Baritone vs Standard Scale: Maybe Pickups DO Matter!
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- Опубликовано: 11 июл 2024
- #guitar #baritone #shootout #scale #pickup #metal #ltd #squier #tone
Today I wanted to see what happened when I compare a baritone scale guitar to a standard scale guitar. Along the way, I noticed that my ears were picking up (no pun) on a difference that wasn't likely due to the scale differences.
0:00 Intro
0:38 The Setup
1:50 Pickups?
3:35 Blind Listen
5:14 Discussion
6:52 Guitar Reveal
8:30 What's going on?
13:01 Clean tones for fun!
14:25 Do Pickups matter? 
Видеоклипы
Eyyy I did pick out the piano-like qualities of the baritone
I picked the black winter right away.
As for the scale It’s a pound or two difference tops for 25.5 vs 27. I’m not surprised.
Black winter is distinctive. If I set up the 25.5” guitar with proper strings tops to bottom, it would be perfect for low chugs. I went ahead and set it up for drop B after this video and it is perfect. The Nazgul is cool, and the added length makes the playing tighter but it isn’t quite as tight sound wise. Being focused initially on the scale was a mistake since it was clear the pickups were the difference!
I love blind tests. Nice work man!
Thanks. The idea kept evolving. Once I had really taken notice of how the differences were coming through… I knew the pickups were having a big influence. This quick and dirty idea wasn’t quite what I is intended when k started! But these types of throw together videos are actually more fun than some of the advance planned videos I have done.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio for sure. I would bet most of the videos you plan out don’t turn out how you think especially when testing/shootout type stuff is involved. Everything I thought I know a year ago has completely changed. Watching these videos and making my own really shows me the lack of knowledge I had. This was well done though.
Could the strings on the baritone be lighter to compensate and kinda match tension on the strat? Did that kinda contribute to the flat boominess on the low end? Idk but very interesting. Definitely a sum of all parts scenario.
Also just to counter the point on nazgul maybe not right for 25.5 in guitar- i have a comparable Lundgren M6 in both an ltd m series (25.5 in) and Squier baritone Jazzmaster (30 in). The ltd in drop a and the Squier in f standard. Tho I play different styles in each guitar, the M6 adapts perfect between percussive thall on the Squier and the old school death metal on the ltd. Same pick up, same signal chain except guitars and string gauges.
I guess in this situation, since it's the same pickup, the differences in tone come from tunings, gauges and scale. For example if I tried to trem pick or even power chord on the Squier, it sounds like shit.
But it's probably mostly a matter of taste. And playability as opposed to huge changes in tone.
Glen from SSS was only saying that pick ups dont matter in that other things like speakers and irs effect tone much more tangibly in a high gain setting.
Sorry for the wall of text. Awesome video!
I just don’t think the Nazgul would be good for such a low tuning without compensating for the string tension. The Black Winter just punches a little harder and seemed to help get those looser strings to not be muddy. I think if I were to redo the test I would try to tension match the guitars and see if thicker strings on a 25.5” guitar would be dramatically better or worse.
Great test, I guessed it right. And this really makes me want to start a bullet build😘
I was so focused on the scale length when putting this together. But the black winter is a very distinctive pickup. Either way it shows that a standard scale guitar sounds pretty good when drop tuned, and I wouldn’t say there is a huge sound advantage to having a longer scale if you can set up the 25.5” guitar correctly.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio tune my 25.5 in 7 string down to G# with 68’s and get fine intonation up until the 12th fret. I drop it down to F# which isn’t optimal tension wise but it gets perfectly fine intonation so I plan on getting 80’s to tune even lower. I started doing this a few months ago and I’ve noticed recently a lot of guys are also moving away from baritones. The buying options are literally $2000 single pickup black guitars or cheap 60’s inspired horror shows with hardware that doesn’t make sense. Nothing in the middle. I think it’s going to become more common to see guys tuning their standard guitars down again
Well the result is interesting. I totally made the wrong guess!
I've got a strat with Black winter tuned in B standard and it's very much the same of the second guitar, probably because i use 13-59 for the tuning
Interesting how you heard more low end in the 25.5. I’m listening on a nice system with a sub and the 25.5 obviously has more sub frequencies where as the 27 hardly has any.
I was wondering about how sub frequencies sounded. I don’t have a sub, just drivers. I could see on the graphs that the low shelf below 100hz was up there on both pickups. But the mids and tightness of the black winter pickup seemed to make it sound punchier. The Nazgul in the 27” just sounded flat and it is likely that the low mids are more present making it sound darker, but not necessarily more low end overall.
Cool video, definitely prefer the Black Winter. I think there may have been a more pronounced difference if you had played through a real amp though. I feel like the archetype stuff, although it sounds insane, doesn't really sound or feel amp like in my experience. Its already super tight without boosting. This may not matter in the context of this video, but something to keep in mind.
