The Steel Guitar Forum

I don't like to bend on more than a quarter tone on guitars. I've just never liked the blues/rock style of bending so I'm fine with a wound 3rd string. No bends in spaghetti westerns! I frequently use the bigsby wiggle stick for a nice waver and my left hand for slight vibrato.

I've experimented with both B to B and A to A and much prefer the tone of A to A.

the sound in this clip is pretty much what I bought it for:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN1bJqU50iA

John, I checked with Sam Hubbell, who did the work for me, and he passes along .05mfd.

I like my reissue Danelectro baritone just fine. Twangalicious! I tune A to A. I still have on the stock Danelectro strings it had on it when I bought it maybe 4 or 5 years ago now--they refuse to go dead. I would love to go with a plain 3rd whenever I finally change them!

Maybe I missed something - but how 'bout turning the amp up for one song?

Drew,
That`s where I`m at now, but some of the bandstands I play are so cramped, turning around 180 degrees with a guitar in your lap while seated at your steel is tough. You might have that knob right behind the backrest of your seat, making for some real contortions. On top of that, it is often too dark to see where your knob was set, and you end up usually too
loud after you turn up for the Bari. I want to fire off a Bari solo mid song while playing steel before and after the Bari solo. It`s too much to be plugging,unplugging,re-plugging,turning up, turning back down just to play a blast from the Bari in the course of a song. It also looks uncool compared to just stomping my A/B box(which nobody notices) and seemlessly switching from one instrument to the other.
If your not playing a dark,crowded,"hole in the wall" a big show might have you more than an arms length from your amp, and now you have the problem of getting back and forth to your amp, up and down with a guitar strapped on and plugged in.
As soon as I have the output equal(my e-bay pickup booster) with my A/B box, I think I will be good to go.
If anyone else is doubling thru the same amp and has any other ideas, I`d love to hear them.

Steve,

Sounds like you need a boost pedal of some kind.



Good luck,
Drew

PS I can relate to the cramped bandstand!!!

slightly off-topic, but

There is a track I love listening to which features baritone and pedal steel together, on the same song

"The Golden Age", by Cracker

title track to the album of the same name

Yes, I double on a Fender VI.
It is tuned one octave lower than a six string electric guitar.

Which makes it a bass guitar. Yes, the scale is shorter than a full grown electric bass, but the basic tuning on strings 3,4,5,6 is identical in pitch to a bass guitar. G,D,A,E.

Why call it a baritone? My neighbor plays a Danelectro "baritone". I have never heard him refer to it as a "baritone"

I use it for "tic-tac" or click bass, and surfer sounds. Often an octave above the bass player.

So, why call it a baritone?

R2

Ron, you're right. To call a Bass VI a "baritone" is incorrect. It's a bass guitar, just as much as a Precision Bass is. (A bass player I played with used to be adamant that his instrument was NOT a "bass guitar", but a "bass". That's probably a more useful verbal distinction.)

The "baritones" under discussion here are different animals, pitched less than an octave below the "standard" guitar, usually A to A or B to B.

My recent Fender Jaguar Baritone Custom (renamed later to Jaguar Bass VI Custom) is a near copy of the old Bass VI, but with a slightly shorter (28.5" as opposed to 30") scale. It works well as either a 6-string bass E-to-E or as a bari A-to-A. It just depends on how you set it up. It was definitely intended for dual usage - Fender talked that aspect of it up in their promo literature - but it ships with bass strings tuned E-to-E.

Wikipedia entries
here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Bass_VI
and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Jag ... one_Custom

It really does feel more like a bari with the 28.5" scale and a bit narrower neck than any old Bass VI I've played. I think the typical Dano bari is about 28" scale.

Here's my baritone, actually a bass six since it is E-E. I made it out of one of the original Dano reissue Longhorn 4 string basses. Even E-E it always sounds best in a small amp.. my black panel Princeton Reverb especially. In this video, my kid is playing it through a Line 6 Flextone ll amp (hidden in the "Coke machine") on the Fender Deluxe model. He plays the high "guitar" parts then doubles my P-bass. It sounds better with headphones.. you can really hear what it sounds like. I've seen John Sebastian solo, play an old Fender Bass Vl (E-E) capoed and it was an amazing sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9a000jHxqo
Oh, and I agree with Drew.. a boost pedal would work, and might give it a little "grit" like when using a small amp.

Wow, Brian - those clips are great. Had no idea that was your son in that. Just great.

Thanks Dave.. Yeah, That (series) was his first gig ever. One of his brothers is playing drums on Little Saint Nick and Heroes & Villains. That Dano bass sounds cool... the smaller the amp, the better.