Welcome to the world of Basitar and Guitbass. You're asking yourself,
"Self, what is a Basitar?" and "Self, what is a Guitbass?" and
finally "Self, Can I learn to play Guitar this way?" I will answer the
last question with a lyric: "10 million monkeys all picked up guitars, nobody
taught them how, 5 thousand froggies rockin really really really hard, nobody taught them
how." Well you've come the only place where you can learn all about
Basitars and Guitbasses, and even learn how to play them and join the froggies and
monkeys.
If you have a question about anything on this page, or find that I've screwed
something up, Email me.
Would you believe  people have come here
to learn about these instruments? The last time I changed something here was Saturday, June 15, 2002 12:14 AM.
Contents:
Up to the very Tippy Top
 What is a
Basitar? A basitar is a normal (six string) guitar body and neck with only
two somewhat large strings. According to official specifications (as dictated by
Chris Ballew, the originator of the Basitar, and former frontman of the Presidents of the
United States of America or PUSA) the top (or lowest pitched) string is .060 gauge and the
bottom (highest pitch) string is .036 gauge. These strings are tuned to C sharp (or
D flat if you're one of those half empty people) and G sharp. A basitar is played
much like one would play, well, a bass guitar. The beauty of the tuning is that by
fretting both strings across any fret (see the illustration),
one can make a chord. Chris was most often seen playing Epiphone Flying V basitars,
but also at one time or another played from the following assortment: Hofner Violin
Guitar, and these Gibson guitars: Les Paul
Junior, SG Melody Maker, and Double-necked SG.
Up to the Table of Contents
 What is a
Guitbass? A guitbass is a normal (six string) guitar body and neck with only
three strings. According to official specifications (as reported by various webpages
and guitar magazine interviews with Dave Dederer, the originator of the Guitbass) the top
(or lowest pitched) string is .065 gauge, the middle string is .045 and the bottom
(highest pitch) string is .035 gauge. These strings are tuned to C sharp, G sharp
and C sharp (an octave higher than the low C sharp). This tuning style is commonly
referred to as "Dropped D tuning, down half a step". If you are a newbie,
disregard that last sentence unless someone who knows something about guitars asks you how
you are tuned. Guitbasses can be used to perform the same one finger across all
strings on a single fret power chord thingy mentioned in the basitar discussion above (see the illustration). Dave Dederer almost exclusively
played Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster Guitbasses.
Up to the Table of Contents
Where do these instruments come from? The basitar and guitbass were
introduced to the world by Chris Ballew and Dave Dederer (respectively), who at the time
were members of The Presidents of the United States of America. Chris also plays the
basitar on his recent solo project, The Giraffes.
They have credited Mark Sandman of Morphine with
the original idea for 2 strings, but Ballew had been fiddling with string setups and
tunings prior to being "turned on" to the 2 string idea. The guitbass was
developed to complement the basitar. Check out this
article from Bass Player Magazine
for a pretty good chronicle of the whole development. The article is on http://Chris.Ballew.net,
the best place on the web to see what Chris Ballew is up to.
Here's a cool clip with somewhat of an explanation:  if you need a real audio player go get one here  .
Up to the Table of Contents
Why should I play one? There are several reasons for playing a basitar
or guitbass:
- You love PUSA music and want to play it. This is how i got started playing
the Guitbass.
- You are a novice guitar player, you want to rock, but are impatient and don't want to
learn all those damn chords. I also fall into this category.
- You know how to play the guitar or bass, but popped a few strings and can't afford
replacement strings.
- You're an established guitar player and you've got lotsa guitars laying around, and
are bored with the regularity.
- You have a tendency to get really drunk and can't play very well while intoxicated.
- You've got an old guitar that you bought while in high school, (which is now doing a
bang-up job of taking up closet space) but never play it because you couldn't learn all
those damn chords.
Up to the Table of Contents
How do I get/make one? If you go to a music store and ask
for a Basitar or a Guitbass, you probably won't do very well. The salesman will
either give you a blank stare, or laugh uncontrollably. Your best bet, if you don't
already have a guitar to turn into a Guitbass or Basitar is to get a second-hand guitar
from either a pawn shop, or a music store that sells used instruments. If you're
filthy rich, just go buy whatever the hell you want. Slight, mostly non-permanent
changes need to be made to set it up correctly. See the definitions of Basitar and Guitbass for proper string size
and tuning.
