Alan W
Well-known member
This is going to be a long post...apologies in advance...
In 2008 I sold a Gibson ES 330, that I had owned for 15 years or so, I loved everything about it except the pencil thin neck (both SKINNY and thin). I really did well on the sale, and was able to buy a then current dream guitar, a Collings 290, and a truly lovely hollow-body, an Eastman 15 inch thin line. Until 2019 when I put together two partscasters, a Baritone Tele and a Strat, they were easily my most played guitars. Along with the parts casters, as I was on a quest for "clean tone" I built an Allen Encore, which is close to a Fender Super Reverb (but single channel, has a master volume, BIAS tremolo, a tone control for the reverb trails, and a raw control, (which is probably the single coolest feature—it fades the entire [subtractive] tone stack out, so you get both a lot more signal feeding the PI and a much larger midrange—effectively, it lets me take the blackface into brown and finally blond territory...). Through the Allen, there was a brashness to the Eastman, that I couldn't get rid of, and decided it was most likely the pickup. Since I was enthralled with the two part casters, I put the Eastman in its case and decided I'd figure it out later.
Late December I did that—and when I tuned it back up to pitch, the metal hinge at the base of the tailpiece fractured! The knuckle broke off! I did a web search, and noticed that this was a common flaw in early Eastman carve tops. I wrote the company, asking if there was a replacement available. Knowing the chances of a reply were slim until after New Year's, I chilled. They got back to me, saying it was no longer being made, and that they didn't have that exact part, but send them some closeups of the base of the guitar and they'd find something that fit. (No request for proof of ownership, etc.)
I got the replacement tailpiece in last Thursday, and needed to drill some new holes for it. Got it mounted and played it on Friday. No brashness! It was (I am supposing here) an as yet invisible fracture in the tailpiece that was creating the distortion! I really had fun playing it; especially stacking low gain pedals (something I didn't use to do...) still keeping the sound almost totally clean, but very feedback prone. I play with my foot permanently attached to a volume pedal, often swelling and making slight adjustments, and found it easy to ride the feedback, keeping it in more of less in control, and using the feedback as a changing drone to play off of. Major gas!
This got me thinking. I've really loved Baritone—are there any Baritone hollowbodies out there? So I could mix the Baritone voice with the feedback fun? A quick search only found one true hollow body, a very fancy D'Angelico that was just too fancy. (Based on my Eastman, I have no issues believing that a Chinese sourced jazz guitar would be flawed.) But, I also hit on a guitar, and luthier, I had never heard of before, Grez Guitars, who makes a semi hollow Baritone, the Mendocino.
www.grezguitars.com
Even better, he's an hour away from me! And yesterday morning, my wife mentioned she was driving to that town today for a meeting, was I interested in hiking in the area? I emailed Barry, the luthier/owner, who said, stop on by—but he had no Baritones completed right now, it would be a few weeks. So— I will go up for a quick visit today, will play a non Baritone Mendocino, and also talk to him about a 15 inch thin line, probably with a spruce top, to begin to decide how open sounding (and also feedback prone) I want a Baritone to be. This could mean either a new guitar in a few weeks, or up to 18 months (current wait for completely custom builds)—and last week I didn't see any new guitars in my future.
To be continued...
In 2008 I sold a Gibson ES 330, that I had owned for 15 years or so, I loved everything about it except the pencil thin neck (both SKINNY and thin). I really did well on the sale, and was able to buy a then current dream guitar, a Collings 290, and a truly lovely hollow-body, an Eastman 15 inch thin line. Until 2019 when I put together two partscasters, a Baritone Tele and a Strat, they were easily my most played guitars. Along with the parts casters, as I was on a quest for "clean tone" I built an Allen Encore, which is close to a Fender Super Reverb (but single channel, has a master volume, BIAS tremolo, a tone control for the reverb trails, and a raw control, (which is probably the single coolest feature—it fades the entire [subtractive] tone stack out, so you get both a lot more signal feeding the PI and a much larger midrange—effectively, it lets me take the blackface into brown and finally blond territory...). Through the Allen, there was a brashness to the Eastman, that I couldn't get rid of, and decided it was most likely the pickup. Since I was enthralled with the two part casters, I put the Eastman in its case and decided I'd figure it out later.
Late December I did that—and when I tuned it back up to pitch, the metal hinge at the base of the tailpiece fractured! The knuckle broke off! I did a web search, and noticed that this was a common flaw in early Eastman carve tops. I wrote the company, asking if there was a replacement available. Knowing the chances of a reply were slim until after New Year's, I chilled. They got back to me, saying it was no longer being made, and that they didn't have that exact part, but send them some closeups of the base of the guitar and they'd find something that fit. (No request for proof of ownership, etc.)
I got the replacement tailpiece in last Thursday, and needed to drill some new holes for it. Got it mounted and played it on Friday. No brashness! It was (I am supposing here) an as yet invisible fracture in the tailpiece that was creating the distortion! I really had fun playing it; especially stacking low gain pedals (something I didn't use to do...) still keeping the sound almost totally clean, but very feedback prone. I play with my foot permanently attached to a volume pedal, often swelling and making slight adjustments, and found it easy to ride the feedback, keeping it in more of less in control, and using the feedback as a changing drone to play off of. Major gas!
This got me thinking. I've really loved Baritone—are there any Baritone hollowbodies out there? So I could mix the Baritone voice with the feedback fun? A quick search only found one true hollow body, a very fancy D'Angelico that was just too fancy. (Based on my Eastman, I have no issues believing that a Chinese sourced jazz guitar would be flawed.) But, I also hit on a guitar, and luthier, I had never heard of before, Grez Guitars, who makes a semi hollow Baritone, the Mendocino.
Grez Guitars The Mendocino Baritone Guitar
The Mendocino Baritone Guitar, a compact light weight semi-hollowbody. Professional level feel, sound and build quality. A great alternative to the no longer available Jerry Jones Baritons models.
www.grezguitars.com
Even better, he's an hour away from me! And yesterday morning, my wife mentioned she was driving to that town today for a meeting, was I interested in hiking in the area? I emailed Barry, the luthier/owner, who said, stop on by—but he had no Baritones completed right now, it would be a few weeks. So— I will go up for a quick visit today, will play a non Baritone Mendocino, and also talk to him about a 15 inch thin line, probably with a spruce top, to begin to decide how open sounding (and also feedback prone) I want a Baritone to be. This could mean either a new guitar in a few weeks, or up to 18 months (current wait for completely custom builds)—and last week I didn't see any new guitars in my future.
To be continued...
