I am often asked for my recommendation for baritone pickups. Baritone guitars are more popular than ever. Many of our pickups have found their way into baritone guitars with great success. This page shows my recommendations.
So what are you looking for in a baritone pickup? The essence of a baritone guitar pickup is to tame the bass. The instrument itself produces a lot of low frequencies so adding to it just makes mush. Clarity and definition are what is needed.
Table of Contents
Telecaster Baritone Pickup
The Duchess Tele set is ideal for baritone Telecasters. Its tight tele twang translates to a full tone with plenty of definition with a longer scale length.
P90 Baritone pickup
The Black Sand is available in Soapbar, Dogear or humbucker size P90.
It has less mid range ‘clonk’ than some of our other more traditional P90’s. That makes it a fantastic baritone pickup in either neck or bridge position. In a long scale guitar is has the P90 character but with no mush when tuned down.
It is available with a few cover options.
Humbucker Baritone Pickup
For Most Styles
The Playmaker set has a balanced eq response. It is very reactive to pick dynamics with a clear low end. For clean humbucker tones to overdrive. It’s a great pickup to add a series/parallel switch to.
For Metal
The Warwolf was designed for low tuned aggressive metal. Its punch and immediacy stand out in the most dense mix. It retains its distinctive character no matter how low the tuning.
For Doom
The Draig set was designed for low tuned doom. Fat riffs with heavy fuzz. No tuning is too low. This set makes great baritone pickups for doom, sludge and all genres using low tuning and heavy fuzz.
Filtertron Baritone Pickups
The Tron is built like the Filtertrons of old.
Its large magnet and low wind count produces an immediate attack very suited to baritones.
What Is A Baritone Guitar?
A baritone guitar is a six string guitar with a longer scale length. The scale length is the length of the vibrating string when played open. Electric guitars usually have a scale length from 24.75″ to 25.5″. A baritone is typically from 26.75″ to 30″.
There isn’t a specific scale that defines a baritone, it’s just longer than standard.
It is positioned between a standard guitar and a bass, it is usually tuned to B-to-B (B E A D F# B) or A-to-A. The extended scale gives extra string tension making such low tuning practical.
The sound is deep, rich, and clear tone suited for all kinds of styles. Chords are very fat and full sounding. For me they work best for melodic lines.
It’s a different sound and a different feel but worth exploring. They are especially useful in recording situations.
It is possible to buy baritone conversion necks. That way you can convert a standard guitar into something special.
If you haven’t tried one I recommend you give it a go. You might find your sound.
Here is how Wikipedia describes baritones.
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