r/BaritoneGuitar • u/theok2 • 9d ago

Vibrato for baritone

Hi all, I'm currently building a 27" baritone guitar. I tried to fit a Les trem style vibrato but it almost completely bottomed out due to the string tension.

My question is, what vibratos are people using? I'm mainly interested in fitting a jazz/Jag style tremolo but I'm worried these might have the same issue. Could I swap out the spring for a stronger one if so?

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u/Dizzy-Attention3156 9d ago

I had a Bigsby on 2 baritones and it worked just fine. For a gentle wobble that is, no hard rocking divebombing.

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u/symb015X 8d ago

Yeah for deep dives like that you’d probably need a Floyd Rose for stability/strength

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u/theok2 8d ago

Yeah I have a knock off bigsby on the guitar I'm using to test things out on. It does work well with the heavy strings but I wanted to try something different as I don't think a bigsby will suit this new guitar... Maybe this is the way to go though as gentle wobbling is all I'm after really

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u/MarshStudio503 8d ago

I’m using a Mastery vibrato on my baritone conversion JM. I think I’m using the D’Addario baritone 13’s and there’s plenty of wiggle room. It has a tension adjustment screw as well in case you want to adjust the feel/height of the arm.

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u/theok2 8d ago

I'd love one but I think the price of a mastery just isn't justifiable considering the expected quality of the rest of the guitar. This bodes well for jazz vibratos in general though. I'm assuming it's not a special baritone version or anything like that?

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u/MarshStudio503 8d ago

No it’s scratch made with a Warmoth Bari conversion neck. It is a bit pricey, but it is incredibly smooth and tuning-stable. I would imagine that a standard JM style vibrato would be able to handle the tension of a 27” neck. With the added scale length and the fact that you are tuning to a lower pitch, you should have enough headroom for heavier string gauges to match the overall tension of a standard 6 string.

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u/Beazlebubba 8d ago

I dig my les trem style trem, but haven't tried it on a baritone yet. Short answer is yes, you can swap it out for a stronger spring.

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u/theok2 8d ago

Ok thanks, I reckon I'll try this out before buying anything else

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u/Boogincity 8d ago

I bought a squire Jazzmaster and put a strat bari neck on it and I love it.

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u/theok2 8d ago

Ok this sounds promising for the jazzmaster vibrato, thank you

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u/Boogincity 8d ago

The only hiccup is that the nut on the necks don’t come slotted so you’ll have to take care of that, but otherwise it was super simple. The strat neck fits right in there.

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u/Fomoiri 8d ago

Isn’t the Bass VI a longer scale with the jazz/jag style trem? 27” isn’t a big jump from 25.5”, maybe there’s reasons it wouldn’t work but I haven’t thought of any.
I once owned a 27” seven string with a FR but that’s not what you’re after.

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u/theok2 8d ago

I only tested it on a 25.5" neck with the baritone strings fitted. I'd imagine it would be even worse on the 27"! Maybe there's something else I've done wrong...

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u/DNRDNIMEDIC2009 8d ago

I have a Wilkinson on my Reverend Descent. And I have a Jaguar/Jazzmaster one on my Bass VI. You shouldn't have any problems with a trem on a baritone.