Beginnings & Baritones - Part 2

In my past if I had something lying around for more than a year, I'd sell it or trade it in. In recent years I've held on to alot of pedals, mostly because the thought is "they're small, and dont take up alot of space, and I might use them someday". Someday seems not never come, and I decided to move these lil tone machines on.

My shelves and storage areas in the nooks of our 1 bedroom condo have been bursting with pedals. Most of these don't see the light of day. I've used them, liked them and moved on. I have a few I would never part with, for example, my Fulltone GT500, Madprofessor Twimble, My modded Boss BD2, EHX Soulfood, My Fuzzrocious MOTH, among others.

So I talked to a buddy of mine, and after a brief discussion I realised I'm actually sitting on a pretty big pile of pedals and other gear that individually aren't alot to cover the cost of a baritone guitar on their own. But collectively, if I could get them to all go for the right prices, I could clear off my pedal shelf, and use the money to get a baritone, Win-Win!

I'm not going to list what I decided to part with. 1. This isn't a buy/sell page 2. I don't want someone to think that because I'm selling a particular item, that its bad. I can't control what people think, or what they take away from this blog, but I can control some aspects of the content, and I don't want any black marks on any companies and their products, because i'm parting ways with them.

I re-configured my reverb.com account to funnel the profits (yes it sounds illegal, funnelling profits and all) to my guitar fund. Now posting items on reverb doesn't didn't mean they would fly off my shelf immediately. Never mind the haggling back and forth that can happen and the inevitable lowball offers. I prefer local sales, but I kind of like not having to meet at a Dunkin Donuts or a Barnes and Noble. On June 30th I had everything posted. By July 9th everything was gone. I had priced everything to move, at reasonable rates. I had also saved my gig money from my cover band, so I was sitting pretty by early August.

Now like Tyler Durden, I had acquired funding. But during this time I explored other baritone options:

The Chapman ML1 Modern Baritone has alot going for it.

PROS:
Price - $599 
Scale length is 28"
The ash veneer in grey & black is very bespoke, and classy.
I've played a few other Chapman guitars, and they were well done, and sounded great.

CONS:
No dealer in the area to try one out, or at least a dealer I can find that's local to me.

Holidays are usually excuses for retailers that stay open to have sales. John Mann usually does a guitar clinic with Paul Reed Smith, with some great players in tow. This September he had one, and as usual, deals were to be had. I made a B-line to the SE area, and found the only baritone in stock. I grabbed it, and plugged it in. It sounded and felt fantastic as I remembered that big, fat low end. I won't say what I paid for it, but it was a good deal overall. I'm not a PRS endorsing artist, but I can say if you live in in New England, and want a PRS, John Mann is the way to go. 

So here it is: my 277 SE Baritone. I think it's an older model, maybe a 2017. the current PRS website only offers it in a wine burst. Mine is a really nice transparent red all around. It has the mahogany body with a maple top. The flame top is a veneer thats's sitting on top of the maple cap, and looks really great in person.

First off It plays great. I'll attribute that to a few things. 1. When PRS gets their SE's from overseas, they go to Maryland for final tweaks/setup and overall quality control inspection. 2. John Mann goes through every guitar he gets in so I'm betting it got tweaked and adjusted to adapt to our ever changing new england weather. The nut is well cut, and the fretwork is great. 

Electronics wise It's quite simple, with what they would call "McCarty" electronics: a master volume, master tone with a Push Pull coil split/tap, and a 3 way toggle switch. I've come to love the PRS 5 way rotary switch, and this isn't that much of a transition.

As far as mods go, in most cases I can grab a guitar and know right away as to what it might need to suit my needs better. This is a tough one though. The pickups are pretty good overall, they are PRS's 85/15 SE set, and as of now I can't justify a reason to dump them. I'll have to take it to a few practices to really come to a decision on that. The tuners are a non locking style, but as they hold some seriously heavy strings, there doesn't seem to be any slippage. I might upgrade to a locking tuner at some point, just to make string changes quicker. I've already put my usual schaller strap locks on it, and I'll have to now stock a few packs of strings:

If I do go down the pickup mod route, I might try to get some nickel covers, and black pickup rings. I'm not against the exposed Zebra coils and white rings, just a thought to mix it up a bit.

The Image above is from one of the many PRS Facebook pages, one SE277 owner did this aesthetic mod, and it looks very classy. It has a very "McCarty" look to it. 

Overall It's a wild instrument to transition to. Now, a G chord in standard tuning is now a D chord..I'm hoping to use it in a clean setting with my cover band, to fill things out a bit, Instead of using a capo on some songs. Clean with the coil tap, it is nice and full. Throw on some dirt and it's mean. The longer scale is a bit of an adjustment, but the neck shape is very familiar and very comfortable. In my original band, The Goodbye theory, I'm hoping I can open up some new sounds with this too. It's certainly a game changer that doesn't feel limited.

One thing I am pretty proud of myself on though is the budgeting, and I didn't have to put it on a credit card or a financing option. I simply sold some old gear, saved my gig money, and my usual guitar fund allowed me to get this. It's not easy being patient, and it's certainly not one of my virtues, but in this case it's a lot sweeter to have this, and NOT have a monthly payment hanging over my head.