GIBSON
LES PAUL
STUDIO
BARITONE
BY JORDAN WAGNER
The electric baritone guitar has been popping up on pop, rock, and country
records for almost as long as the standard
6-string. Brian Wilson was a huge fan, uti-
lizing its unique tone and capacity for lower
tuning registers to help create the expan-
sive textures of many classic Beach Boys
cuts. Danelectro baritones were a staple of
Nashville recording studios. And players
as diverse as Pat Metheny, Peter Buck, and
Duane Eddy have used electric baritones
as a secret weapon of sorts. It’s also found
favor among modern heavy rock and
metal players, most notably Staind’s Mike
Mushok and Metallica’s James Hetfield, the
latter of which used one for rhythm tracks
on “Sad But True.”
Gibson built 6-string basses decades
ago, but only in the past decade has the
company combined the qualities of the
baritone guitar with their classic Les Paul
design. The initial run was a short one, but
they’ve revisited the concept with the new
500T bridge humbucker
496R neck
humbucker
Volume and
Tone controls
for each pickup
