Multiscale Baritone

[WezV]

i ended up taking a lot of the tru-oil off as it was building to more of a finish than i wanted.. so i took it back to wood, which had been nicely darkened by all the dye and oil at this point so i just applied a few coats of danish oil. the tru oil just looked a bit too shiny on the wenge and i struggled to get the soft satin feel i wanted

now its all done

[Narcissism]

That's freaking sweet lookin! I really like the back, but at the same time, the front holds some mystery that keeps my attention. How's she/he/it sound/play?

[WezV]

cheers

it plays really nicely, the waist point does dig in the leg slightly when sitting down for long periods... but its not really made for playing stting down :D I made the bridge a little higher than it needed to be so i could have more neck angle, it helps bring the nut end closer to the player which can really help on longer instruments

the sound is awesome, lots of clarity and sustain, its almost organ like sometimes. the brief was that it had to be able to cope with fast staccato riffs at high gain without a hint of muddiness.. i thing i nailed it

we were going to go for a high power pickup but after speaking to Tim at bare knuckle we went with his blackdog model. he had done extensive tests with his pickups in some baritones and found this to work best. It doesnt push the amp as hard as i wanted but it does ensure clarity and good tone... and the gain can always be increased on the amp or with a pedal

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/ZH-blackdog.html

[pukko]

That carve looks great! Was it hard to do? I've only worked with wenge once and found out it splinters pretty easily.

I believe you like constructive criticism, so here are a few suggestions: I'd like the upper edge of the upper horn (when seen in playing position) to be a wee bit slimmer. I'd also like the lower horn cutaway to be slightly deeper and the top of the headstock a little less flared out. Here's a lame Photoshop thingie to show what I mean, original first, alteration second:

And I just had to try your design out without the sharp points too, it looks nice that way too:

[Kenny]

my only concern would be the weight, i build a neck thru bubinga guitar once

after my back broke the doctor told me not to play it anymore :D

but really, they're heavy!

but it looks sweet as hell!

Kenny

[Bassisgreat]

Superfly TNT dude.

[WezV]

thx pukko, i do appreciate the suggestions. if i did do this shape again i might change a few things but i am very happy with the way it worked out, especially the carved out bevels and the finish

its good to see the version without points because my next plan was to adapt this style of carve to a mosrite style build, basically this shape flipped upside down with some concession made to the fret access on the treble side. i think you are right about the treble cutaway as it stands now, from some angles it looks awesome but from others it does look a little small

i carved the wenge using the blades from the small stew-mac carving planes as scrapers... it scraped/carved really well... obviously paying close attention to grain direction. this set worked well. another set may have led to big bloody splinters, i did get some in the rough carve but none from the scraping

as far as weight goes. the guy thats getting it is very tall and told me not to worry about weight, in fact he wanted heavy. he wanted it 2" thick. i told him that wasnt going to happen and made it 1.5" thick. it has a little weight but no more than the average les paul... i will have to weigh it before it leaves tomorrow

[westhemann]

I like it...I like the shape,the workmansip,the fanned frets...it all works well with one exception(just in my opinion.

I find the top to dark and oily looking...I would love to see this same design,but white with black hardware...

also,recessed jacks are cooler...like this

And they don't go loose like the plate jacks do...

[Xanthus]

Impressive as always, wez. I like the satin look it has too. Now, as one who has experimented with both tung and danish oil, would you say danish is better for a satin feel/"gloss"? My next build is going to be mostly mahogany, and as much as the gloss of tru-oil worked with my last build, I wanted to do a satin like the finish on my Carvin.

[WezV]

i must admit that i have a dislike of those barrel jacks... cant remember why, i think i must have had some dodgy ones at some point. But you are right wes, the jack plate does stick out a little and its something i will address that on the next version.

as far as oils.. the problem i had with tru-oil on this was that it was going nearly black and too shiny... that made getting a satin finish very difficult as it kept going between grey and scratchy or far too shiny. The tru-oil worked just as i wanted it to on the back. for mahogany i would use tru-oil over danish oil as it stays on the wood more and mahogany needs that little extra protection

oh, i just weighed it. bang on 9lbs. thats a weight i am very happy with

[westhemann]

I get my barrel jacks from stewmac...they are very high quality...

