Official Luthiers Forum!

Howdy all, back on line after a nearly two week ordeal with the death of a computer. I switched from building guitars for that time to building a new computer from scratch, I'll never buy a pre-assembled computer again. Enough of that, now on to the real subject.

I'm in the planning stages for building a baritone guitar. I've not seen or heard much on the bracing structures and differences in regard to baritones and was hoping that those of you who have built them could shed some light for me in this subject. I assume that "X" bracing would be the same standard? What are the differences in layout and sizes of the finger bracing and tone bars if there are differences? What makes a baritone, a baritone? Would anyone be willing to share some pics? I would greatly appreciate the input of experienced builders who are in the know regarding baritones, but all are invited to participate where there is interest. Thanks in advance. Now it's back out of the computer cave and into the shop for some real productivity. Sort of!

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

I've only built one but these are my views
A baritone is generally tuned to B or lower and normally has at least a 27.5" scale
D'addario has a baritone set of strings, the lowest is quite thick double wound.
The combination of lower tuning, larger strings and longer scale length generally produces a string load not much more than a standard tuned guitar with mediums, so bracing does not need much modification.

First decide on your scale length, I chose 27.5 for playability.
Decide on which fret the neck will join the body, I went with 14
Decide number of frets, body length etc
Position bridge and bracing , soundhole position is relative to this.
I used a longer body (12 fret martin) modified dreadnought with the neck join at 14 and this gave me the bridge position I wanted.
This is mine, needs re-recording cause I had the mic levels too high and the potective plastic still on the lense
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUXDk238PE

Hey Bill -

I'm getting ready to start a Baritone too. Based on everything I've tracked down, I'm pretty much doing it like I'd do a normal guitar. The longer scale combined with heavier strings and lower tuning puts the overall tension in the same ballpark. (Note: I've not figured out how people figure that out. I'm merely repeating what I've read.) I'm starting with an MJ body and will move the bridge down a bit so the nut isn't so far out in space.

I look forward to seeing what you do.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

D'addario gives a total tension of 104 Kg, B tuning, for their EXP phosphor set, so it is more like a heavy guitar set rather than medium (EXP phosphor is 85Kg). It doesn't say what scale length they used for the calculation though.

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Build log

I emailed them to ask. They said the listed tension for the EXP 23's was based on a 29.75 inch scale.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

Gotta have huge hands for that scale.
I am over using 2.25" shorter so the tension is greatly reduced

That's the way I'm thinking too.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

Yes but it's not a "proper" baritone then - just a longer scale length guitar. You'll struggle with that low B note and below purely acoustically - plug it into an amp and it will be OK.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

David Berkowitz has done a great deal of work on baritones, and had an extensive article in issue #33 of Guitarmaker magazine, the mag put out by ASIA. I believe it's available as a PDF, but I'm not sure where. I haven't been able to track it down on their site.

Steve

The PDF of that article is here on David's website.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Well, I've only built one so far, but here is my 2 cents...

I designed mine around my proprietary shape. It's fairly big and deep. I went with 5'' at the tail to 4'' at the neck.

As there were no plans available and I had nothing to go on, I drew out the shape and tried many scales, X positions, soundhole placements and frets to body configurations. One of my main concerns is that I wanted it to fit in a regular case.

I wound up with a 29'' scale and a 14 fret to body neck. My neck was laminated so it's fairly stiff, but I didn't add any carbon fibre (I would now). I do keep it tuned low, A-A or Bb-Bb and after 2 years, I've only needed to engage the truss rod a bit and it's remained very stable.

I did use a double X instead of the standard 2 lower braces coming off the main X. This might have helped.

As for strings, I use John Pearse mediums and add the extra .066 (Pearse also). I've never tried any other strings, but I have heard that going bigger than .066 brings you to the double-wound territory and that those don't sound as good as a single wound string. Like I've said, I've never tried it, but I'm an avid Pearse user and I'm not even tempted to try anything else. IIRC, the Pearse .066 is the biggest single-wound string available.

Pictures to coom soon.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Dave,

I'm glad to hear you chiming in here. Your "Treebeard" planted the idea in my head to try a baritone in the first place. Can you say more? In your experience, where would you draw the line between long enough and not long enough? Is a good B what makes it so?

In an old thread, you were using EJ18's with a 0.070, ending up with a relatively low tension. Are you still happy with that plan?

Thanks,

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

Bill -

I don't know how I never found this before. I really don't understand how the OLF "search" works.

http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=20224

In it, Alain explains the innards of his baritone. I don't know if it will change my plan, but I wish I'd come across it earlier.

Edit-- Whoops. Looks like it was Tony Karol who went into lots of detail there.

and Alain - Thanks for posting that back then, as well as the update on how it's been holding up.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

Thanks for participating y'all, looks like this thread has been busy while I've been away from the desk.

Jeff, Mike, Alexandru, Dave, Steve, and Alain, (I hope I got everybody?). I appreciate your input and links. This gives me some idea of a direction to plan for sure. Jeff, that's quite a talented young fellow on the link you provided thanks. I'd love to hear the new recording of your baritone when you get it up. You could post it in here or PM me here or in ANZLF as well. I like the Martin 12th fret OOO body style for sure. And a little bit deeper like the AB I made a while back. Alain's and Tony Karol's descriptions in the link you provided Mike are helpful, thanks.

Dave White, you da man!!! That article is just exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for. I've admired David Berkowitz's work for some time and had not seen this article because I only joined ASIA a little over a year ago. (I need to renew BTW) I've been a GAL member since '06' but never saw any articles regarding baritones. Anyway, this is a great help so far and if anyone has more to offer, I'm all eyes.

