty]

Regular Slinkies .010-.046. some of the Not Even strings are just short of “next one up” but the middles are 2 to 4 hundredths too small at 24p/32/44 rather than 26/36/46. i think i’m going to work with what i have because i’m only testing the general concept. and also because it’s surprisingly hard to find single strings here. i’m not driving to Richmond and back for three strings. i guess i could look through my box of loose strings, which has weird gauges from back when i had a pedal steel. (edit: i did and might change the 2d string from .016 to .017 and the 4th from .032 to .034. that would make the set .012/.017/.024p/.034/.044/.056. if only i had a regular Slinky set in the house!)

this could very well turn into a “good idea, but no time tp implement” thing. i’m struggling to find spare time for musical pursuits as it is, and desperately want to wind up the Jetstar project so i can get off the project work tip. but that could just be me feeling tired and depressed today.

[dubkitty]

there’s another potential complication to deal with…now that the de minimus provision which exempted personal purchases from tariffs has been ended in the US anything coming from China is likely to incur a 125% tariff, so the Chinese baritone necks won’t be much better of a deal than the Fenders that go for $350 rather than the $399 MAP. i hate this world, but unfortunately it’s the only one available.

[dubkitty]

changing the 2d and 4th strings to slightly heavier ones made a huge difference. the overall tuning stability is better, and i can play 3-note chords up the neck that stay more or less in tune. what it needs now is a wound .024 on the 3d string…i’ve never liked unwound strings heavier than .018 because the resonance is weird. maybe i’ll get one tomorrow.

the improvement has me feeling a lot better about the concept. i can’t get an idea of what to do on an instrument that will not play in tune. so effects tests are next, along with general concept development.

i wonder if it would be better to play through the bass amp. for that matter, the biamped looping stack could be fierce.

[dubkitty]

it’s very aggravating that most of the available baritone demos of stuff i’d be interested in either:

1. tunes it E-E and plays it like a Bass VI
2. tunes to B and plays speedy C&W licks
3. uses so much gain i literally can’t distinguish notes.

apparently i’ll never know what the Vintage Revo baritone, which is oddly based on the standard version’s wholesale biting of the Höfner Verythin, sounds like because of this.

i have, however, found an option other than the Gretsch that appeals. it’s an Aria Pro Ii that looks like a Asian shredder guitar but sounds good and has a tremolo, though it’s a Strat trem and i’m not sure using a floating trem would work here. the Squiers aren’t bad, but i don’t like Tele pickups for this and their P-90 option is rare. and none of them have tremolo which seems an absolute necessity here. yeah, i could add a tremolo, but it would be nice not to have to immediately go into rebuild mode.

[dubkitty]

i got a wound .024 for the third string and things were immediately better. i think this can serve as a decent test bed now. i really don’t want to mess with the original setup, but the bridge has to come down some.