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Playing baritone guitar through my bass rig...

bovine mind

bovine mind

Jun 17, 2008
928
6
San Francisco
#1
Just scored this Teisco baritone from a friend, here he is holding it:

teisco.jpg


I know very little about guitars, and even less about baritones, but I do know I like that I'll be able to play chords and breach the gap between higher and lower freqeuncy sounds in my 3 piece doom/psych/ambient band in a different way than I normally do with my drop-C tuned Gibson Ripper.

My rig: Ampeg SVT-CL > Ampeg 810E + Sunn 215BH loaded with EV 400w speakers, obviously a loud band. I plan to droptune the Baritone and experiement with different tunings. For most inital purposes it will function in the band as more of a "noise/rhythm" guitar with very minimal, simple chords, while my guitarists' SG is freed up to play more leads and float around.

What do I need to know when it comes to playing a baritone through a bass rig? I assume it will be much louder than my Ripper? It's in bad need of a setup, and I'd like to have it restrung with the heaviest guage strings I can find.

Thanks.
 
#2
Historically, a baritone guitar is generally tuned a fourth or fifth below standard guitar tuning and used to double a bass line. You could also use the string set for the Danelectro 6 string bass guitar, which is an octave below standard. As far as playing it through a bass rig, no big deal, plug it in and see what it sounds like. I tune mine a fifth below standard and play it through a Fender Twin or an Ampeg VT22.
 
#7
On a guitar like that I would go solw on the string tension & truss rod adjustments. Yo could do some damage - and that is way too cool a guitar to do that to.

See if you can find some of David Hidalgo's Baritone lines (Los Lobos). He's a great guitarist with a well developed sense of the weird... It doesn't get let out often, well not beyond the latin Playboy's stuff but enven behind The Wolves he let's the occaisional oddity go.

I personally see bari guitar working best when it's fairly clean, clean enough that you can really hear each note distinctly and when there is a bit of twang in it. You know the 'out a little hair on it' thing. You get that right and you're mayor of Chainsaw city ...

So - through your bass rig, add a box with some eq and dual outputs. ParaDriver maybe ? Use the EQ to think out the tone a little. Then send the EQ'ed side to the bass rig and the dry side to a VT22 or a Twin loaded up with JBL's or EV's - something stout... should be killer and I'm really glad I wouldn't have to mve it :-o

...a powered PA cab would be another option I suppose - again it would have to be something stout...
 
#8
JimmyM said:
wowee zowee!!! i am in love!!! i would even sit through your insane volume levels to hear that one in action.
Click to expand...

heh heh, actually after a many evenings of self reflection and R&D both alone in my rehearsal space and in band context we've all lovered our volume and eq'ed around each other. While still plenty loud, the whole mix sounds much better, not nearly as trebly and ear shredding as it was before. Took a lot of experimentation though. Anyway I agree this guitar is beautiful and I don't want to start the sonic barrage until I get it properly setup.
 
#9
4Mal said:
On a guitar like that I would go solw on the string tension & truss rod adjustments. Yo could do some damage - and that is way too cool a guitar to do that to.

See if you can find some of David Hidalgo's Baritone lines (Los Lobos). He's a great guitarist with a well developed sense of the weird... It doesn't get let out often, well not beyond the latin Playboy's stuff but enven behind The Wolves he let's the occaisional oddity go.

I personally see bari guitar working best when it's fairly clean, clean enough that you can really hear each note distinctly and when there is a bit of twang in it. You know the 'out a little hair on it' thing. You get that right and you're mayor of Chainsaw city ...

So - through your bass rig, add a box with some eq and dual outputs. ParaDriver maybe ? Use the EQ to think out the tone a little. Then send the EQ'ed side to the bass rig and the dry side to a VT22 or a Twin loaded up with JBL's or EV's - something stout... should be killer and I'm really glad I wouldn't have to mve it :-o

...a powered PA cab would be another option I suppose - again it would have to be something stout...
Click to expand...


The type of music we play is light years apart from Los Lobos, but Robert Smith's use in The Cure is a little closer to home. I don't think i'll mind the rolloff of treble playing it thru my bass rig [ given our genre is rooted in doom metal, big on fat, warm lows ] but we also dig a lot of shoegaze, so i'll have to experiment on how to keep the brightness in the mix too.

I plan on getting it properly setup through my local shop.
 

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