Super excited and wanted to share my just-peeled-the-plastic-off-new 8-string baritone! After playing a Guild baritone and discovering it pairs great with my flavor of finger-style, I traded up to this 326ce yesterday. Still learning new harmonic rolls, different ways to hit the paired courses, and such-- the lower register and pairs have been creatively inspiring. I don’t see a way to upload a short sound clip here, but if that’s possible and anyone is interest, lmk. Cheers!
Fucking love my 8 string baritone. There are a lot of videos on YT. The best part is that while the extra strings take a little bit of getting used to, you can mostly just pick it up and play it like it was in standard tuning. I have a lot of fun playing around with familiar tunes, pitched lower.
Awesome! What kind of 8-string do you play? The taylor is definitely easier to pick up and play like a normal guitar. I think a big part of that is the closer spacing of the paired courses. The guild model set them farther apart, which made hitting individual harmonics a lot easier. I’m going to play it a few weeks at this point, but I’m already considering replacing the saddle to have a slightly wider spacing on the paired strings.
Obviously haven’t been super active on here, but yeah… mine is a Taylor GT8. Such a cool guitar.
What a beauty! What’s the scale on the neck and what tuning do you run it at? Never played an acoustic baritone but I bet it’s hell on your calluses.
Thanks! 27in is the scale length according to taylor’s website. It’s definitely easier than the jumbo Guild baritone, which I think was 27"–but yes, both of them are devastating on calluses compared to standard guitar. Actually, I mostly play mandolin these days and still baritone is quite a bit more difficult on my fingers.
The action is slammed down (lowered saddle & truss rod) to the point it buzzes a bit with a pick, but it plays like butter. I might loosen the rod tension a bit once I’m more comfortable with it.
B E A D F# B is “standard”, although I’ve been mostly playing in open A tuning: mainly A E A D E A (dadgad, but lower) and more recently A E A D E G#.
Color me interested but I have no idea how you’d post a clip. I’ve always liked the idea of something between bass and guitar.
Sending you a pm w/ a couple of links if you’re still interested!
Nice! Is it the 3rd and 4th strings that have the doubled courses? And how are you tuning it?
Correct and thank you! I’ve been mostly playing A E A D E A (dadgad, but lower). I’ve been toying with minor modifications (a fav so far is the first string down half a step to g#) though.
I would love to hear it!
pm’d you a short clip! :)
