Beneteau Baritone - Who has one? What can you say about it?

[justonwo]

Based on what I've read and heard, Marc Beneteau appears to be one of the most respected baritone builders out there. I was particularly impressed by a sound clip that Pete Thorn created (but only after playing the video through my home stereo). Gorgeous sound.

But it's hard to extrapolate from sound clips to real life. Those of you that have, or have played one, I'd love to hear your feedback.

[The Bard Rocks]

Although he didn't make my baritone, quite a few folks have said how much they like what he does. If I had to pick a short list of the best baritone builders, he would certainly be on it.

[RAD3]

Don Ross plays Beneteaus including a 2008 SJ multi-scale Baritone. You might dig around on YouTube and see if you can find him playing it.

I'd like to say I have one of my own but...I don't

Edit: Just ran across this vid from Dream Guitars on another thread here at AGF. Nice demo of a Beneteau Baritone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoKYnZc1UNU

Ray

[justonwo]

I actually think this video by Pete Thorn really showcases that baritone's sound very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWztnvnBAd0

[muzz76]

Marc is an awesome guy and a great flattop builder period.

I haven't had the pleasure of one of his baritones first hand but having experienced two builds with him already as well as his reputation for baritones in general...he would be my go to.

[Wade Hampton]

I owned one of Don Ross's cast-off Beneteau baritones for a while, then sold it to Tony "Mycroft" Weber. It's a superb instrument.

I happen to prefer my McAlister baritone because it's more musically versatile, in my opinion. I also like the Berkowitz baritones I've played a whole lot.

But any of these builders will do a fine job making a baritone for you. To me, the really critical issue when it comes to acoustic baritone guitars is having a long enough scale length. 28 inches is the practical minimum if you want the baritone to project in an acoustic setting, especially if you ever plan to play it in an ensemble setting with other musicians.

I knew Lance McCollum quite well, and liked his standard guitars. But all of the baritones of his I came across were built with a shorter scale length, and as a result they are not nearly as projective as the longer scale baritones. Same thing with the Taylor baritones: with their 27 inch scale length, they're essentially dedicated solo fingerstyle guitars, not all-arounders that can handle any musical tasks thrown in their path.

Yes, you can plug them in and be heard, and obviously a large percentage of the players who are inclined to buy baritone guitars in the first place are going to be solo fingerstyle players. But using the longer scale gives baritones more versatility and a wider set of applications, whether they're plugged in or not.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[jibberibber]

I have had the pleasure of playing one of Don Ross' Beneteau baritones. It sounded great. However at the same time it made me realize I would not want to own a baritone. They appear to require the left hand strength of a gorilla. Perhaps it was the setup, but if you haven't spent much time playing baritones I would try to get your hands on anything just to find out whether or not you think you can handle the extra string tension and thickness.

[justonwo]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

I owned one of Don Ross's cast-off Beneteau baritones for a while, then sold it to Tony "Mycroft" Weber. It's a superb instrument.

I happen to prefer my McAlister baritone because it's more musically versatile, in my opinion. I also like the Berkowitz baritones I've played a whole lot.

But any of these builders will do a fine job making a baritone for you. To me, the really critical issue when it comes to acoustic baritone guitars is having a long enough scale length. 28 inches is the practical minimum if you want the baritone to project in an acoustic setting, especially if you ever plan to play it in an ensemble setting with other musicians.

I knew Lance McCollum quite well, and liked his standard guitars. But all of the baritones of his I came across were built with a shorter scale length, and as a result they are not nearly as projective as the longer scale baritones. Same thing with the Taylor baritones: with their 27 inch scale length, they're essentially dedicated solo fingerstyle guitars, not all-arounders that can handle any musical tasks thrown in their path.

Yes, you can plug them in and be heard, and obviously a large percentage of the players who are inclined to buy baritone guitars in the first place are going to be solo fingerstyle players. But using the longer scale gives baritones more versatility and a wider set of applications, whether they're plugged in or not.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

As usual, your thoughtful reply has been very helpful.

Originally Posted by jibberibber

I have had the pleasure of playing one of Don Ross' Beneteau baritones. It sounded great. However at the same time it made me realize I would not want to own a baritone. They appear to require the left hand strength of a gorilla. Perhaps it was the setup, but if you haven't spent much time playing baritones I would try to get your hands on anything just to find out whether or not you think you can handle the extra string tension and thickness.

I have actually played a few baritones, one for quite some time built by Steve Saville and another built by Mustapick (though only briefly). I think if set up properly they don't require THAT much more hand strength. Perhaps Don's guitar was set up with high action because he has the hand strength of someone that plays bari all the time.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by jibberibber

I have had the pleasure of playing one of Don Ross' Beneteau baritones. It sounded great. However at the same time it made me realize I would not want to own a baritone. They appear to require the left hand strength of a gorilla. Perhaps it was the setup, but if you haven't spent much time playing baritones I would try to get your hands on anything just to find out whether or not you think you can handle the extra string tension and thickness.

