What is the difference between a guitar and a baritone?

A baritone guitar has a longer scale length (around 27 inches and up, versus a standard guitar's ~25.5 inches) and is tuned lower — typically a fourth or fifth below standard, so the lowest string reaches B or A instead of E. The longer scale keeps those low notes tight and defined instead of loose. You play it exactly like a guitar, but it lives in a deeper register, between a guitar and a bass. A Bacci baritone goes further: with its dual output it can be a guitar and a bass at the same time.

Baritone or guitar? What a Bacci baritone does

Q: What is a dual-output baritone?

It is Bruno Bacci's invention: a baritone with two independent outputs, one for the guitar voice and one for the bass voice, wired into the same instrument. Split them to two amplifiers and one player delivers a full top end and a full low end at once, or blend them into a single orchestral voice. No other luthier builds it.

Q: Is a baritone harder to play than a guitar?

No. The chord shapes and technique are the same as a guitar. The scale is a little longer and the strings a little heavier, so it feels different at first, but if you play guitar you can play a baritone. What changes is what you hear: a new low register that rewards a little exploration.

Q: How is a Bacci baritone tuned and what is the scale length?

Bacci Leonardo baritones use a long baritone scale, chosen with you when you order, and are typically tuned a fourth or fifth below a standard guitar. The exact tuning, scale and string gauges are set to how you play. Each one is handbuilt to order in Tuscany, from €4,800.

Guitar vs baritone

The short answer

What’s the difference between a guitar and a baritone?

A baritone guitar has a longer scale length, around 27″ and up, against a standard guitar’s ~25.5″, and is tuned lower, usually a fourth or fifth below standard, so the lowest string reaches B or A instead of E. That longer scale keeps the low notes tight and defined instead of loose.

You play it exactly like a guitar, same shapes, same technique, but it lives in a deeper register, sitting between a guitar and a bass. A Bacci baritone goes one step further: with its dual output it can be a guitar and a bass at the same time, from a single instrument.

03How it found its voice

The sound the guitar was missing.

When the bluesman Dan Mudd plugged in Bruno’s first baritone, he said: “if this guitar had more bass, it would be amazing.” That one line opened a gap, and Bruno set out to fill it. He fitted half of a Precision bass pickup, and the Leonardo dual output was born: two independent outputs, guitar and bass, from a single instrument.

In Minneapolis, recording Mudd’s album, a session guitarist fell for it on the spot and bought it. A month later that guitarist, Cory Wong, released the first Fearless Flyers video with the Bacci baritone in his hands. When Mark Lettieri heard it, he had Bruno build his own.

Dan Mudd asked. Bruno answered with an instrument unlike any other.

Bruno Bacci’s vision

Crafting the
extraordinary.

A journey from audacious challenge to acoustic perfection.

Meet Bruno Bacci, a Tuscan luthier who came to the craft the long way, through metallurgy, woodworking and design, and picked up the tools for good only after a hand injury ended his life as a player. He doesn’t draw a shape and fill it with sound. He starts from the sound he can already hear, then builds the instrument around it.

The Leonardo baritone is that obsession made real: two independent outputs, guitar and bass from a single instrument, born of his relentless drive to expand the frequency range of the electric guitar. Every Officina is designed, developed and built by his hands alone, in Tuscany, and backed for life by a lifetime warranty from Bruno himself.

“For me, a well-fitting instrument is one that lets you think only about the music.”

02How it works

One baritone, two independent outputs

The instrument Leonardo Baritone One neck, two pickups, two separate outputs

Bacci Leonardo baritone body, dual output

Low strings High strings

Output 1 · Low strings

Bass

The bottom end, full-scale and defined.

To your bass amp

Output 2 · High strings

Guitar

The cutting top end, clear and alive.

To your guitar amp

Or keep both in one output and let them blend, a baritone that already sounds like two players. The choice is yours, live and in the studio.

Split

Two cables, two amps. Bass rig and guitar rig, driven by one pair of hands. A full band’s low-to-high in a single instrument.