I have definitely heard a pronounced difference between the passive pickups and the actives I own when play through a tube amp. There is a way that the signal hits a tube preamp that the DA converters on the interface just seem to nullify. Going forward I am planing to do more ramping and tone capturing once I get my reactive load box. I have some cab mic’ing video coming up too. Should be interesting to see how those tests sound not being played in a plug-in.
Finally someone doing Drop tuning reviews. Glad to have been found this channel!
I mean the 27 must feel better playing on low tuning, if u turn off without pickups bias it should confirm it. I also enjoyed the sound of the 25.5” more but I think it only proves the point that those pickups were a better match. Idk how would you choose which pickups are best for which scale length ?
It is really trial and error. The looser feel on the low strings on the Squier actually made for a comfortable response when hard chugging, but playing faster tremolo picking stuff was better on the baritone. The clarity of the Black Winter though makes the lower tuning seem like it has more punch. I think that might be why some of the 30” baritone players are tending to pick medium output PAF style pickups since they have more top end, and can get the pickup closer to the strings without without clipping the signal. A lot of the bareknuckle models that are meant for low tunings are only like 12k output. The Black winter is like 16+k and sounded best when backed off the stings a little. The Nazgul is just above 14k and has alot of low end but that didn’t really make for a great sound in baritone tuning.
My main take away was that you couldn’t discount the pickups completely in the equation. But… the scale really seems to play into the how you could play for sure, and would probably dictate the string gauge you ended up using which I think might end up having more effect on the tone than either scale or pickups. I might try a similar test where I just go between two string sets and two pickup types on the same guitar and see which has more effect.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio man loved the answer thank you for giving your opinion
Using same strings is a big miss IMO - the 25.5” should have heavier strings to bring up the tension more to match, and clears up the flubby feel significantly. Will make it a much more useful test I’d think.
I recently rebuilt a jazzmaster with EJ22 13-56 strings for B standard and it’s working great, string tension almost identical to 10-46 in E standard.
That was a consideration, but I wanted to see how the tension change would affect playing and tone overall. I always felt like I could take a reasonably thick set and tune it down with no real issues. It just happens to be that in the process the pickups being different weren’t letting me get at the results I wanted.
Next time I plan to tension match and use the same pickup to really see how scale alone might affect things. I actually preferred the feel of the looser strings on the low end of the squire.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio nothing wrong with testing all variables haha, this was an interesting comparison too for sure.
I'm actually finding I prefer lighter gauges for the bottom string on shorter scales. I was using .062 for 27" and 25.1" scale guitars each tuned to B, but the 25.1 felt and sounded better when I went back down to .056 (even .054 when using C# "standard" to drop B). I think both thicker strings and shorter scale emphasize fundamental over upper harmonics, "lighter" strings bring back some snap and snarl (and when I check what gauge my favourite players use it's almost always lighter than expected).
I guessed wrong
The distortion smothers a large part of the differences. Barre chords assist. You should not expect to hear differences unless you are auditioning undistorted, open chords at the root location. If this is not where your music is played, then you are showing that you can safely ignore setup differences to perform metal music.
And that might actually be a valid takeaway. High gain tonality does introduce a lot of harmonic noise and many of the nuances that would be apparent with clean tones do not come through as much. At that point the question is more about feel and intonation. I would say that I don’t recommend slapping a standard set of strings, even heavier gauge ones on the 25.5” scale and dropping it down. The upper strings are very loose. And to keep the slightly slacked feel of the low string I would probably customize a set from a vendor like stringjoy.
The clean tones demoed at the end show a lot more of not only the pickup differences, but you can also hear the difference in how the sustain and overall timbre of the notes being played are affected. My main takeaway here is that the differences in pickups I noticed negated much of what could be determined about scale length.
It's definitely scale length iv aways loved the sound of loose wobbly strings being hit hard the baritone had much tighter ring out
The looser strings make for a better attack I think. The tighter tension on the baritone holds sustain and chords a little better. The Black winter is a bit more high mid focused as well. Next time I do this type of experiment I am gonna match the pickups, make it a more even shootout.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio I don't think you even need to bother with the pickup changing
If you want a way to change the tone significantly you should disable the tone knob
@@Durkhead neither guitar has a tone knob. I just wired them straight to a 500k pot and to the output jack. I made modular passive pickup circuit box with a volume only as well… I can use it to easily change the pickups out under the strings. I could probably wire up a spare Duncan of some sort and see how each guitar sounds. That way there is no way the pickups are coloring the result. I was also thinking of adding to the experiment by testing them with matched tension strings as well. I know in that instance the shorter scale would be darker and boomier given that I would need thicker stings. But it would be cool to hear.
@Baritone Goat Studio why don't you make a video on how to do that?
