Baritone Sub-Sonic Telecaster Neck Review

Neat specialty neck! Solid Construction

Never had a baritone guitar so when I saw Sweetwater had a replacement neck from Fender at a reasonable price, yes please! The neck is nicely constructed and gloss finished, pre- drilled for the Fender/Schaller tuners--I like vintage style, so some toothpicks, conversion bushings, good to go. Docking a star for for neck bolt holes which do NOT line up with the body I was attaching… read more it to, a 1/4"+ off, so some wood glue and dowels, made new holes. My 3 saddle bridge just makes intonation (although the 3rd string is now wound so the intonation is a little off, maybe I try swapping out a non-compensated D-G saddle? It's not off enough to be annoying to my ears) Tuned to C initially, sounds excellent. Mahalo Nui Sweetwater!

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Squier Cabronita Bari Conversion

Purchased this neck to convert a Squier Cabronita (Bought from Sweetwater 2014)into a Baritone. Wanted something kind of unique, a Baritone with a Bigsby. Had the work done by Glaser Guitars in Nashville and it turned out really great! Plays well, intonation is very good and it's a joy to play.Have wanted a Baritone for years and never pulled the trigger. If you have an extra Tele… read more lying around, I highly recommend having this done. Kudos to Bob Mondock for keeping me informed about availability of the neck. Worth the two-three week wait!

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Oh, it got thick.

First of all, I order this neck on a Thursday night and it show up Sunday at 1 pm, thats awesomely fast. Secondly, I have never played a baritone guitar before, but after bolting the neck up I could barely tell the difference as far as playability is concerned. NO muscle memory issues. Intonation is pretty spot on, minus your normal Telecaster intonation with 3 brass saddles. Some… read more spots are not going to be dead perfect, and they never have been for decades. It's how it's designed it is what it is no matter the scale. Tuned at BEADF#B, this tele is DEEP. Bass territory on open low. I am very satisfied with the results. The only difficulty was slotting the nut. There are pre-cuts on the nut that just need to be finished per your string gauge. I purchased this as a "DEMO" from sweetwater meaning it had already been installed and used, but the nut was not slotted yet which makes me believe it really was never played. The other part of set up was putting the string tree on. Laced up with strings, tune, I played for 20 minutes, and my tuning was still perfect. Cant wait to jam next week. I installed this neck on a MIM fender antigua telecaster. Install and set up time around an hour.

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Fender, who was this intended for?

Let's face it, there is, and has always been, a SERIOUS hole in the market when it comes to the selection of "off the rack" baritone guitars. Sure, we all know the big "W" when it comes to conversion necks, but wouldn't it be great if you could actually buy a Fender branded baritone neck? That's always been my hang up with using an aftermarket. I want the logo because it's going… read more on a Fender body, and would prefer not to devalue my instrument. When I discovered these, I couldn't believe it, and thought this was finally all my prayers being answered. Wrong. This is not a conversion neck, neither is the Stratocaster version. This neck could only ever REPLACE your already existing Blacktop Tele baritone neck, which they stopped making 6 years ago, or the highly sought after Sub-Sonic Stratocaster, which was only made in 2001, and a few stragglers in '02. If anyone just had one of those bodies siting around, you'd be in good shape, but more than likely you would have just replaced it with something else since it's been so long since either were produced. This neck is misleading as Fender tells you that you can simply "convert your guitar to a baritone" but that's not gonna happen. Your guitar will never intonate properly with your existing Strat or Tele body. The measurement from nut to 12th fret, and 12th fret to string saddle are at least a millimeter off. If you understand the concept of scale length, you know that in order to achieve proper pitch and intonation, those distances must be even. Sometimes 12th to string saddle is a little less than, but if its more than the nut to 12th fret, you're gonna run out of room fast. Ultimately, this is another smooth transaction from Sweetwater, but Fender dropped the ball on this one. If this neck was intended to be a 27" scale, and not 27.5", this may not have been an issue, but as it stands, you'll be disappointed with this neck if you're trying to do something unique. I'm only putting this out there because I wish someone had warned me before I tried this neck. I do love Fender, but this is simply a huge missed opportunity.

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