Blend

One output, both voices together. The signature Bacci width that made people stop and ask what they were hearing.

Switch

Guitar for the verse, bass for the drop. Move between the two worlds mid-song, with no second instrument to pick up.

Matteo Mancuso with his Officina Radiance Celeste baritone

Matteo Mancuso
won Best Guitar Solo
of 2024, on his custom
Bacci baritone.

At NAMM, Matteo Mancuso’s virtuosic homage to Paul Gilbert, performed entirely on his signature Radiance Celeste baritone, took Guitar World’s Best Guitar Solo of 2024. He wrote the piece just days after receiving the instrument from Bruno.

62K+industry pros on the floor

120M+reach · NAMM media & influencers

Watch the video, hear it played →

“

To my ears, a sixth string tuned down to B sounds better than the low B of a seven-string. The chords sound more even, and they’re easier to play.

Matteo Mancuso

“

Mancuso’s virtuosic homage to Paul Gilbert claims pole position in this year’s rundown of spectacular solos, and he scores extra cool points for performing the whole thing on a Bacci baritone guitar.

Guitar World, Best Guitar Solo 2024

“

Bruno Bacci’s baritone guitars have been inspiring a whole generation of top players, including Cory Wong, Mark Lettieri and Matteo Mancuso.

Jamie Gale, Boutique Guitar Showcase

James 'Munky' Shaffer with his custom Officina baritone

Munky had his Officina Nero
built one-off.

James ‘Munky’ Shaffer · Officina Velvet Nero Carbon Fiber

The guitarist of Korn didn’t pick a finish off the wall. He commissioned a one-off Officina baritone for Venera, his experimental electronic duo with composer and filmmaker Chris Hunt, dark, industrial and cinematic, built around collaborators like HEALTH and Deantoni Parks.

Korn Venera Chris Hunt HEALTH Deantoni Parks

1B+views · Korn on YouTube

33 yrsin music, since 1993

Mancuso,
a once-in-a-generation
guitarist.

Matteo Mancuso · Officina Radiance Celeste Tortoise

The Sicilian virtuoso plays without a pick, and it rewired what a guitar can do. His fluid, fingerstyle technique made him one of the most talked-about guitarists alive, and he made the Officina Radiance Celeste his signature baritone, drawn to the dual output that hands him guitar and bass from a single instrument. Bacci for the baritones, he says, Yamaha for the rest.

Cory Wong Tomo Fujita Adam Miller Vincenzo Mancuso

1.7Mcross-platform views

🏆 2024Best Guitar Solo · Guitar World

“When I play it, I don’t really miss the bass player.”

Ron Artis with his Officina Blue custom baritone

Ron Artis II,
a soul & blues
multi-instrumentalist.

Ron Artis II · Officina Ultramarine Hawaii Custom

A multi-instrumentalist raised in the Artis Family Band in Hawaii, with credits alongside Mick Fleetwood and Jack Johnson, Ron found the baritone at one of our US dealers and couldn’t put it down. He sent Bruno his album, we fell for it, and when he passed through on a cruise stop, Bruno built him a one-off Officina Blue.

Mick FleetwoodJack JohnsonBooker T. Jones

11siblings · one musical family

6+legends shared the stage

“The baritone speaks to me, and helps me create new things.”

04The company it keeps

They could play anything.
They chose Bacci.

Grammy winners. Session legends. Festival headliners. Every one of them could reach for anything on earth, and they reach for an instrument made entirely by hand, start to finish, by a single luthier: Bruno Bacci, in Tuscany.

Cory Wong / Matteo Mancuso / Mark Lettieri / Michael League / Marcus Miller / Munky / Vincen Garcia / Emma Nolde / Paul Davids / Tomo Fujita / Cory Wong / Matteo Mancuso / Mark Lettieri / Michael League / Marcus Miller / Munky / Vincen Garcia / Emma Nolde / Paul Davids / Tomo Fujita /

05Hear it

Hear what it does

▶

Collection 01 · Choose your colour

Officina
Baritone

The dual output in the garage-born finishes of the Officina line, mirror-deep garage lacquers, each built to order. This is the full range: pick the one that’s yours.