As Juston has already stated, you don't need to have the hand strength of a gorilla to play a properly set up baritone. If Mr. Ross's baritone is the only baritone you've had your hands on and it required serious hand strength to play, I think that says more about his vigorous playing style than it does about all baritone guitars.

Having said that, there is some adjustment needed, in terms of getting used to both the heavier string gauge and the longer scale length.

My McAlister was the first acoustic baritone guitar in Alaska when I got it 13 years ago. I'm the kind of guy who'll happily let other guitarists play my instruments, but I've found that some players have been quite intimidated by both the length of the neck and the heft of the strings on the baritone, and don't even want to touch it, it's so alien to their conception of a guitar family instrument.

Others take to it like ducks to water, so it just depends on the individual...

Anyway, you can get an acoustic baritone guitar set up like any other guitar, provided it's a decent quality instrument and has the proper neck set geometry.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[justonwo]

Wade, what are your thoughts on body size. I imagine the SJ sounds huge and I actually prefer that body design visually, but it's a big guitar and I'm not exactly tall. I've spent some time with am SJ-200 but not much. The other option is the "M" style body with a 16" lower bout.

[Wade Hampton]

Juston, my McAlister is based on Roy McAlister's jumbo body, which is either 16 1/2" or 16 1/4" across the lower bout (I forget which, and am frankly too lazy to get out the tape measure and check it this late at night...)

The Don Ross/Ryan Alexander/Wade Hampton/Tony Weber Beneteau baritone that was here for a while before departing for Seattle's cloudier climes was bigger - I think it's 17" across.

I guess I'm lucky in that I'm long-armed and long-legged and have no particular problems with any given guitar body size. But it seems that baritones would need to be at least as big as a Martin 0000/M to be effective getting those lower frequencies. The body depth plays a role, as well.

Naturally, if you're going to commission a custom build, this is the sort of thing you'll want to hash out with the builder. All of my own experience with acoustic baritones has been empirical rather than systematic, and so all that I can tell you is anecdotal, really.

But there's absolutely no question in my mind that scale length is much more important than just about any other factor. If a longer scale length seems daunting to you at this information-gathering stage that you're in, maybe I can reassure you that it's simply a matter of figuring out strategies to deal with that in terms of hand positions and using partial chords instead of six string campfire chords.

I'm a pretty quick study when it comes to figuring out new musical instruments, but it took me the better part of a year to figure out the best way to utilize my McAlister when I first got it. Of course, part of that had to do with ordering custom wound low B strings, because the assortment of heavier gauges that are now available simply weren't back then.

But even so there's a transitional period where you have to make sense of the instrument and figure out how to best navigate it for the music that YOU'RE going to play. A lot of that is learning how to edit your playing and to train yourself to play implied chords and use one or two strings to say something that you'd use three or four strings to say on a standard six string guitar.

That's actually part of the fun.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[dberkowitz]

Juston, I think the geometry of the guitar plays more into this than anything. J185 derived instruments sit with the lower bout in a fashion that is very different from a dreadnaught. The Dreadnaught sits higher and due to its shallow waist, it sits more evenly across the knee. The J185 styled instruments sit lower and with the lower bout away from the player, making it more comfortable, relatively speaking.

Adding a wedge alleviates the problem of body depth because it makes the body narrower under the arm as it crosses the body. Add an armrest and a rib-rest and you're in ergonomic heaven. Each of these address different issues. The wedge addresses the hyper-rotation of the shoulder around the body of the guitar by reducing the depth that the upper arm, back and shoulder have to cross when in playing position. The armrest increases the surface area on which the forearm rests thereby reducing the stress on the tendons. A rib-rest simply makes things more comfortable by chamfering away the body so there isn't so much of a corner.

[justonwo]

I just played a Taylor Leo Kottke 12 string today at McCabe's in Santa Monica. Its lower bout is 17" and the depth is 4 5/8". I actually found this guitar to be quite comfortable to play, perhaps because the waist is shifted forward? It doesn't feel as big as any of the SJ-200s I've played. That's a very cool sounding 12 string by the way. It really did sound like Kottke in a can.

http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars...-kottke-guitar

I also played a Taylor 8 string baritone and a 29 1/4" Gold Tone. Neither guitar had much presence. The bass notes just seemed to be swallowed up in the guitar. Not at all what I heard in the sound clips of the Beneteau baritones I've heard. Both had very high action so were not so easy to play. I much preferred the Mustapick and Saville I played in the past.

[dberkowitz]

It's not that the waist is forward shifted it's that it's narrower so it sits lower.

[justonwo]

Originally Posted by dberkowitz

It's not that the waist is forward shifted it's that it's narrower so it sits lower.

Yep, your points about the shape and waist are dead on, I think. As I recall, my Goodall Standard felt like a really big guitar because the waist was so wide. The narrow waist on the Leo Kottke guitar was probably the reason it felt so comfortable.

With the narrow waist, I think the wedge probably isn't as necessary, but the armrest bevel is probably a good idea. I would go with both, but that's not an option with Beneteau.

I'm having one built with Alaskan Sitka Spruce and Padouk, much like the guitar at Dream Guitars right now, but with a couple of tweaks.