My 513 Baritone Experiment

[Utkarsh]

My Blue Matteo 2008 513 is a lovely guitar which I'll probably never sell, but due to two other 513s in the stable, I thought having all of them in the same tuning was a bit redundant. At the same time, I have recently started playing a lot more in B standard and drop A, and find the 27-28" baritone scale length a touch cumbersome.
I saw Anderton's Sound like Slipknot and something clicked when I realized that they play in Drop A with a 25.5" scale length. The 513 is close enough at 25.25.
Long story short, add 13-56 strings, adjust the bridge and intonation, switch to clear humbucking bridge for leads, single coil position 4 for cleans, and you will never need any other Baritone guitar.
Video with some words and sounds below

 

[bodia]

Sweet!

 

[Bowtiefanatc]

Nice!! I’ve been looking for a bari and while I like the SE277, I would much prefer a core. Might have to consider this as an option

 

[Andy80]

This is a great idea. Are you getting any floppiness on the 56 string?

I have a Reverend baritone, but I hate playing it. It sounds ok, but the 26.5" scale length is tough to handle, and it also has 14-68 strings on it.

I just setup my SC 245 yesterday with 12-60's, and they sound and feel fantastic, but that guitar is drop B. 11-56 is pretty close (Actually, I went looking for this set, but couldn't find it, and settled on 12-60).

Thanks for the video! This seriously makes me want to get a 513 because the Tremonti baritones were only a limited run and their prices are ridiculous right now. Could the same be done here with a 509 in theory?

 

[Andrew Paul]

Very cool idea! I love my 513, never thought of taking advantage of the longer scale length for lower tunings, well done. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Utkarsh]

This is a great idea. Are you getting any floppiness on the 56 string?

I have a Reverend baritone, but I hate playing it. It sounds ok, but the 26.5" scale length is tough to handle, and it also has 14-68 strings on it.

I just setup my SC 245 yesterday with 12-60's, and they sound and feel fantastic, but that guitar is drop B. 11-56 is pretty close (Actually, I went looking for this set, but couldn't find it, and settled on 12-60).

Thanks for the video! This seriously makes me want to get a 513 because the Tremonti baritones were only a limited run and their prices are ridiculous right now. Could the same be done here with a 509 in theory?

The 56 string could be tighter in drop A. In B its fine. But as you saw from my video Im able to do tight riffs just fine, only limited by my technique.
I did consider a 60 but the limitation i reached was that it was too thick to fit into the tuner post and I didnt think it was a great idea to attempt widening that on my own or at all.

 

[Utkarsh]

The 509 could potentially do it but I will caution that what made the 513 click was the clear humbucker mode which provided the clarity for downtuning with gain. Heavy humbucker mode was a mud fest . I know the 509s humbuckers are somewhere in between these two so its probably a toss on whether it will be clear enough

 

[DISTORT6]

NICE!
I have a Singlecut I keep in B-Standard strung up with the same gauge strings that you are using.