Saturday, June 21

Telecaster Bass VI

w00t!

Look what I spent most of the evening assembling, then playing -





You can't necessarily tell from these photos, but this is no standard telecaster. The neck is a Warmoth Baritone conversion neck with a 28.25" scale length (2.75" longer than a standard tele) and she's tuned a full octave lower than a normal guitar, like a Fender Bass VI! The low E string, tuned to the same pitch as a bass, is a 0.95! You can see how thick it is in the second pic. The "high" E is a .25!

The sound is phenomenal, and the compound radius and extra fret or so on the Warmoth neck are awesome. I'm already doing some stuff with this guitar that I could never do with one in standard tuning. The timbre of the strings played high up the neck is otherworldly. I can see now why the Cure use a Bass VI constantly.

But fear not, I'm not going to become a Robert Smith ripoff. I've already got one tune that I'm going to play on this guitar and it's not very cure-like. I'm sure more will follow. That's the whole point of a new guitar - to inspire new songs through new sounds. It never fails.

'Course now I'm going to have to lug four guitars to every gig, but whatever. It's fun.



- Jesse Kates / the Sexy Accident > listen on iTunes