Danelectro Baritone - VS - Fender Squier Bass VI - Which is best for you? - Ask Zac 109

well hello friends and welcome to
0:15
another Ask Zac today we're going to
0:17
have fun comparing two of my base sixes
0:21
yes i i love the base six
0:24
and uh i wish that someone had done a
0:26
video like this a long time ago just
0:28
because
0:29
it's tough you know when you're trying
0:30
to decide which one of these to get
0:32
uh
0:33
you know because you wonder you know
0:34
what are kind of the strengths and
0:36
weaknesses of them and uh you know
0:38
rarely do you get a chance to play you
0:40
know both of these together so
0:42
uh i ended up buying both of them
0:45
and yeah so i just wanted to do a video
0:47
this is not a one is better than the
0:49
other this is a compare and contrast to
0:52
show which one might be better for you
0:54
or in my case because it's a sickness i
0:57
have both of them because i i really
0:59
like the different sounds that they both
1:01
offer and I'm a big
1:03
base six fan
1:04
all right so while you're thinking about
1:06
it well please go down in the corner and
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all right guys well let's dive in
1:46
all right
1:47
so let's just
1:49
let's start with just a little basic
1:51
history
1:52
so the base six and let's let's just cl
1:55
clear something off these are not
1:56
baritones
1:58
uh baritones have a shorter scale length
2:00
this has a 29 plus
2:03
inch scaling and this has a 30 inch
2:05
scaling these are not baritones these
2:08
are base sixes
2:10
baritones will have a scale length of
2:11
around 27 to 28 inches and are tuned
2:15
a to a or b to b these are tuned e to e
2:18
now these can you can compromise on
2:21
these guys and you can string them up
2:24
and tune them up like a baritone
2:26
but it's not the most ideal situation
2:28
because these are really designed the
2:30
scale length and everything
2:32
to go e to e so and i'm going to call
2:35
them base sixes because that's what this
2:37
they were both called so the dan electro
2:41
uh dan electro came out with their base
2:43
six in uh around 1956 57
2:48
and it quickly became
2:51
uh kind of a a
2:53
studio instrument of choice in
2:56
Nashville
2:58
first
2:59
and part of this is just
3:01
i think it has to do with locality and
3:03
as things kind of moved across the
3:05
country you know from new jersey to
3:08
Nashville and finally over to Los
3:09
Angeles
3:10
so the Nashville guys kind of picked up
3:12
on on this on the dan electro
3:15
uh early on
3:17
and i was told that part of it was
3:20
actually just to give
3:22
another guitar player a job because in
3:24
the 50s
3:26
the bass player would have been playing
3:28
an upright bass
3:29
and because of the limited
3:33
uh capabilities of the speakers that
3:36
were in cars and stereos and limited
3:39
recording techniques
3:41
um they couldn't really get the deep
3:43
bass and also the attack of it so
3:47
Nashville guitar players found out that
3:49
they could use this and double the
3:51
baseline and that way you can get that
3:52
click sound and it gave a gig to another
3:54
guitar player
3:56
so
3:57
and then
3:58
it kind of continued across the country
4:00
and it made it over to la and it started
4:02
being used there also
4:04
now while in Nashville it was more of a
4:06
doubling the base kind of thing
4:09
it did it was used melodically some also
4:13
in in Los Angeles it got used both ways
4:17
uh you know a good early example is a
4:19
lonely surfer jack Nietzsche i mean
4:21
that's a that's a really uh neat example
4:24
or there's all sorts of beach boy tracks
4:26
that featured the dan electro
4:29
now fender came on
4:31
in the early 60s with theirs
4:34
and
4:35
the way he ended up
4:38
making his was he saw Harold Bradley who
4:40
was one of the top Nashville session
4:42
players using a dan electro of course
4:45
Leo was a big country music fan he'd
4:46
come to Nashville for uh you know
4:49
you know different uh
4:51
different country music events and he
4:53
saw Harold Bradley you know playing a
4:55
dan electro you know base six
4:57
and so of course Leo fender said i can
4:59
improve upon that and that's what the
5:01
base six defender basics was is it was
5:05
Leo's take on the dan electro but done
5:09
fender style
5:10
so
5:11
let's just talk about the the spec
5:13
differences between the two
5:16
well
5:17
one the first thing is the scale length
5:20
so this one's like 29 and a half
5:23
and the fender is 30 inches and so
5:27
it's kind of like the difference between
5:28
the standard Gibson scale and the fender
5:30
scale and you know a little bit longer
5:34
scale length gives you a little more
5:36
string tension and such also for some
5:38
even though it's just that little bit of
5:40
difference some people feel like the
5:42
fender is a little bit unwieldy because
5:45
the neck is
5:46
half an inch longer
5:48
