If I got a Baritone Guitar Could I......

SNAKEBITE

If I bought a Baritone guitar could I tune it and play it in the same way I would a "conventional" guitar?

olafgarten

I think the scale length would be too long to comfortably tune it to Standard. I'm sure the strings wouldn't break but there would be a lot of tension. 

gusman2x

You would tune it to B probably, but yes all your chord shapes and scales work the same. It's just that they're now different chords and scales.

Whitecat

Even if you could, surely it would just sound like a regular guitar with crazy heavy strings?

Funkfingers

SNAKEBITE said:

If I bought a Baritone guitar could I tune it and play it in the same way I would a "conventional" guitar?

If you can find suitably long sets of tens or elevens, yes.

EricTheWeary

I was watching a bit of the Chords of Orion bloke and, I think, he plays a baritone but just plays more up the neck. He's not going boing boing boing all the time, the extended range down is there if he needs it. 
Presumably you lose some high notes as well? 
For someone like me who's mostly playing small closed chord shapes and pentatonic scales and doesn't really use open stings I guess it would work, I'd just venture down toward the nut on occasion. 

olafgarten

It would probably be best to just tune it to B standard and use a capo on 5th

Sporky

EricTheWeary said:

Presumably you lose some high notes as well? 

Yes - all other things being equal you lose as many high notes as you gain low notes.

Which is a clear advantage on both sides.

DefaultM

Whats the scale length? 27" is fine in standard. Never tried anything longer.

Funkfingers

Steinberger Transcale. 

GluedtoMusic

Baritone guitars don't increase the tension by as much as going up a standard string gauge set, so 9s at 27" is less tension than 10s at 25.5".

I have 27" guitars set up with 9s and they work great.

Here's the tension comparisons,

	9s @ 25.5"		9s @ 27"		10s @ 25.5"		10s @ 27"		11s @ 25.5"
e	13.14 lbs		14.730 lbs		16.22 lbs		18.19 lbs		19.63 lbs
B	11.02 lbs		12.350 lbs		15.39 lbs		17.25 lbs		17.85 lbs
G	14.68 lbs		16.460 lbs		16.58 lbs		18.58 lbs		18.58 lbs
D	15.73 lbs		17.630 lbs		18.39 lbs		20.61 lbs		21.12 lbs
A	15.50 lbs		17.380 lbs		19.04 lbs		21.35 lbs		20.96 lbs
E	14.37 lbs		16.110 lbs		16.91 lbs		18.96 lbs		18.97 lbs

SNAKEBITE

Cheers guys.

I was just contemplating something different, but didn't want to venture into the whole over complication thing.

Playing normally is taxing enough!