Baritone/octave owners

[igowing]

Who all out there plays baritone electric's these days? What kind of music do you use yours for? I switched from mostly playing my standard scale 5 string with my band to playing more baritone about a year ago and love the extra range. It's been great for both gigging and recording.

Here is mine, it's my own design and construction. I'm thinking of building more like it.

[Barry Mando]

Hey there igowing! I love and play a Bari as well.Mine is a Rono and I have been playing it seriously since 2001 and still cant put it down. I have absolutely played everything on it from classical,reggae, to jazz and even though I am obviously biased it is the greatest instrument ever made. I now lead my own trio with the bari as the star of the show and the reactions I get is priceless. "What the hell is that thing a tiny gee-tar!" Awesome! Check me out on my various websites so you can hear it in action.
Later,


http://www.barimando.com/
[MYSPACE="http://www.myspace.com/thebarrymandoproject"][/MYSPACE]

[Rhinestone]

I've got a 19" scale Mann OM-8 electric and it's a fantastic instrument. I play jazz,blues,Celtic,American songbook and whatnot. I would recommend this instrument to any serious player. It has a magnetic pickup near the neck and a piezo gadget built into the bridge and they can be blended for a nice "either/or" combination of electric and acoustic tones. Behold....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRyYI-0JGYY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUfEXGe_N6o

[igowing]

Cool stuff, both of you. Really smart voicings with that Rono. What scale did Ron Oates use for his baritones?

That Mann has one of the most natural acoustic sound's I've heard from an electric mando. I'm sure the long scale helps with that. How much piezo vs magnetic pickup are you using there?

Either of you use yours for slide at all? That was one of the things that drew me to the long scale. Check out the song "Minstrel" here for an example
http://thewarnerhousecat.com/listen.html
While trying to record the slide parts to that something in my fender champ died...the output dropped to nothing and it got ridiculously distorted. Rather than record with another amp I plugged the speaker output into the input of a solid state bass combo with a 15" speaker and mic'd that with an old school electro voice 635a. Unfortunately after that the champ never worked again. I would love to be able to reproduce that sound.

[Rhinestone]

That Mann has one of the most natural acoustic sound's I've heard from an electric mando. I'm sure the long scale helps with that. How much piezo vs magnetic pickup are you using there?

About 50-50. Also the mag pickup is splittable with a push-pull switch on the tone pot and in these clips I'm using it on full humbucker. In single coil mode with little or no piezo thru a small tube amp cranked up a bit,it can fill the function of a Keith Richards style G tuning rock and roll rhythm guitar.

If I was gonna play slide I'd get Jon Mann's 5 string version of the same instrument. Single course is better for that.

[mandroid]

Managed to get Octave GDAEB tuning on my P5 Pentaula , it's just over a 15" scale.

[Christian McKee]

[Bump]

I'm pretty curious about scale length and tunings on the "baritone" mandolins out there. Are these just octaves by a different name? Any details?

[mandroid]

G,D,A,E,B . AFAIK.. .. another tuning AEBF#C# is possible too , useful in guitar bands that play lots of stuff in E Maj.

That, the latter,'s what the Pentaula came as, I fattened the G to an .056" to drop it a whole step.

[igowing]

Mine is an 18.4" scale, tuned GDAEB, octave mandolin with an extra B on top.

[Daniel Nestlerode]

A friend who is an amateur luthier is making me a 5 string octave mandolin (GDAEB). Scale length will be 18", shape will be tele. In fact it'll be more of an Esquire than a Tele, I'm having him put just a single pickup in it, and I'll have him wire the controls in Esquire fashion.

Daniel

[igowing]

Daniel Nestlerode, If it is possible and not too late I would highly recommend an 18.5" scale. 18.5" scale and octave tuning works out such that your fifth fret (placing a capo on the 5th fret of a 5 string octave puts you in C-G-D-A-E tuning, like a normal 5 string) is 13.9" from the bridge as opposed to 13.5" with an 18" scale. I'm not sure I would be happy with the string tension on an 18" scale, but I admit that I have never played any 5 string octave other than my own. You could always use quite heavy strings but I prefer to not go above .052 for the low G.

Out of curiosity, what scales have you all observed on electric octaves/baritones? I know Mann builds his 5 strings with an 18" scale, and I vaguely remember hearing that Rono's had an 18.5" scale. Mine has an 18.4" scale and feels quite nice to me. For reference my current strings guages are .052-.036-.024-.014-.010. I've also been toying with the idea of bumping the D up to .038.

I know I've posted it before, but this is one of the most useful tools I've found
http://www.mcdonaldstrings.com/stringxxiii.html

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Daniel Nestlerode, If it is possible and not too late I would highly recommend an 18.5" scale. 18.5" scale and octave tuning works out such that your fifth fret (placing a capo on the 5th fret of a 5 string octave puts you in C-G-D-A-E tuning, like a normal 5 string) is 13.9" from the bridge as opposed to 13.5" with an 18" scale. I'm not sure I would be happy with the string tension on an 18" scale, but I admit that I have never played any 5 string octave other than my own. You could always use quite heavy strings but I prefer to not go above .052 for the low G.

igowing, you can cal me Daniel if you share your given name too.

That capo trick would be convenient, but the scale length is set and the neck has been cut out. So I'll keep my friend Matt's blood pressure at normal by not asking him what he thinks about 18.5"

Along the same lines, I just read in the Mike Marshall interview about trying mandolin strings on mandola and tuning up to E B F# C#. Think of all the guitaristic material you could cover! I'm trying it today.

Daniel

[CLeRIK]

I've hade my Mann Solid Body 5-string Baritone for about a year now, and I love it! I play all kinds of stuff on it, most of the stuff I can do on regular scale mandolin is possible on this one too. Right now I play in a band which experiments with rock and electro-sounds, so I run it through a lot of effects. Have used it to play punk aswell.

Here is a video of a rehearsal song from the band I'm currently in. First the mando plays tremolo, then some heavy chords with flanger, then a autowah, synthlike sound and then some more jazzy stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_ZWa2XKLjY

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Embedded for your viewing pleasure.

Cool tones. I like the intro especially.

Daniel

[CLeRIK]

Cool tones. I like the intro especially.

Daniel

Thanks dude! I guess all of us here can say that a double-stop tremolo on the mandolin sounds great, whatever the occasion though?