so uh but i i get it so you have that
5:51
the body of course
5:54
this is a uh you know a poplar shell and
5:58
then with Masonite on it while this
6:00
originally would have been solid alder
6:02
but then you know by now with the
6:04
squires who knows what it is but it you
6:06
know it could be 20 pieces of wood put
6:08
you know that are glued together um
6:11
these are not super light these are
6:14
uh
6:15
then you then you have
6:17
you know some of the the you know just
6:19
idiocy idiosyncrasies of of each maker
6:22
so you have the lipstick tube pickups on
6:25
the dan electro which have a certain
6:26
sound and you have these kind of jaguar
6:28
style pickups on the base six which have
6:31
the fender sound
6:32
uh you have the jazz master style
6:34
tremolo on here you have you know of
6:36
course no tremolo on here and originally
6:39
of course it would have had a a wooden
6:41
uh a metal bridge with a wooden insert
6:44
that uh in the strings would have ridden
6:46
across
6:50
another thing that you have on here of
6:51
course you know originally the dan
6:52
electro had two pickups and the fender
6:55
had three
6:56
and the fender had a much more uh you
6:58
know complex you know wiring scheme
7:01
and not in a bad way but it had three on
7:04
and off switches then it had the
7:05
strangle switch
7:07
so the strangle switch is ingenious and
7:10
is really a leg up on the dan electro
7:13
because one of the things you have
7:15
is that of course these instruments are
7:17
right you know their low four strings
7:20
are the exact same thing as your bass
7:22
player
7:23
there's not like some octave difference
7:25
some people
7:26
somehow have decided there's you know
7:28
another octave between a you know these
7:31
and a real bass there's not
7:33
there's about four inches of scale
7:35
length and of course the strings are
7:37
bigger but the strings here are like
7:38
this is a 95 and i think this is a 90
7:42
and you know of course most low strings
7:44
on a bass are around 100 so there's not
7:47
that much difference so these are in the
7:48
exact same frequency range well
7:51
Leo
7:52
was smart enough to put a strangle
7:54
switch on there which what it does is it
7:56
cuts base
7:58
and that makes it to where this guy
8:01
can
8:01
play with a full band with a bass player
8:03
and you can play in the low range
8:06
without it fighting frequency wise
8:09
this guy
8:11
if you're playing with a bass player and
8:13
you're going to play in the low range
8:15
you really have to
8:17
you really have to get an eq pedal
8:20
or you have to you know just dump bass
8:22
on your amplifier
8:24
so
8:26
all right
8:28
let's uh
8:29
let's kind of you know move on to uh to
8:32
sounds and such I'll just play some some
8:34
examples
8:36
um and I'll you know play it on each
8:38
instrument and uh yeah we'll start with
8:40
the uh the fender
8:45
all right we're gonna start with the uh
8:46
the base six and this is I'm actually
8:48
going to play this with some fuzz uh
8:51
this is a
8:52
famous you know solo this is one of the
8:54
first fuzz solos ever it was uh
8:57
uh played by Grady martin
9:00
and uh
9:01
on a tune called uh
9:03
don't worry about me
9:05
and uh yeah if you want to learn more
9:08
about that and the birth of fuzz you can
9:10
watch my birth of fuzz episode anyway
9:11
I'm just going to play that I'm using an
9:13
analog sun face you know for this
9:16
and uh you know I'm going to play it
9:17
I've got both pickups on I'm using a
9:19
light gauge pick
9:22
and
9:22
thin pick as it were and i looked all
9:24
over the place the only thing i had was
9:26
i had a uh a Carrie underwood
9:29
guitar pick
9:31
uh that says some hearts on it this is
9:33
the only thin pick i had so this is from
9:35
my time working for Carrie underwood and
9:38
so that's pretty funny it's a
9:39
heart-shaped pick
9:41
all right so here we go
9:44
a little hiss little hump
9:54
[Music]
10:05
[Music]
10:35
okay this is a little uh
10:37
little take on
10:39
a Glenn Campbell thing
10:44
[Music]
10:51
so
10:54
[Music]
11:13
[Applause]
11:15
[Music]
11:16
so
11:20
[Music]
11:26
[Applause]
11:30
so
11:40
[Music]
11:50
now I'm just going to do some
11:52
some you know kind of
11:54
fiddling around as it were
11:56
at this point i need to note that the
11:58
strings are quite different on the two
12:00
instruments so
12:02
the base six the original strings on it
12:05
were
12:06
were flat wounds
12:08
and so even though this instrument came
12:09
with round wound strings on it i uh i
12:12
put flats on it so i got uh labella
12:15
flats and that's what's on it now the
12:17
only modification i had to do to the
12:19
instrument was i had to cut
12:21
this intonation screw short so that i
12:24
could get enough travel to move it but
12:26
that's the only thing I've done so I'm
12:28
just going to mess around a little bit
12:30
I'm going to cord I'm going to use the
12:32
