FENDER CS BRAWLER BARITONES MASTER BUILT BY CARLOS LOPEZ

The Brawler, Fender Master Builder Carlos Lopez’s latest creation, is a baritone beauty that will make you rethink the way you play the guitar. Nathaniel describes the revelatory nature of this baritone, its origin, and why creativity, fearlessness, and discovery are at its heart.

Nathaniel Murphy describes the brawler baritones

Hi Folks, Nathaniel here, at Chicago music Exchange. And today we're checking out this incredible Fender Brawler guitar made by Master Builder Carlos Lopez. We've got the Cadillac Green one here in my hands. Well, we've also got an incredible Oxblood red as well.

So a few weeks back where the good fortune and it was our pleasure to introduce the first ever Carlos Lopez master built Fender Electric Twelve. Well, Carlos, has done it again, he's back at it this time in a completely different way. Enter the Brawler. It has an offset waist subsonic 27 inch scale Fender designed to reshape the way you think about the baritone guitar.

So those of you who don't know a baritone guitar usually is tuned from B to B. So we're down a fourth. Now it's not uncommon for it to be down to A fifth, or A all the way through to A. But you can tune it however you like.

Just like a regular guitar to an extent. I've used a lot of open tunings with it. I think the first time I ever try to baritone I played just open chords like a G major whatever. And it sounds completely different to the point where, you know, this is really interesting.

And it's like, well, what else could be done here? What are the possibilities? It's a great tool.

They'll make you play the guitar differently. It'll spark new creativity, change the way you play, even though the way you look at it altogether.

So before Carlos Lopez was anointed as one of the Master Builders at Fender Custom Shop, he was already working on this model, at his home workshop. Now, during the beginning of the early stages, he was using a twenty-five and a half-inch scale neck and it just didn't feel quite right. So eventually inspired by the longer body shape, he decided to go with the twenty seven inch scale length and voila.

It was meant to be, sounded great when he bolted on himself. Perfect. So finding the right pickups was the next challenge. And so Carlos decided to work once again with Curtis Novak and he dialed in the low wind Gold covered humbuckers. They're a perfect match with a lower output that captures the unique energy of the instrument without getting too muddy.