From €4,800 · made to order in Tuscany

Officina Black Vinyl Kiss — Black Vinyl · Kiss

Officina Silver Foil Vinyl Kiss — Silver Foil · Kiss

Officina Butterwhite Vinyl Beatles — Butterwhite · Beatles

Officina Lavender Vinyl Young Thug — Lavender · Vinyl

Reserve your Officina → See the full collection Priority build · delivered within 12 months

Collection 02 · Choose your artwork

Parato
Baritone

The same dual-output voice under the hand-laid op-art tops of the Parato collection, every one a one-off painting on wood. No two alike.

From €4,800 · one-off, made to order

Reserve your Parato → See the full collection Hand-laid tops · one-off, never repeated

Questions people ask

Baritone, guitar & the dual output

What’s the difference between a guitar and a baritone?

A baritone guitar has a longer scale length (around 27″ and up, versus a standard guitar’s ~25.5″) and is tuned lower, typically a fourth or fifth below standard, so the lowest string reaches B or A instead of E. That longer scale keeps the low notes tight and defined instead of loose. You play it exactly like a guitar, but it lives in a deeper register, between a guitar and a bass. A Bacci baritone goes further: with its dual output it can be a guitar and a bass at the same time.

Guitar or baritone, which is right for you?

Choose a standard guitar if you want the familiar range and feel. Choose a baritone when you want depth a guitar can’t reach, heavier riffs, cinematic low end, or a voice nobody else in the room has. A baritone isn’t a replacement for your guitar; it opens a lower register your guitar simply doesn’t have, and on a Bacci dual-output baritone it adds a full bass voice too.

What is a baritone guitar used for?

Baritones are used for lower, heavier or more cinematic sounds, metal and djent, film, ambient and studio work, and any time a player wants extended low range without switching to a bass. On a Bacci dual-output baritone it’s also used to cover guitar and bass parts from a single instrument, live and in the studio.

What is a “dual output” baritone?

It’s Bruno Bacci’s invention: a baritone with two independent outputs, one for the guitar voice, one for the bass voice, wired into the same instrument. Split them to two amps and one player delivers a full top end and a full low end at once, or blend them into a single, orchestral voice. To this day no other luthier builds it.

Is a baritone harder to play than a guitar?

No. The chord shapes and technique are the same as a guitar. The scale is a little longer and the strings a little heavier, so it feels different at first, but if you play guitar you can play a baritone. What changes is what you hear: a new low register that rewards a little exploration.

How is a Bacci baritone tuned, and what scale length?

Bacci Leonardo baritones use a long baritone scale, chosen with you when you order, and are typically tuned a fourth or fifth below a standard guitar. The exact tuning, scale and string gauges are set to how you play. Each one is handbuilt to order in Tuscany, from €4,800.

Your baritone

Make it
yours.

Built to order, one at a time, in Tuscany. Join the waiting list and start the conversation that ends with the only instrument of its kind, yours.

Join the waiting list → Priority build · delivered within 12 months

Commissions

Crafted for one

Nothing here is in stock, and nothing ever will be.
Every instrument is claimed by one player before the first cut.

01
Reserve

A €1,000 deposit holds your place at the bench and sets the work in motion. It comes off the price in full.
02
Define the sound you need

Woods, pickups, finish, decided one by one, together. The instrument is drawn around you.
03
Play

The balance falls due once the specification is closed. Eight months later, it is in your hands.

Begin your commission Talk to Bruno

Not sure which instrument is yours?
Ask before you commit.

One player.
Two instruments.
One neck.

A guitar and a bass,
played at once.

The short answer

What’s the difference between a guitar and a baritone?

The sound the guitar was missing.

Crafting the
extraordinary.

One baritone, two independent outputs