Also do you think it's possible to wire in Xbox controller buttons as kill switches I just thought it would look cool
@@Durkhead as long as the buttons are normally open in the circuit and have two leads, you should be able to do that. You just need to connect one side of the button to the tip lug of the output jack, and the other side to the sleeve. When pressed the circuit should close before the signal reaches the pickups and kill the sound.
I have another video a couple weeks back where I use the modular pickup circuit to test if two guitars with different specs sound very different using the same pickup.
I wonder who that youtube pickup guy is?!?!? lol
I wonder?? 😂😂
@@BaritoneGoatStudio Guess he screams often? I find it odd that that a lot of video's show a difference in pups, NOT MASSIVE in some cases, but still something noticeable. Like the Keith Merrow Duncan test of 15 pickups... big diff. in some.
Pickups matter. Tonewood mattes. String gauges matter.
I have a 25.5 scale MIM Strat that I love for many reasons, not the least of which is that it sounds great in A standard. That said, it didn't sound "great" until I went over to a heavier string gauge. Prior to the heavier set I'm using now I was using something like a .065 I think it was. I sounded good, but not great mainly b/c I was has some intonation and buzzing issues. Switching over to the heavier set I'm using now, 80-20, changed that.
Now two other guitars I have, another 25.5" and 27.0, required different string gauges in order to get them sounding how I wanted them. The other 25.5 ended up w/ a set of .68 - .13, & and the 27" a set of .62 -12.
Each guitar has it's own feel and sound b/c each guitar is ade from fidderent materials. One guitar has an alder body and a DiMarzio SD in the bridge, one has a mahogany body/ maple top and a proprietery humbucker in its bridge, and the other a full mahogany body w/ a Tom Anderson humbucker in its bridge position.
Moral of the story? Everything matters. For everthing you either add to or subtract from affects your tone. If it didn't then we'd only have one guitar to choose from, wouldn't we?
Definitely a “sum of its parts” when it comes down to guitars. I think there is a hierarchy in what has a measurable effect on the final sound. In this test, I think these two guitars were not far off from each other in terms of final tone, but I think the pickups being where they were had an effect that result.
What we tend to perceive as “tone” is ultimately more than just the sound coming from the speaker. If a player is having on off performance, the experience is altered and the “tone” of the guitar is being affected by the playing. Granted, nothing is physically changes about the sound wave and frequencies, but it doesn’t matter as much when the playing is off.
Ultimately, we play guitar with our hands first and our ears second. A great sounding guitar that doesn’t feel right in the hand isn’t going to work out. The 25.5” guitar I have here would definitely benefit from having heavier strings on 1-2-3, maybe 4. But I liked the feel of the lowest strings with a little more slack.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio The big problem for me has always been that deadening effect thicker strings have on my tone. This where pickup selction becomes way more inportant than when using tunings like E or D standard on account of the increased flub factor.
I'm surprised no one's made a specially voiced pup for baritones and bass VIs with a haevy accent on the upper mids and highs with a corresponding deflation in the lower mids and bass response.
@@harryanderson7282 the only pickup I know of that is marketed toward low 6 string tunings in the Bareknuckle Impulse. Supposedly it is voiced to make low tunings defined and handle lows without being overwhelmed.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio I'll tell you a secret. Probably the best passive pup for lower tunings you'll find today is a Tom Anderson H3. It's higher output pup w/ a ceramic magnet and a reduced bass response. The site lists the following specs, Resistance 14K, Bass 3, Mids 8, and Treble 7. Price is, I belive, like.. $150? Anyways, I've used a lot of pups for lower tunings, passives and actives, and I've found these to be the best for any tunings A standard or lower.
" Tonewood mattes"? Ahahah, that's the place where everyone can stop reading :D
It was obvious from go which one was the Squire , anyone that uses the wrong gauge of strings for standard/drop B tuning on a 25.5 , knows that tone..... However, that yelling jackhole is wrong anyway. He has done countless videos showing how even the smallest factors can change tone....Even using the same gear but a different player. He's a moron. Cool idea with the Squier though.... I need a couple cheap 25.5 for different tunings... thanks for the idea.
The more I listen the more I can hear a distinct snap to the picking on the Squier that must be due to the somewhat slacked strings. It is more prevalent with the Black winter I think due to the peak frequency on the pickup and the snappier feel of the Squier neck. Mostly the effect probably in how I am picking. I still expected a rounder low end and not quite as tight of response in the frequencies coming through. Squier necks can be super comfortable and cheap. Find an older Bullet!
@@BaritoneGoatStudio Thanks for the recommendation.... BTW, I like the tone of the "looser" strings on the Squire....It's similar to the tone I use when down tuned..... didn't care for the Baritone. The Squier had more definition in my opinion.
@@thespotlights9278A 25.5” scale guitar with the right wings and pickups can be great for even very low baritone tunings. Some players with “24.75 manage fine if the right strings are used.
