Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I have a turquoise 330 which I recently set up as a baritone. I used a D'Addario XL's Baritone Light Guage 13-62 set. Once bridge intonation & adjustments were made (slightly raised but still has super low action) this thing was good to go. Other than a tort pickguard, blsck TRC & knobs this one is stock with 2 HiGains & stock wiring. Here are my impressions:

How does it sound? It sure covers a lot of bases. (or is that basses) With all volume & tones at 10: Neck, huge, no, MEGA. Both, soulful with punch. Bridge, punchy bright & crisp. Add your favorite dirt & you have something really mean. I couldn't resist playing Ace of Spades. It really does bass well and leads up on the neck sound forceful. With a slide you have something really sweet on the high strings & something nice & growly on the low ones. Try turning the neck tone down, bridge tone up & using the blend in the middle position. Sounds like a bass morphing into a guitar when you roll the blend back & forth. You get a lot of variation & mood changes with that 5th knob.

Play feel. Big one...my '98 330 has a slightly thicker feeling neck than any other i've played but the bridge spacing is actually closer together than that on my 370. Switching back & forth with a regular RIc does not feel overly different. Overall feel is just fine, not klutzy, not too tight...fine for fingerstyle. It reminds me of a set of 10's in standard tuning, not tight like 11's & not loose like 9's. I chose not to widen the string slots in the nut. As a result the D string (usual home of the G) pops out if you really bend to hard too close to the nut. However good news is you can totally bend a 3rd fret pinch harmonic on bari strings and it sounds completely awesome. Your action preferences may vary but mine is still low & without buzz. Tuning is fine...break in the strings like on any guitar.

Scale length. I also set up my 16 tone strat as a bari and our other guitarist plays a bari tele so I have other converted guitars to compare it to. I do not find any advantage in having such a slight addition of Fender scale length. A traditional baritone 30" scale is great for tone but having once owned one I found it odd to play & get used to & I hardly used it. I rarely could find the correct length strings for the 30" & you can't bend strings like you can with a standard guitar scale length.

I did a 610 B-to-B once. I'd try it again.

Nice choice Kenny, I'd bet that would sound pretty great with a solid.

B-to-B 12-string - now THAT I'd love to try!

A bandmate in our rehearsal room converted his four string Music Man bass into baritone. - Phat sound!

A 6 string Rickenbacker baritone - That's an idea!!!

And a baritone 12 string is plain weird!!!


- Soundfiles would be nice, please!

After months tuned low, I am ready for it to be official. Time for a new nut. Time to find the right strings.

While I liked the bari B to B or A to A tunings, things really changed when I got down to E. My playing bari hadn't been much different from regular guitar at all...just a lower guitar. A full octave down to E and my playing style became a nice blend of bass and guitar, similar to classical guitar, I played lead and basslines at once. It is a nice change in perspective from standard bass or guitar and has been great for generating ideas.

Mind you this is with 13 gauge strings which held tune, but are waay too light. On my former dano bari however (also tuned as a bass VI) the strings were way to heavy, hard to fret and had no lead ability. I'm considering going with flats in 16 or 17 gauge. I need the ability to bend like a guitar and get those upper frets to play as well as can be with this scale length and I need strings to be punchy, ring out and still thump. Time to do some more R&D on that front.

(no sound clips currently...I'm between recording computers at the moment)

Given you are tuning down an octave why not just get a Callowhill 30" scale 6 string bass and tune it E-e?

jps wrote:Given you are tuning down an octave why not just get a Callowhill 30" scale 6 string bass and tune it E-e?

I bet because it is not a Rickenbacker.

Hotzenplotz wrote:

jps wrote:Given you are tuning down an octave why not just get a Callowhill 30" scale 6 string bass and tune it E-e?

I bet because it is not a Rickenbacker.

Bingo! There is a certain "meanish" lower register "piano" tone that I'm trying to nail that's punchy & still able to get that searing lead tone up top. It's got to take a slide so the shorter scale and flats will help out there. Getting the string feel right is the biggie. I had a Dano bari & I still have a 30" longhorn. Longer heavy strings don't bend right or fret well at the upper frets. It should feel akin to playing 10's or 11's in standard tuning.

Ages ago I turned a swap meet Les Paul copy into a very ugly 8 string bass. A long bolt in place of the tune o matic, a sectioned bolt for a nut, two more cheap tuners a couple drill holes in the stop tailpiece, done for under $50. I used it for string tuning & placement experiments as well as recording for a good while. I eventually turned it fretless which I regretted immediately. T'was lots of Adrian Belew thievery going on back then.