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.

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A brave new world of tone, the SOMA ‘63 Vintage Preamp is the first pedal in the XFR series of pedals from Greer Amps. The SOMA ’63 is a true vintage preamp, based on the tone and feel of vintage brown era amplifiers from California. This pedal simulates the entire preamp, phase inverter, power section, and even the feel of the vintage 10 inch Utah speakers that were in those famous brown amps. The tone stack is designed to provide a wide and dynamic range of tonal options to the user. The Presence control works with the tone stack, and is designed to be a wide range control, effecting the overall sound of the entire circuit. The SOMA ’63 features a steel core transformer in the audio signal path. The transformer lends to the overall tone shaping of the circuit, and when the gain is pushed hard, especially with higher output pickups, the small steel core transformer will saturate, just like a vintage amplifier. The SOMA ’63 can be used as a tone-shaping preamp, or as an overdrive pedal. There are a wide variety of tones available in the SOMA ’63, so spend some time with your new pedal, and find the tones that rock your world!

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They've got an entirely new body design here. It's something that Fender doesn't take too lightly at all. It's clearly inspired by a variety of creative guitars from past and present, but yet still somehow feels distinctly Fender, been beautifully tastefully appointed with a German carve and body binding on top. So this is something that Carlos feels could have been released back in the CBS era within the alongside the Starcaster, of the Coronado, the Marauder, etc..

We agree it seems like something that just got plucked out of history and transported to today. Now, most people would probably associate a baritone on guitar with heavier genres, metal, hard rock or whatnot. But there's plenty of players out there that actually inspired Carlos to really think through the development of this guitar player such as Ariel Posen and Mark Lettieri both phenomenal players.

Ariel does incredible blues kind of slide work. Mark Lettieri plays not to copy what he does. He's got an album out that he uses it's just baritone guitar, incredible playing. But realistically, you can play anything on this guitar. That's what I've been doing. It's been a lot of fun. And, you know, we'll try to showcase some different genres in this video as well.

Every player, I argue, needs a Tele, a Strat for the versatility, hollow-body such as an ES, maybe a Jazzmaster if you're Shelby...Now, I am going to include a baritone into that list. So I've been lucky enough to play this for the past few days and I've genuinely fallen in love with it. It looks great. It sounds great. I'm still torn between the green or the Oxblood. I don't know yet. What would you choose? But I've had fun playing lots of different styles to make sure you come in and check it out.

I'm gonna have fun with it.

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Nathaniel Murphy describes the brawler baritones

Greer Amps SOMA 63 Vintage Preamp

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