@@ordohereticus3427 yeah, I use my 25.5 like this frequently
@@thespotlights9278 Great. I mean, it’s well and good to have a baritone if one wants more tension at a thinner syringe gauge, but plenty can be done to get very low tunings even with standard and LP level scales.
Pickups do matter, but glenn fricker does not
😂😂 I am sure he’s agrees somehow. Yeah, in my latest video I get a strong sense of how much the signal chain is a system and the pickup does affect a lot of what comes after it.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio He would respond "in the mix, it doesn't make much of a difference in the mix".
Too many variables to conduct a proper test. For all things to be equal:
If pitch is constant, string diameter should decrease as scale length increases.
If string diameter is constant, pitch should decrease as scale length increases.
If scale length is constant, string diameter should decrease as pitch increases.
You have kept pitch and string diameter the same and changed scale length. This makes no sense.
Also, for your tone comparison to be clear, you should play both guitars clean, without presets.
yeah. I didn’t intend to really compare pickups at the outset. I was more curious how much scale affects tone when simply drop tuning a guitar. But I ended up hearing things that I didn’t expect and it was clear that the pickups, even though not super different on paper, were really making the scale comparison moot. Ultimately dispelling the idea that pickups don’t matter (even high gain) that some RUclips folks have been saying.
Scale length definitely makes a difference. Bad test. Glen is still correct. Mainly because you ignore basic facts. Longer scale less flub on 7 and 8 string. And because your 2 test subjects are too different to be a proper test for the subject of the test. Pickups. Put the same pickups in both guitars and tell me the scale length doesn’t make a difference.
I have done that. In another video. And it does make a difference. I even say so. Just in this test the pickups are too different to draw a real result. As I said. The black winter negates the expectation of what I thought I would hear. No more, no less. The flub that was definitely there, as I said in the video, just didn’t result in the frequency output that I expected like it did when I tested the same pickup in a 25.5” and 24.75” guitar. And why? Because the pickups, even though not much different on paper, don’t sound alike. Hardly anything done on RUclips rises about the threshold of an anecdote. Glenn’s videos as well. He isn’t wrong that a sound engineer isn’t going to care what pickups are in your guitar as long as you are in tune and can play the take correctly. The minor variation in the low end and low mids don’t matter that much. Hell even a loose tension won’t matter if the player is good enough to compensate for the difference. Glenn just isn’t a guitarist more than he is a sound engineer, and it doesn’t make him wrong in what he is saying from his perspective, just doesn’t capture the whole picture. Hard to even say his videos are empirical without bias. But like I said, everything on RUclips is an agglomeration of anecdotes. No more, no less. Jim Lill got so much attention because he actually set up a deductive experiment and removed variables with extreme specificity. And even then his experiment wasn’t perfect, but it is some of the closest stuff to data I have seen.
There’s also the fact that different pickups have different dynamics. The moment we start dialling back the tone knob, substantial differences do emerge.
“But high gain music.”
Not quite. Tone knobs are used in high gain scenarios. Tom Warrior always kept the tone dialled back substantially while tightening things with a tube screamer going into a relatively dimed gain JCM100. Made for a dark but very spacious high gain tone. Trying that technique with different pickups does produce different results, but when it’s dialled up, the differences minimise to the point of not being all that relevant.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio I don’t disagree. I believe the pickups do have a small bit of difference, mostly in the output. But the scale length in my opinion has the greatest impact on the low end response minus the amp and speaker. Yes pickups can help based on output of pickup.
Thank you for the content btw. I’m like what you do.
@@rag103 thanks. I want to redo the test with the same pickup to see what scale really can do to the sound. I made a modular pickup out of a cheap p90 and put the pot and output jack in a Fishman component box. It works! Ha ha. I want to revisit this and take some measurements with the analyzer and see what I get.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio hell ya! Glad someone is making that video. I’ve always wanted to see those results but couldn’t justify the cost, both money and time, to do so
Scale length has a waaaay bigger impact on sound than pickups!!!
I tend to agree that scale has bit more effect than wood or neck construction, and most pickups are a bit closer in construction than these two types tend to be. I thought these two guitars were gonna sound a bit closer.
The black winter only really differs in the pole configuration and a little bit in output. It does create a different magnetic field with higher inductance.
But frequency wise looking at the DI curves the Nazgul had a more pronounced low mid hump, where the Black winter had a truncated low end and a high shelf above 6k where the Nazgul has a sharp drop off.
I though the looser stings would be a bit muddy but they were sharper and had more bite… but what I think was happening too was the larger movement of the strings actually produced a beefier attack. So given the pickup discrepancies along with the lengths and sting tensions, the two guitars really were never going to sound quite the same. There is likely a compounding effect from all the differences between the two guitars. I would expect to hear differences between them even if I were to use the same pickup probably.