Baritone or not - need help understanding!

Sporky

Wide compared to a lot of wind instruments, but about the same as a cello and much less than a piano.

It was more about comparison with other instruments that come in various sizes and tuning - the brass and violin families for instance. "Every" other instrument might have been an overstatement on my part.

Lew

Baritone for most folk will simply mean tuning to B and below.

However, tuning a standard scale guitar (24.75" - 25.5") to baritone with heavy strings feels and sounds incredibly different to a 27"-30" baritone guitar with lighter strings. Obviously.

Problems with intonation on standard guitars are *mostly down to shitty setups on shitty guitars *up to a point. Like someone already said yer simply swapping the high E for a low B and taking the G down half a step.

13s are perfect for me. If ya like 10s in E it's the same set. D'addario do it with a 56 or 62. Whatever suits. And with a wound 3rd which I can't be without. But I know some perverts use a plain 3rd for Baritone tuning. Ugh. Plain 3rds are wrong no matter the tuning though ;-)


 

hopkins

Lew said:

Plain 3rds are wrong no matter the tuning though ;-)

Damn right!

midlifecrisis

Is this applicable for acoustics too or are there further considerations?

ICBM

Lew said:

13s are perfect for me. If ya like 10s in E it's the same set. D'addario do it with a 56 or 62. Whatever suits. And with a wound 3rd which I can't be without. But I know some perverts use a plain 3rd for Baritone tuning. Ugh. Plain 3rds are wrong no matter the tuning though ;-)

I like plain 3rds up to a 17 in a set of 10s, or an 18 in a set of 11s in standard tuning on solidbody guitars, but any heavier than that, or with 11s on any kind of semi-hollow, and it just sounds wrong.

midlifecrisis said:

Is this applicable for acoustics too or are there further considerations?

In theory it's the same - five of the strings are tuned the same as normal - but the low B often sounds noticeably weaker than the other strings, even if you use a heavy enough gauge.

hopkins

midlifecrisis said:

Is this applicable for acoustics too or are there further considerations?

Or, if you're asking specifically about the wound G-string in standard tuning, for me it is entirely about acoustics.  I enjoy playing heavy metal rhythm guitar, and this often requires tremolo picking riffs up to the G-string.  I dislike the shrill change in tone when transitioning to a plain string.  I suspect that it may NOT suit those who play a lead-heavy guitar style for the same reason.  (I wonder if any shredders play with a plain D string for this reason?!)

guitarfishbay

hopkins said:
 (I wonder if any shredders play with a plain D string for this reason?!)

I doubt it because any plain string thicker than around .020 has very little attack and quite a dull sound.  The EB Not even slinky set has a .024 plain string (for the 3rd) and when I used to use that set I always replaced it with a thinner string.

hopkins

guitarfishbay said:

hopkins said:
 (I wonder if any shredders play with a plain D string for this reason?!)

I doubt it because any plain string thicker than around .020 has very little attack and quite a dull sound.  The EB Not even slinky set has a .024 plain string (for the 3rd) and when I used to use that set I always replaced it with a thinner string.

Interesting!  Thanks.

ICBM

guitarfishbay said:

any plain string thicker than around .020 has very little attack and quite a dull sound.

I've always found they have that, but also a strange clangy sound, almost like a cracked bell that's out of tune with itself. It's because a very thick plain string can't flex properly, especially for the higher harmonics. I'm not sure if it actually causes false nodes or something - that might not be the correct technical explanation, but it sounds something like that to me.

Some guitars are worse for bringing it out than others - I've always disliked a plain G on a Rickenbacker with the Toaster pickups, even when it's otherwise quite a light gauge. The ones with the High-Gain pickups are OK up to a normal set of 10s (17 G).