Baritone guitar?

[Dr. Mega]

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic...

I saw an artist last night who made me remember something I've been
meaning to try out: a baritone guitar. Preliminary research showed these
instruments to be waaaay out of my price range.... so here's my
question.

Can you just string a regular acoustic or electric guitar with four low
guitar strings and two high bass guitar strings, tune 'em up and rip? Or
would the tension screw up a regular guitar? Would it matter any if it
were a string-through bridge?

Thanks in advance...

-DM

[ACSLAMBERT]

>Can you just string a regular acoustic or electric guitar with four low
>guitar strings and two high bass guitar strings, tune 'em up and rip? Or

>would the tension screw up a regular guitar? Would it matter any if it.......

No. A barione would be tuned down to an A on the sixth string--with all other
strings tuned doen a fourth. You need a longer scale length or you would never
be able to intonate it. Save up for the Danelectro--I think one could be had
for under three hundred.
Keep rockin,'
Mark L.

[simply...@my-deja.com]

Stop stop - you are all wrong.

You *CAN* indeed convert a guitar to a baritone pretty easily, I don't
have the guages in mind at the moment, but it is roughly equivalent to
HEAVY strings, not a combination of bass and guitar strings, and the
scale length is relatively meaningless, if you have a longer scale
guitar it will work better but it's roughly about the same difference as
between a LP and Strat string length. Aside from the heavier guage
you'll need to widen the nut slots and adjust the intonation and
possibly neck relief, as the baritone tuning (which can be either based
on A or B, by the way) has LESS tension than normal strings/tuning.

Guitar Player had an article a few years back on doing just that, so no
you don't have to spend 2k on a bari - I did it to a strat copy and it
worked out wonderful.

Steve

In article <20000317073602...@ng-bj1.aol.com>,

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

[Dr. Mega]

Thank you, all! It's been said before but this newsgroup is sooooooooo
friggin' helpful. It saves me a lot of time and searching around, which for
a lazy guy like me is a great thing!

I will definitely check out those other newsgroups posted, as it seems to be
a more on-topic question there. Also, thanks for those who said that it
could be done with a regular guitar and that it couldn't. I still don't know
if I'll risk trying it, but the advice is very helpful.

On a final note, I did pick up a Dano bass guitar a couple weeks ago when I
was shopping for an electric bass, and yeah, it did feel cheap and light.
But it sounded okay, to me anyway. Nonetheless, I ended up going with an old
Peavey that looks like it came straight outta the 70's and weighs around 50
pounds. Call me old school, but I am a fan of heavy instruments....

The musician I had in mind when I was posting originally was Ani DiFranco,
and the more I think about it I think hers is a real live baritone made for
that purpose. I remember reading some article a while back about her rig.
What I am looking for is an acoustic instrument, so I think I may just end
up using heavy strings and dropping them down a few steps. Unless there are
sets of strings specially designed to do this kind of thing?

Thanks again all!

-DM

[ACSLAMBERT]

>Stop stop - you are all wrong.

?

[Simply Steve]

"Dr. Mega" wrote:

> The musician I had in mind when I was posting originally was Ani DiFranco,
> and the more I think about it I think hers is a real live baritone made for
> that purpose. I remember reading some article a while back about her rig.
> What I am looking for is an acoustic instrument, so I think I may just end
> up using heavy strings and dropping them down a few steps. Unless there are
> sets of strings specially designed to do this kind of thing?
>
> Thanks again all!
>
> -DM

Ani does a lot of slacked tuning and beats the crap outa the strings till they
buzz against the fretboard. If it were anyone else it would sound like shit but
she seems to pull it off.

Joni Mitchell has also explored dozens of dropped and open tunings. She has a
web site that lists a lot of them.

Steve

Steve

[Dr. Mega]

Yeah, she does a lot of whacked -out tunings and makes them work. One of the cool
things about her music, IMHO.

Thanks again for all the help. I also posted this up at the guitar-builder
newsgroups and got mixed responses on whether this could be done. Anyhow, I may
give it a try on my old acoustic, just for kicks. The main thing I was worried
about was whether I would wreck my bridge.

Oh, and thanks for the Joni Mitchell tip. I'll do a search for that site.

-DM