8-String Baritone
- Thread starter Luke El U
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kissing
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I'm not sure whether there is a readily available model out there, but you can tune the common Tenor 8-string like a baritone.
A baritone model will simply have a slightly longer scale and bigger body than a tenor. The fretboard width should not change much.
A baritone model will simply have a slightly longer scale and bigger body than a tenor. The fretboard width should not change much.
anthonyg
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I have a brucewei 8 string baritone. They sound GLORIOUS but they are harder to play. Mine needs a little fretwork so I don't play it much but its on my list to spend some money on setting it up properly. The standard brucewei baritone has a neck 32mm wide at the nut. The 8 string baritone is 38mm wide at the nut. This is neck width not string width. Yes it has an adjustable truss rod although I've rounded out the hex which is slightly annoying. It was never the easiest truss rod to adjust.
Anthony
Anthony
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OP
OP
Luke El U
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Thank you for your responses. I'm thinking of commissioning a luthier to create what I would call a "modern renaissance guitar".
Basically a baritone with 7 strings tuned like a four course renaissance guitar: GG cc ee a.
It needs to have low action, excellent intonation and easy to play the finger style guitar music of the 16th century.
Basically a baritone with 7 strings tuned like a four course renaissance guitar: GG cc ee a.
It needs to have low action, excellent intonation and easy to play the finger style guitar music of the 16th century.
I have two. The first is a Mele 8-string long-neck tenor that is strung like a baritone with octaved D and G strings and paired B and E strings. I bought it because the only 8-string baritone I was aware of at the time was one that had to be custom ordered from Kanile'a. A few days later, I was at The Ukulele Site's store in Hale'iwa, and I was telling MusicGuyMike how I had just scored an 8-string baritone when he disappeared for a moment and came back with what was, at the time, a very rare Kamaka 8-string baritone. It was beautiful, so I bought it, and I love it. I don't have it here with me, so I can't measure the width of the fretboard at the nut, but I will when I can and I'll post it then.
TheCraftedCow
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Have you ever heard of a tiple? I have a 1923 Martin and a 1970 Japanese copy. The real Martin has an adirondack spruce top while the Japanese Yamaki counterfeit is solid mahogany. Both have a 37 mm wide side to side nut with 32 mm outside of the 4th to the outside of the first string. They can be gCEA or originally weredGBE with d but then Martin pulled up to the higher tuning with steel strings. Man, you talk about finger killers, gG CcC EeE AA on steel and you are talking serious pain ! Go back to how it was in South America 100 years before a ukulele was ever a name for a musical instrument, and it is like wearing snowshoes in deep snow. It pleasurizes the fingers with synthetic strings and some low wound metal strings. Dd GgG BbB EE or a really lush sound... Ee--low d pulled up a whole step. It is easy to fingerpick or strum. If you want to hear lush, rich, full sound, listen to some tiples on You Tube.
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Would one of these work? It's the new 8 string version of Pono's equally new "Big Bari"
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?119826-News-from-Pono-Octave-Mandolins!
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?119826-News-from-Pono-Octave-Mandolins!
anthonyg
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I fingerpick on my 8 string baritone however it does require more effort than a 4 string baritone. Mind you. Leo Kottke manages to play a 12 string acoustic guitar at lightning speeds so all is possible.
Anthony
Soundbored
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Down Up Dick
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That was very nice. Thanks for the tip, but what does it have to do with the thread?
ld:
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Down Up Dick
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I saw a tiple Uke at a local music store. Wow! Really cool, but I'd hate to hafta tune the darn thing every time I played.
ld:
FiL
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Keep in mind that this is a steel-string instrument (and is not yet in production). And although I haven't seen any numbers for the nut width, my guess is that it will have a narrower nut width than an 8-string uke, given that it's meant to be tuned and played like an octave mandolin.
- FiL
FiL
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So-called "North American" tiples (Martins, Regals, and their copies), were never meant to be tuned dGBE. They were actually originally tuned Aa-dDd-f#F#f#-BB. They are smaller than the OP's bari-sized request. Awesome sound though, when you can actually get one to play in tune!
The Colombian tiple, which reportedly was the inspiration for the North American tiple, is really a completely different instrument. It is tuned dDd-gGg-BBB-EEE (all triple strings), and it is a much bigger instrument, with a scale length in the bari range (or a 3/4-sized classical guitar).
Both instruments have steel strings. The Colombian tiple has a really wide neck, with something like a 1.5" nut width if memory serves.
- FiL
Soundbored
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That was very nice. Thanks for the tip, but what does it have to do with the thread?
See post #4.
"I'm thinking of commissioning a luthier to create what I would call a "modern renaissance guitar".
Basically a baritone with 7 strings tuned like a four course renaissance guitar: GG cc ee a."
Down Up Dick
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Ok, Soundbored you're still the very best poster in the UU. No one comes anywhere near your musical knowledge and your ability to write posts that are very exact and to the point.
I, on the other hand, make frequent mistakes and sometimes have crazy ideas. I bow to your Uke superiority.ld:
I, on the other hand, make frequent mistakes and sometimes have crazy ideas. I bow to your Uke superiority.
ld:
My Kamaka 8 string baritone has a fretboard that's 1.5 inches at the nut.
OP
OP
Luke El U
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That was very nice. Thanks for the tip, but what does it have to do with the thread?
Actually, it has a lot to do with this thread. UkeVal has been a major inspiration for me for the past 4 years or so. Here's his intro to a "authentic" copy of a renaissance guitar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrhLpxX4EvE
I want a renaissance guitar sound and feel, but "modernized" with Gotoh Planetary tuners, a truss rod and metal frets like a uke. Baritones are almost the same size. I love the 8-string Pono, but I don't want metal strings.
Soundbored
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Modernized would be single strings. Renaissance and baroque instruments were strung with doubled and/or octave courses to compensate for the poor volume, intonation, and harmonics of the gut strings available at the time. And renaissance guitar music doesn't seem to take any melodic advantage of octave courses like many later baroque guitar pieces do. So what are you losing exactly, other than tuning headaches?
There was a quote about tipples or taropatches, I forget... you spend half the time tuning, and the other half the time playing out of tune.
OP
OP
Luke El U
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Easy: that classic, beautiful lute-like SOUND of doubled strings! It's magical.
Down Up Dick
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Well, Luke El U, the above was the beginning of the thread. It is about baritone eighters, and other posters wrote about eighters. I admit that I got caught up in a few about tiples though. So, anyway, my comment to Soundbored was correct until you changed the subject of the thread.
So, apparently, you now want an instrument that's different from a regular eighter, and Soundbored is still talking about regular ukuleles.
Maybe I'm not such a mixed up ol' geezer after all.
ld:
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