Mike, once I get around to building it, I'll let you know in case you want to visit the shop out here in Weld county to see it in progress. Currently I have four other guitars in progress and they have precedence since they are all for other clients. The baritone will be for me, unless someone offers to buy it when it's finished of course.

Well, gotta leave the computer cave now, one of my horses is sick and I have to go and attend to his needs. Guess that cold windy wet snow day yesterday was a bit rough on him after all the warmer weather we've had lately.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Bill,
I have made 5 baritones. I recomend that you make an accurate drawing. When you do that you'll have to answer a lot of design questions like -
14, 13, 12 or even 15 fret to the body model
18, 19, or 20 total frets
Placement of the sound-hole
X brace layout
UTB location
Bridge placement (offset)
Bridge plate location/shape
Neck block
Other braces

Does that make sense?

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Steve it makes absolutely perfect sense and I greatly appreciate your input. What scale length did you use if you don't mind my asking? I'm contemplating somewhere between 27 and 30" but I'm not sure the longer scale lengths above 27 - 28 would be very beneficial since that is getting closer to the Acoustic Bass range and I'm concerned that would rob from the guitar's ability to project well when unmiked. I'm hoping to learn what folks have found to work well volume wise in the 'unplugged' environment. I did have great results on the Acoustic Bass I built as far as projection from strings 1 - 4 but #5 disappointed me. I was hoping to achieve better volume when unplugged and didn't achieve that to my satisfaction. The recipient of the bass was very pleased so maybe I expected too much?

Below is the bracing I used on the above Bass.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Bill,
I have made mine with a deep bodied OLF SJ shape, 27.5" scale. Making it a 14 fret model makes it just fit in the case with about 1/4" to spare.
Don't forget about the case!
Next time I might go with a 28" scale and make it a 15 fret model to be able to fit in the case.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Matthew Mustapick has built quite a few Baritones as well and I've found quite a bit of detail in his site about his design and process. He's also got some sound clips of his Baritones. I forgot that I had found his site a few years ago and just thought about it while reviewing this thread. He makes some really great looking and sounding guitars.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

LaBella also has a nice selection of baritone strings, of various gauges. You might find the tension/gauge you need from them -- I did.

Mike,

Pretty much. My interest is about getting a rich "unplugged" sound. Acoustic baritone guitars are mysterious beasts indeed. They are usually designed to be tuned five semitones down from a “normal” guitar and five of their six strings share the same range – E to B or the bottom five strings of an EADGBE instrument. The baritone low string is what it’s all about and there are similar problems to acoustic bass guitars here. To go down to the low A , in my view, you need a long scale length, around 29” or more, a big guitar body to help support the low frequency notes and the choice of back and side woods that support the low frequencies but give clarity and separation between the strings. You also hit the problem of string gauge – beyond 0.070” and you are into double wound strings which sound very different purely acoustically. But I've come to the conclusion that you need more than this - you need to employ some pshycho-acoustics to help the human ear "hear" the very low frequencies differently.

One way is to significantly ramp up the string tension of the top five strings from what they would be on a normal guitar - with 200-220lbs for the six strings compared with say 160-170lbs on a more "normal" scale length guitar. I've had many a debate here on this forum and via e-mail with David Berkowitz about how this works - he's a bartione builder of great experience that I deeply respect. One theory is that the physics of longer strings requires more tension. My own current view is that the higher tension strings provide a louder mid range response that helps the ear to "hear" the lowest string better. But you have to brace the instrument accordingly and David incorporates flying buttress braces and a Bridge Doctor and for the bass response he is looking for but also it will help cope with the higher tension on the top. I don't want to go down this route and want to brace much more lightly for the sound I'm seeking.

Recently I've experimented down another route of muti-scale and adding a hollow arm like a harp guitar to give more body volume and a longer path for the low wave notes. I haven't quite finished the guitar yet and will post about it here when I have but you can see and hear "Fangorn" here on Harpguitars.net.I think this works but it's not the solution for a gigging baritone musician.

Otherwise play them in the C-C range and even the shorter scale length bari's will sound good. Failing that fit a pick-up and plug them in.

Hopefully David and Matt might chime in here.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Here are a few shots. The innards and the neck laminations.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

And just in case I hadn't high-jacked this thread enough... Just a few shots of what the guitar looks like, in the white...

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Rick, thanks for the input on the strings.

Dave, that's a great piece of info and thanks for the HG link, I always enjoy the progress and results of your guitars. I much appreciate your input and participation. I would greatly enjoy having David and Matt participate as well if they view this thread and are willing. I know I could learn much from their baritone experience. I'm also interested in learning more about Matt's UTB and the purpose behind that design.

Alain, hijack away! I appreciate your participation. Do you find that the "double X" bracing benefits the strength against the added string tension? I'm not a real big fan of the bridge doctor, and like Dave (and most everyone here), I prefer to build as light as possible for maximum comfort, resonance, and clarity. And thanks for the pics, I always enjoy seeing your work as well.

I'm really glad this thread seems to carry the interest it has because I believe baritones have a very special place in the acoustic world and are here to stay. Thanks again for the input, and please, keep it coming. I'm a committed perpetual student.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

I haven't found the need for extra heavy bridge cable Baritone strings (approaching the .70 area), I have a 27.5" Baritone with Custom Elixirs on it that sounds great and plays easily. You can order them from juststrings.com for about 11-12 bucks.

6th: .052
5th: .042
4th: .035
3rd: .026
2nd: .018
1st: .015

Plays well tuned B to B and D to D, I play almost exclusively in alternate tunings and I haven't run into a tuning that hasn't worked with that string configuration yet.

I don't have any problem with 27.5 scale and B-B or even with A
Plenty of acoustic volume on the low string, I don't have a pickup in it yet
I've got no desire to tune it lower, so for me the relative ease of fingering and the balance of the instrument without another inch and a half of neck, makes this my choice of scale.