Baritone bass

[deaver]

Pootled down my local venue (Winchester Gate, Salisbury) last night to see a three piece [url="http://www.karn8.com"]Karn8[/url] who are fronted by the considerable charms of young Kirst. I was slighly startled by the bass/guitar arrangement which was described to me as a baritone bass. To his credit the bass/guitar player took some time to explain the set up after the gig, The guitar was strung with a couple of bass strings and four guitar strings. The effects board contained an octaver, the signal for this was sent to a bass amp the rest of the signal going to a guitar amp. This allowed him to function as both bass and guitar - which all leads to a very tight performance.

Anybody else had a bash at this sort of thing.

[fretmeister]

IIRC Jonas Helborg had Status build him one - 30 scale.

I have tried a EBMM Baritone guitar was tuned in 5ths from low E to give it a bigger range. Bit of a head melter, but I'd love to have had the cash to buy it and give it a proper go.

[EssentialTension]

[quote name='deaver' post='817182' date='Apr 24 2010, 01:55 PM']... The guitar was strung with a couple of bass strings and four guitar strings ...[/quote]
Do you mean two strings (presumably E & A) tuned as a bass guitar and four strings (presumably D-G-B-E) tuned as a guitar (i.e. an octave up)? Or was it just a normal Bass VI set up like a guitar but all an octave down?

[The Burpster]

I have a Baritone guitar tuned down to A.

But just use the heaviest gauge D'addario Baritone strings to get the tunings.

[velvetkevorkian]

No, but if I ever buy another guitar it will be an 8 string, with 30"-27" fanned frets tuned F#BEADGBE or EAEADGBE (in the latter, the bottom E and A would be like the E an A on a normal bass).

[donut]

[quote name='velvetkevorkian' post='817933' date='Apr 25 2010, 11:12 AM']No, but if I ever buy another guitar it will be an 8 string, with 30"-27" fanned frets tuned F#BEADGBE or EAEADGBE (in the latter, the bottom E and A would be like the E an A on a normal bass).[/quote]

Wouldn't fanned frets would be a nightmare on guitar if you want to play chords?

[rOB]

I think I saw one of these last night at Sumo in Leicester last night. Unfortunately didn't catch the name of the band or get to speak to the bassist/guitarist after the gig (was a bit worse for wear).

Some songs he seemed to be playing bass lines on the bottom 2 strings and in other songs he played guitar solos on the top 4.

[deaver]

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='817459' date='Apr 24 2010, 07:29 PM']Do you mean two strings (presumably E & A) tuned as a bass guitar and four strings (presumably D-G-B-E) tuned as a guitar (i.e. an octave up)? Or was it just a normal Bass VI set up like a guitar but all an octave down?[/quote]

I think it was along the lines of the of DGBEAD with everything dropped down a tone (the bottom D,G being off a normal bass set up). He did say that the first time he tried it the neck of the guitar warped. He also tried to explain how he'd overcome the intonation problems caused by putting bass strings on a guitar (an Epiphone Les Pul copy, I think) but the singers thighs came into view again and I started to lose concentration.

[fretmeister]

[quote name='donut' post='818023' date='Apr 25 2010, 01:05 PM']Wouldn't fanned frets would be a nightmare on guitar if you want to play chords?[/quote]


nah - it works well. The scale differences aren't as big as on a bass