Here's some tips from Chris Ballew on the proper setup:
...Well you need to file down the saddle at the bridge and at the head
stock <the nut> to accomodate the larger strings. Otherwise the string will sit too
far off the fretboard and the intonation will never be right... ...The best
situation is to have a floating bridge that is not attatched to the guitar or the hard to
find Leo Quan Bad-ass bridge for guitars. Truss rod is not usually a problem but it may
need tightening because the 2 strings don't have the tension of 6.
hope that helps...
chris
More tips (from me):
A VERY IMPORTANT TIP: when filing the nut (at the headstock), go
VERY slowly. You are essentially trying to widen the slot, not deepen it. You
don't want to make the slot too deep. If you do, your strings will buzz like crazy
when playing open notes, and the only way to fix this is to replace the nut.
Replacing a nut is not something you want to try yourself.
For a basitar the strings are located in the slots normally occupied by
the D and B strings, for a Guitbass, you put the strings in the A, D, and G string
positions.
  As an added touch, remove the extra hardware from the bridge and the
headstock. It looks cool, and prevents you from having a bunch of pieces of metal
rattling about as you play.
Is the string size important? YES, when I first set up my
Guitbass, the store gave me a set of Ernie Ball
Super Slinkys. The three largest strings were .042, .032, and .024 gauge.
These were ok, but didn't produce that punchy PUSA sound. After playing those for a
while, (and breaking a string) I moved up to the Power Slinkys (.048, .038, .028).
It is amazing the difference in sound and tone that the larger strings produce. As
soon as I run out of my Power Slinky stockpile, I plan to move to even larger
strings. My friends at a local music store, Victor
Litz, in Gaithersburg, MD, were able to special order me strings for my Guitbass from Ernie Ball. I ordered strings sized .064, .044,
and .036 to put on my guitbass. If your store is an Ernie Ball dealer, they should be able to hook you
up. When I set up my Basitar, I went for the Jugular, using the .060 and .036
gauges. When played through the right amp, It sounds perfect!
Up to the Table of Contents
What songs can I play? Really, just about anything. Obviously, PUSA
songs! The White House of PUSA is a place with
quite a few PUSA tablatures, most of which are transcribed for Guitbass! I
purchased 'Guitar Recorded Versions' songbooks for the first two PUSA albums from Harris Music, they were published by Hal Leonard. These books include lyrics, music,
tablature, and chord charts (as well as cool photocopies of the original lyric sheets).
Try Harmony Central for
tablatures, chords, lyrics from almost any artist you can think of.
TAB Translation - Many guitarists use what are called
tablature to read/write music. I'm not going to attempt to give a full explanation
on how to read tabs, because that has already been done here: Tablature Explained. A good example of a tab
that can be easily translated to guitbass is the song "Closing Time" by
Semisonic from the album Feeling Strangely Fine.
The song basically has 4 chords throughout:
G5
D5 A5
C5
e|---------|---------|---------|---------|
B|---------|---------|---------|---------|
G|---------|-7-7-7-7-|---------|-5-5-5-5-|
D|-5-5-5-5-|-7-7-7-7-|-7-7-7-7-|-5-5-5-5-|
A|-5-5-5-5-|-5-5-5-5-|-7-7-7-7-|-3-3-3-3-|
E|-3-3-3-3-|---------|-5-5-5-5-|---------|
 The trick is, if you see a standard power chord like the G5 above, add one
to the number of the A and D strings (5+1 = 6) and fret across all the strings on your
Guitbass or Basitar (just like the picture to the left). The translation for the D5
is a little more tricky, as it is played on the A, D, and G strings. If you see
something like this, you need to add 6 to the value for the D and G strings (7+6 = 13),
and fret across all the strings on that fret.
Translated for Guitbass (same for Basitar, but lose the top row which
represents the high C# on a Guitbass):
G5
D5
A5
C5
C#|-6-6-6-6-|-13-13-13-13-|-8-8-8-8-|-11-11-11-11-|
G#|-6-6-6-6-|-13-13-13-13-|-8-8-8-8-|-11-11-11-11-|
C#|-6-6-6-6-|-13-13-13-13-|-8-8-8-8-|-11-11-11-11-|
Chord Letter Translation: This is even easier, if
you see chord letters in a song use the following frets as depicted in the picture below
(if you are left-handed reverse the image):
C sharp can be called D flat, D sharp E flat bla bla bla (you get the
idea).