vibrato bar on it just so you can hear
12:34
that
12:47
[Music]
12:56
so
12:57
[Music]
13:10
that was all
13:11
both pickups i want to do just the back
13:13
pickup now
13:15
[Music]
13:28
[Music]
13:31
also i need to
13:32
show you know what this has over the
13:34
over the dano besides the tremolo bar is
13:36
the uh the strangle switch so I'm gonna
13:39
put back both pickups back on and so
13:42
here you can see what it does
13:46
[Music]
13:50
so
13:51
yeah that's really nice okay let's move
13:54
over to the dan electro for me to fiddle
13:57
around on it
14:01
on this instrument uh they came with
14:04
round wound strings and all round wound
14:07
uh tuned e to e and
14:10
I'm normally a diaderio guy
14:12
but uh diadero doesn't make a set
14:14
specifically for this instrument and
14:16
ernie ball does so I'm going to plug
14:18
them for this
14:20
uh this is their six string bass guitar
14:22
slinky set it's set number 2837
14:26
and I'll put a link in the description
14:28
if you want those because but these are
14:30
specifically for the dan electro they
14:32
don't work on the fender
14:34
so these are very specific strings so if
14:37
you have a dan electro if you want to do
14:39
e to e these are the ones to get
14:42
all right little uh fiddling around
14:48
[Music]
14:49
a little a little crackle for you
14:59
[Laughter]
15:23
that was both pickups i'm going to give
15:25
you just a back pickup now
15:45
do
15:55
[Music]
16:04
all right
16:06
so
16:08
at the end of the day
16:10
what's the difference between these guys
16:12
and why should you get one over the
16:13
other
16:14
okay
16:16
this guy has the most character to it it
16:19
sounds most different uh it just has
16:21
this interesting doinky
16:24
hollow low sound
16:27
and you know it's pretty eye-catching uh
16:29
in this version
16:32
but what the fender has over it
16:34
is
16:35
the fender has a it just sounds like a
16:38
big fender you know that's its advantage
16:40
and disadvantage you know it doesn't
16:42
have the the the character that this one
16:45
does
16:46
but this one has the strangle switch
16:48
it has the vibrato
16:51
and it has the uh you know you know nice
16:54
adjustable bridge on there so
16:57
yeah so both of them are really cool now
16:59
if you're a basics freak of course like
17:01
me you're going to have both of them but
17:04
you kind of you know have to decide you
17:06
know because this is kind of a niche
17:07
instrument so if you're just going to
17:09
get one you know hopefully this video
17:11
will uh help you decide which one suits
17:14
you best
17:15
so again
17:17
i love both of them and uh
17:19
just a word about this one
17:22
so this is our early 2000s hodad
17:25
baritone which i again i hate that name
17:27
because it's not a baritone
17:29
but um
17:30
i wanted to get an early 2000s late 90s
17:34
u2 you know basics dan electro but those
17:36
have gone up in price a lot lately
17:39
they've become collectible
17:41
uh there's this thing about the early
17:43
korean-made
17:45
dano reissues so
17:47
i don't know I'd you know those were the
17:49
ones i was familiar with and so i went
17:52
after one but they kept you know going
17:54
for high prices
17:55
so i saw this i saw the hodad and i saw
17:58
that it had a third pickup it had better
18:00
tuners on it
18:02
you know versus the uh the baritone or
18:05
space sixes of uh you know of the late
18:08
90s
18:09
early 2000s
18:11
and it was the same construction same
18:13
you know Masonite same neck same
18:15
everything the only difference was it
18:16
had a third pickup
18:18
had an adjustable bridge and then it had
18:20
a a better wiring you know thing it has
18:23
kind of a rotary switch that allows you
18:24
to get all the sounds you'd get with the
18:26
two pickup model and more so
18:29
anyway and this was cheaper so while
18:32
you know the the u2 shaped ones were
18:34
going for like 800 bucks these are going
18:36
for you know four to six hundred so uh
18:39
you know i wanted to save the money
18:42
these
18:43
are
18:44
sometimes they can have some quality
18:46
issues and also some of just kind of
18:48
aged some so this one i bought and the
18:50
ground wire was disconnected i had to
18:52
reconnect it internally
18:54
the bridge was caving in and i couldn't
18:57
do anything for that so i just raised
18:59
the saddles in the middle
19:01
and also when i tried to adjust the
19:03
pickups uh the bridge pickup the you
19:06
know the back pickup just fell into the
19:08
body so i had to put springs in there
19:10
actually my buddy bill keck did that
19:13
this instrument has had no problems and
19:17
had no issues at all and it's just of a
19:20
higher standard of building even though
19:22
it's done in like Indonesia
19:24
still i think their
19:26
qc is better so there you have it all
19:28
right guys well i hope you've enjoyed
19:30
today's episode and I'll see you next
19:31
week bye