found a baritone guitar in pawn shop. but an electric

Keira-WitherKay

i was idling around some pawn shops sunday morning and found this yamaha RGX 420S D-6 ....... the D6 stands fro drop 6.it has a baritone scale neck that allows one to tune down with thicker strings......... kinda like a 7 string and the longer scale length allows the string tension to not bottom out .........

i tried it and bought it............. i assume despite the nu metal looks ? the previous owner used it for jazz as it had flatwound strings on it .......

and mmmmmmmm what a lovely fat warm jazz tone...........the pickups are 2 hubuckers with a coil tap and a 5 way switch......... it is definitely a guitar offering everything from fat humbucker jazz tone to thin sharp funk and i guess the metal tones are cool too.... cos i researched it and couldn't find a bad review........... oh and the one i have is mint just minus the wammy bar arm......... but if i keep it i will get the wammy blocked as i prefer non wammy guitars..........

well a 1st for me .my 1st baritone guitar .. i have bought it now i'll play on it a while and if i don't like it pass it on to a better home in my hands it's more likely to see the jazz side of things ......

below is a pic this is just the same model and colour from net .......... love that metalic green .heheheh in the shop i thought it was grey.. my eyes aint what they used to be.and when i carried it out into the sunlight i was amazed at the dark emerald finish .............so much so i almost dropped the guitar ........

right now that show and tell is over

anyone have any experience with baritone guitars???

AlanRatcliffe

I've played and liked the IBZ Mike Mushtok, which is a hardtail through-neck:

I've also seen a Fender Tele, which was intriguing - I like the idea of an inherently brighter guitar for lower tunings (think Ennio Morricone).

In a normal band situation I find a baritone dumps all over the bass, making for a difficult mix, but for solo or if the bassist also drop tunes its not too bad.

Keira-WitherKay

well i've played on it for a few days now.when time allows and i am prob misusing her but i'm finding if i keep it in standard tuning it has an extremely rich tone........ the longer scale even at standard tuning makes the bass strings sound deeper and i think it might make a great fingerstyle jazz guitar in standard tuning ...... i know most of us fingerstyle players prefer shorter scales like my two di georgio's i have with only 640 mm scale length but the longer scale definitely does something magical to bass even without de tuning ....... which sound awesome on walking bass lines.....

anyway still early days with this......... but it's a great guitar action and feel wise .......and PUPS are dead quiet

correction to what i posted above to that switch being a coil splitter ...it's a wierd setup that allows the neck pickup to bypass the volume and tone at will..so like an instant boost switch ........ actually quite usefull and with drive it's a way to get a great fat solo sound and boost it outa the mix with just a flip of the switch ............

the guitar has 2 humbuckers and a 5 way switch ........... seems to offer coil splitting options ... in various positions.......... anyway i found some great tone and stick to that setting at moment ...........

and surprisingly the floyd rose is dead stable.....i don't like them one bit ...........never have and i suspected that it might move as i chorded and cause some tuning issues........ but the flat action means unless i bend a note the floyd rose stays perfectly in place........... which surprised me i often hear players using floyd rose systems at their gigs and they seem to sound constantly out of tune when they play normally without using the wammy... i still don't like the fact that when i bend one note the others move as well since the bar moves grrrrrrrrrrrr but i will most definitely block the floyd rose if i keep this guitar ..........

anyway early days but so far i'm really impressed...........

Ruan7321

Glad you are happy with your buy. I play baritones exclusively. I got a Ltd SC607B (7 string) and a Ibanez RG2228 (8 string) both 27 inch scale necks.

I must say it does make your guitar growl a lot more and also the strings don't feel as stiff so it makes playing easier, well if you got big hands
because sometimes the stretching can be....well.....ouch. LOL ?

BMU

I used to own an LTD SC607B like Ruan - 27" scale. It was a dream metal riffing machine. Currently my Schecter Loomis is 26.5" - not sure if that's technically a baritone or not.

In metal, they're great for fast rhythm playing, the stiffer low strings are easier to play. Conversely harder to string bend on, the high strings having very noticeably higher tension. But conversely easier to play above fret 14 (or so) due to the more reasonable fret spacing.

On the 26.5" my latest hare-brained scheme is to string it like an 8-string...(F#, B, E etc. from the bottom up) haven't got around to it yet. Should be fun!

BMU

Oh by the way Keira - that guitar looks really cool. Brings back memories of the Yamaha electric I learnt on as a teenager.

Oh and: Lock the bridge! By all means. Those things are evil LOL, they're locked on all my guitars.

Keira-WitherKay

BMU wrote Oh and: Lock the bridge! By all means. Those things are evil LOL, they're locked on all my guitars.

is there an easy way to lock it?? i did own a jackson with a floyd rose many years ago but the guitar tech inserted a block to stop it moving somehow........ if there's an easier way let me know......

and yes i actualy took the guitar to it's first gig last night ...........to play jazz on not metal ? shocking i know . but i agree that bass strings feels awesome being the baritone scale length ........ still not 100% convinced i'll keep it yet ..... but it is a sweet guitar even for jazz ... and as you say i like the look the lines are very clean

AlanRatcliffe

Keira WitherKay wrote is there an easy way to lock it??

Easiest way to lock it is to get something called a Tremol-No

BMU

Jazz on a baritone electric - not surprising at all. The only other genre besides metal crazy enough to do things like 7 or 8 string guitars and basses is jazz after all.

The easiest way imo is to stuff a 9V battery (or anything hard that fits) between the back of the trem block and the body - I saw one of Vai's guitars with that LOL.

On my guitars a battery is too wide to fit so I found a paint brush at Builders Warehouse with a flat handle of the right thickness, cut it, sanded it down a bit until it was just right, and stuck it in there. LOL.

You only need to block the backside btw. The tension of the stings pull it forward against that backstop.

Keira-WitherKay

cool thanks for the input BMU and alan