Up to the Table of Contents
My Guitbass
 Here's a shot of me
with my Guitbass. If you squint, you can see the three strings, and the headstock
and bridge with half the hardware removed. I play (sometimes) with a band named FOG.
Check out the FOG homepage.
 This photo allows
you to see the detail of my Guitbass. It is a Squier II, (by Fender) Stratocaster,
made in Korea. Now most real guitar players probably wouldnt even consider this guitar
even suitable for smashing onstage, but I had to keep things inexpensive. It is in great
shape, the neck feels nice, but as far as Stratocaster goes, it is a little odd, (no
pickguard, 2 single coil pickups, and 1 humbucker instead of 3 single coils, different
knobs etc.) It has the proper body and neck shape, the neck is a one piece maple, and the
body appears to be laminated something or other. It makes a great Guitbass though. I
purchased this guitar for $130 from Atomic Music,
in College Park MD.
Up to the Table of Contents
My Basitar
 I was especially lucky to recently find a "used hard and put away
dirty" Epiphone Flying V at a local music store, Victor
Litz, in Gaithersburg, MD. I could not believe it when I saw it, as I had been
looking for something to make a Basitar out of for some time, and was hoping to find a
Flying V, to recreate the actual instrument played by Chris. Plus Flying V's are
just plain awesome looking guitars. New Epiphone Flying V's list at ~$600, can be
found for ~$400. The tag on this one was $150, I got it for $125. I wish I had
taken the time to take a "before" photo, but I was in too much of a hurry to fix
this thing up. When I bought it, the pickguard was covered with black tape, the dot
inlays on the neck and pickups had green glow-in-the-dark paint, it had stickers all over
it, parts of playing cards glued to it, one pickup was flopping around in the pickguard,
and the tone pot was broken! After a couple of hours I had resurrected the thing and
converted it to a beautiful Basitar. The differences between mine and Chris
Ballew's is that mine is black, Chris preferred the red ones. Also he used
different pickups than the stock ones. He told me that he "had Epiphone put in
one p-90 <at the neck> instead of the 2 humbuckers that the flying V comes
with." I won't be doing this real soon, as it would cost me almost as much as I
paid for my guitar for one of those pickups.
Up to the Table of Contents
My Acoustic Guitbass
 Last is my
Acoustic Guitbass, It is a Yamaha FG-311 that I picked up for $30 from a friend's wife who
was going to sell it at a yard sale! (Maybe she should have tried playing Guitbass
instead of Guitar.) It too is a wonderful instrument. I currently have strings
sized .058, .048, .038 on it and it sounds and plays great. I modified the nut as
described above, but left the bridge alone, as I was afraid I'd really screw it up.
Up to the Table of Contents
Search Engine Humor
I thought this was funny (look at the spell check part):
Up to the Table of Contents
Credits:
- Obviously Chris Ballew and Dave Dederer for introducing these instruments to the Rock
and Roll world.
- Extra credit and thanks to Chris Ballew for all his help on setting up my Guitbass and
Basitar and for inspiring me to join the froggies and the monkeys. I too am now
rocking really, really hard, and nobody taught me how!
- Chris also gets credit for the background artwork (Lifted from PUSA's Self Titled
Album).
(he's getting $#!+loads of credit here, isn't he? But credit where credit is due.
Plus, he's the nicest rock star I've never met!)
- Oh yeah Chris also wrote the lyric at the top of the page. It is from
"Feather Pluckn'" on the previously mentioned Self Titled PUSA album.
- Westwood One Entertainment "Spin Session #96-45" for the sound clip about
strings.
- Dom Alessio of The White House of PUSA for all the great PUSA tabs and for
the list of basitars used by Chris Ballew.
- Isaac Smith for the "Closing Time"
tablature (found on Harmony
Central Guitar Tabs).
- If I left you out, thank you too. Email me and I'll
add you.
Up to the Table of Contents
If you have a question about anything on this page, or find that I've screwed
something up, Email me.
My URL: http://come.to/playguitar
I got it for free at: http://come.to
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