[freddyfingers]

Wow, Good for you. Its got to be spectacular! Tremendous!

[vjf1968]

If I had the cash I would break down and get a Jerry Jones but alas hey shut down his Nashville factory.

[freddyfingers]

I looked into those. My luck, I start looking at Baritones, and he goes away. Aren't the Danelectro longhorns a take on his bari?

[jamesfarrell]

Here's my current Baritone

Just finished this new neck and slapped it on. Thing is the best resonator I've ever owned / played. Low and behold a pic and a clip.

Here's the clip, will download an mp3. Rough recording on a crap recorder. Redoing the recording with the band.
https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D168806_8768467_613206

[68GuitarPlayer]

Nice playing James! Really enjoyed that.

[jamesfarrell]

Thanks man

[freddyfingers]

Very nice. Its refreshing to hear. Most of the time i go look for obaritone sound clips, theres some guy/gal playing this heavy hard strum pattern, that just drives me insane. You cant hear the guitar from all the effects. Allthough the recording was low, it hit the spot. I looked into putting a different neck on a cheap squire i got for free, but after buying a neck, and having to fiddle with it, it was cheaper to get a whole guitar, so I am.

[jamesfarrell]

Well it already was a baritone. You can't just throw a baritone neck on any national resonator. The sound well has to be moved back a tad. I got the guitar on Loan from the company to test out, I ended up buying it, loving it and had them send me an unfinished neck. It was a horrorshow of a project but I did it.

[araT]

Very nice work James, it looks & sounds fantastic!

[tremelo68]

Nice playing James!

Sent from my iPhone using G-T Forum

[TeeDub]

Sorry - a little late to this party, but for anyone else just checking in I would also like to recommend the Eastwood Sidejack. I bought the DLX model (w/whammy) a while back to use for the "tick-tock" bass parts in a Patsy Cline tribute show.

I originally wanted a Dano for the cool factor but our guitar player talked me into the Eastwood, based on build quality, and I'm glad he did. The set neck and the tiered top speak to the craftsmanship in these guitars. The P-90s are fabulous. With a B - B tuning these things really twang and growl. That low B just really hits you in the gut in a good way. Gonna use it for some surfy/TexMexy compositions I'm working on. This is really a fine quality instrument (I did change the control knobs) at a great price. I like the Eastwood P90s so much that I'm thinking about getting the regular Sidejack guitar, as well.

[Tele295]

Originally Posted by freddyfingers

I have heard horror stories about the dan's, as in you get what you pay for. Is this true? I am willing to settle for a less expensive guitar, if it plays well, and doesn't break in two weeks.

What sort of horror stories have you heard about the Danos? I have 2 Dani Baritones. They work and play great. I also have a vintage Bass VI, but nothing sounds like the Dano. It is the classic baritone/tic-tac/6SB sound. The low price point is an added feature, but even historically Danos have never been high priced guitars.

[freddyfingers]

Originally Posted by Tele295

What sort of horror stories have you heard about the Danos? I have 2 Dani Baritones. They work and play great. I also have a vintage Bass VI, but nothing sounds like the Dano. It is the classic baritone/tic-tac/6SB sound. The low price point is an added feature, but even historically Danos have never been high priced guitars.

I have heard you get what you pay for. I have seen online sights where they show you how to put the tape back on the guitar. Frets that are uneven, some higher, some lower, tuners that don't hold tune. On a similar note, heard the
same about the sidejack. I am guessing its all up to the individual player. I can tell you that since i started this thread over a month ago, none of the local store, or even few further away have gotten any. Nor has there been any within a reasonable driving distance on CL. SO, until i can actually play one, i am out of luck.

[freddyfingers]

Thrilled this thread is still going. I have seen the adds for the fender tele baritone, but no one on line has pics yet or info on it. Anyone here know anything about them, they are 499, and come in copper to silver, blacktops. MIM i believe.

[The4thFloor]

Originally Posted by freddyfingers

Leaning towards the gretsch, can't pass up a bigsby.

I have a G5265 (in B tuning.) The bridge bushings were loose, which was just my incredibly bad luck, not a common problem as far as I know. The fretwork is pretty good, no buzzes or flat frets.

The Bigsby works very well, stays in tune most of the time. You *may* need to slightly widen the nut grooves, depending on your string gauges.

The stock minibuckers were a bit muddy for my taste on the low B.

All in all, this is a good guitar but somewhat overpriced, at least in Europe.

[freddyfingers]

Thanks The fourth floor!

[Johnny Lawndart]

Hey freddyfingers -

My wife (god love her) bought me the 5265 for xmas. If I had read all that James had gone through, I probably wouldn't have put it on my list. However, I hadn't, so I went with it sight unseen. It arrived already tuned (ish) B to B, and playing it immediately, I realized some now common problems.

1. The neck pickup is fixed in a low, "rhythm only" position.
2. The bridge rocks in the body with trem activation.
3. The tremolo has no "zero" point where the strings return in tune.
4. A little bit of expected buzz.

So the first chance I got, I took it to the basement for an overhaul, which I expected to do regardless of glaring problems. Here's what I did:

1. I bought springs and longer pickup screws from the hardware store and reloaded the neck pickup. Now I can back it out until it touches the strings. This resulted in a rich, throaty, surf/rockabilly growl, and a cool, bluesy blend position.

2. I immediately decided that the knife bridge was improperly spec'd for the Bigsby, stopped using it to save the body, and ordered a $30 roller bridge which slipped right over the existing pins. It works perfectly and looks stock.

3. This was the big one for me since I won't use the tremolo if it won't return to tune. I pulled off the Bigsby so I could grind down the arm stop tab (I prefer it to swing over the strings for "multi-tasking"), and discovered significant binding in its rotation. A manufacturing flaw was forcing the arm to compress the journals(?), pinching the whole thing together. I removed the arm-side c-clip and replaced it with a thin, plastic washer I cut out of a yogurt lid to reduce any remaining friction. The c-clip on that side is redundant anyway since the arm rides so close. This changed everything! Now it floats like butter (does butter float?) and snaps back to zero every time!

4. During the overhaul, I foil-taped all cavities (but not the jack hole!) and ground them to each other. It's completely silent.

Before its overhaul, I was considering building my own baritone since the range is SO fun to play, but now that everything works so well, I couldn't imaging losing this guitar! For $500+, I totally recommend it if you're okay doing a little fun work on it. Just keep your headstock away from the cats.

[freddyfingers]

Thanks Johnny. Welcome to the forum! Yopu have a lot more motor skills than I do. Iwouldnt attempt any of those, other than the bridge replacement. I don't understand what you mean by tremelo doesn't go back to zero, does that mean when you use the bigsby, it doesn't fall back into neutral, so to speak? Or were your referring to the arm of the bigsby. Either way, thanks for the thumbs up.

[Johnny Lawndart]

Thanks Freddy!
Yes. By "zero" I meant neutral. Before the fix, I was noticing that if I dropped the tremolo down, then let it slowly back up, the strings were all suddenly tuned flat. I would have to either manually lift it a bit to pitch them up, or let the arm snap back up on its own. Now, with everything loosey-goosey, it works like a champ!

I don't think you need to do all these fixes, but if you end up re-stringing it to do the bridge, take a look at doing the spring/screws in the neck pickup. It's actually really easy with the strings off and makes a HUGE difference in your sound.

[freddyfingers]

If you get a chance, post a pic.