[pukko]

thx pukko, i do appreciate the suggestions. if i did do this shape again i might change a few things but i am very happy with the way it worked out, especially the carved out bevels and the finish

its good to see the version without points because my next plan was to adapt this style of carve to a mosrite style build, basically this shape flipped upside down with some concession made to the fret access on the treble side. i think you are right about the treble cutaway as it stands now, from some angles it looks awesome but from others it does look a little small

i carved the wenge using the blades from the small stew-mac carving planes as scrapers... it scraped/carved really well... obviously paying close attention to grain direction. this set worked well. another set may have led to big bloody splinters, i did get some in the rough carve but none from the scraping

You SHOULD be very happy with it! And you should definitely make the reverse one as well:

Yeah, scraping the wenge was pretty easy, it was mostly during the rough carving the splintering occured.

[Jaam]

Reverse looks supersweet.

[WezV]

well it was picked up today... and isaac has just put some soundclips up. about 30 seconds of clean before the real stuff kicks in!!

the design has been named by him as well, i suggested it since he had so much to do with the design. He originally wanted violator but i said i didnt want it to be called the wez Venables Violator so we went with Vociferator

This is the equpiment list for the soundclip:

14-68 D'Addario strings, Black Dog BKP -> Cleartone Cable -> Peavey 5150-II (which has pretty poor cleans, but this guitar makes EVEN these cleans sparkle!!) -> Roobubsticks' Cab of Doom (2 x G12K-100 (one of which is mic'd up!) and 2 x EVM12L Black label) -> T-Bone Cheapo Mic -> Work's MacBook Pro -> Garageband

we should get more sound clips on tuesday when he gets chance to try it out with the band

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cf...p;content=music

[Prostheta]

Re: the 5150-II Wez - have you adjusted the bias to something a bit hotter than the ice-cold they come out of the factory at?

[WezV]

thats the new owners amp, not mine... as far as i am aware its stock but i know he has spent a long time finding his ideal speaker configuration and that can make a bigger difference than people give it credit for.. sometimes its a better way to tweak the sound of an amp than changing valves

i have a matamp, which is a purposely cold biased amp. this is what they say about that

Dave Green has spent countless sleepless nights designing these fantastic amplifiers such that they have *just* eliminated cross-over distortion (ie not too hot, not too cold) when the valves are each biased at 25mA. This makes it very user-friendly and eliminates the need for an oscilloscope (expensive and bulky piece of equipment) when replacing power valves.

The reason it is so low? Quite simply in that Matamps are designed properly. Amplifiers like Marshall are not designed properly, obviously they still work, but it is required to bias them very high in order to get rid of this cross-over distortion. Most other manufacturers simply copy designs that have been used in the past. Sure, they work, but not very well. This is one reason why Matamp users should find their tubes last a lot longer in their Matamps than in their Marshalls. Apart from they use the Matamp far more so actually they don't last as long.

Now I'm going to talk about cars.

Not all cars have the same "idle" speed. This depends on various parameters of the engine - basically put - the minimum energy required to push the engine round one cycle (remember in a car 4-stroke engine that one cycle is 2 complete revolutions...) without it stalling. If this is too cold then the engine "stutters", misfires a few times, etc etc. If too hot then you're wasting petrol. You can investigate this yourself if you have a car equipped with a carburettor by playing around with the choke. It's great fun.

Some engines are designed very well and idle at very low speeds, thus wasting very little fuel and sounding almost silent. This comes from proper balancing of the crankshaft, pistons, flywheel etc and proper valve timing, not to mention the carburettor settings (remember, this is our "biasing equivalent") of course! Some engines are designed badly and as a result it is necessary to idle them at high speed and they perform badly.

It is exactly the same for amplifiers.

really not sure about 5150's though

[Bygde]

Beautiful guitar, and the tone was brutal!

[Prostheta]

thats the new owners amp, not mine... as far as i am aware its stock but i know he has spent a long time finding his ideal speaker configuration and that can make a bigger difference than people give it credit for.. sometimes its a better way to tweak the sound of an amp than changing valves

i have a matamp, which is a purposely cold biased amp. this is what they say about that

Dave Green has spent countless sleepless nights designing these fantastic amplifiers such that they have *just* eliminated cross-over distortion (ie not too hot, not too cold) when the valves are each biased at 25mA. This makes it very user-friendly and eliminates the need for an oscilloscope (expensive and bulky piece of equipment) when replacing power valves.

The reason it is so low? Quite simply in that Matamps are designed properly. Amplifiers like Marshall are not designed properly, obviously they still work, but it is required to bias them very high in order to get rid of this cross-over distortion. Most other manufacturers simply copy designs that have been used in the past. Sure, they work, but not very well. This is one reason why Matamp users should find their tubes last a lot longer in their Matamps than in their Marshalls. Apart from they use the Matamp far more so actually they don't last as long.

Now I'm going to talk about cars.

Not all cars have the same "idle" speed. This depends on various parameters of the engine - basically put - the minimum energy required to push the engine round one cycle (remember in a car 4-stroke engine that one cycle is 2 complete revolutions...) without it stalling. If this is too cold then the engine "stutters", misfires a few times, etc etc. If too hot then you're wasting petrol. You can investigate this yourself if you have a car equipped with a carburettor by playing around with the choke. It's great fun.

Some engines are designed very well and idle at very low speeds, thus wasting very little fuel and sounding almost silent. This comes from proper balancing of the crankshaft, pistons, flywheel etc and proper valve timing, not to mention the carburettor settings (remember, this is our "biasing equivalent") of course! Some engines are designed badly and as a result it is necessary to idle them at high speed and they perform badly.

It is exactly the same for amplifiers.

really not sure about 5150's though

Not to go too far off topic, I think that it is not "exactly the same for amplifiers". An engine achieves a purpose which is different to an amp, unless that amp is meant to produce a hifi output....a guitar amps ability to add colouration and character to a signal puts them in a (har har har) different Class to make-the-signal-bigger amps. I think the car engine analogy is completely incorrect and inappropriate in this context, and I feel that it in fact sounds patronising. As far as the amp as an amp goes - if it does the job beyond the hyperbole and mind-voodoo, nuff said.

5150's are uBer-cold from the factory (not sure about the modern 6550-badged amps) and I acheived a huge improvement in the normally brittle and sterile "clean" channel by upping the bias from 10mA to 22mA. This was my first time measuring inside a live amp, so I steered well clear of the "recommended" 30-32mA bias and wore welding gloves when measuring! I sold the amp recently as i'm going all-digital modelling on my next project work for transportability and instant recording goodness. :-D

Anyway. Great work as always, Wez!! The 28" through 26.5" sounds appropriately chosen and works well, having listened to the sound clips. I find that lower tunings sound so much better with less distortion....less is more in this case!! So, are you going to pursue the offset design?

Edited November 11, 2008 by Prostheta

[WezV]

yeah, i really dont know much about that.. all i remember about cold-biasing came from matamp when they were explaining why the valves in their amps can last for so long. they really can too, you frequently find old orange and matamps (or even whites in the north) with original valves still working fine and sounding awesome.

i dont think isaac has worried about cleans much before, but he did mention the blues the other day... i think the tonal possibilities he now has may be swaying him

i have more ideas for this design, but nothing set in stone yet

[Prostheta]

Balancing might be an issue. Says Mr-Explorer here.

[WezV]

with the design as it is balance is obviously no problem whatsoever. If i go for the reverse version at any point then i will probably spend a lot of time getting the horns and cutaways just where i want them. have faith Pro - balance will not be an issue!!

tbh i think the reverse mockups pukko did on the last page would balance fine too once on a strap - although an extra inch on the shorter horn would garantee it

[Prostheta]

Definitely. I love the baroque look of the convex carving on this one - very refreshing in comparison to straight bevels or smooth contouring.

[komodo]

WEZ- It sounds REALLLLY gooood. The BN pup really shines through and is crystal clear because of your wood choices. Love the low string when you played the clean bit . . .

[WezV]

yeah its pretty cool aint it... not me playing though - thats the fella that asked me to make it. he took the nicer photos in GOTM for me as well

The BKP was a lot lower powered than we originaly intended and is also alnico V rather than ceramic.... high power ceramic pickups do not work well in baritones

[mattharris75]

Wez, this guitar turned out great. Could you describe your tru oil finishing schedule? I have a wenge topped bass that I am working on that I would like to end up looking like this. Thanks!