From industrial product designer and luthier Robin Stummvoll comes Verso Musical Instruments, hand crafted in Germany. Robin is a luthier with an eye for industrial design. His instruments are both modern and familiar. You will immediately notice the high quality of these seemingly simple designs upon picking up the Orbit Baritone.
The Orbit Baritone features a 28.5” long scale with freely moving magnetic pickups. The body is made from durable sheet metal and the pickups slide up and down, so that you can place them in any position you please. Place the two pickups close to each other for Strat like tones, or far apart for your typical dual pickup electric guitar tones. You can even split the strings, having the neck pup only picking up the three treble strings and the bridge pup picking up only the three bass strings. The possibilities are truly endless.
Both pickups are original designs and scatter-wound. The neck pickup is well rounded across all frequency ranges and bell-like with a nice open tone. The bridge pickup can do it all. It has warmth, punch and great articulation. It's like a medium output PAF Humbucker with more sparkle and higher fidelity. If you slant the pickup opposite of a Tele it produces a sharper more biting tone. The Orbit has one volume and one blender pot, so that you can blend in as much of each pickups signal as you want to. There is a notch in the middle of the blender pot, so that you know when both pickups are at unity volume.
From Verso:
“Due to its long scale of 28.5″ this baritone guitar features a precise and gritty bass response in standard B to B or A to A tunings. The added length brings a distinctive warmth and accuracy to the upper strings rounded off with lots of sustain. Due to the steel body the freely movable pickups catch up audible body resonance that adds natural harmonics and a wooden character. A richness that goes beyond the usual tone of an electric baritone.”
The neck of this guitar is made of Smoked Oak with a slab Smoked Oak fingerboard. The fret tangs are not visible and will never protrude from the sides of the neck during dryer seasons. The frets are also rounded “Semi Hemispherical” (An upgrade) for a smooth and natural feel. The necks profile itself is a full feeling C shape with an oil finish for a non-sticky, very natural feeling neck.
The bridge on Verso's instruments is pre-intonated like a flat-top acoustic. However, it can be moved to fine tune the intonation. Luthier Robin Stummvoll believes less is more and that having to many adjustment points on a guitar can have adverse effects on the player enjoying their instrument. Read what he has to say on this subject below.
From Verso Guitars:
“Setting up a guitar sounds like a simple matter, but it requires knowledge and experience down to the smallest detail. In my opinion, there are too many and too easily accessible adjustment points on an electric guitar. This often leads to a problematic setup. For this reason I use a simple, non-adjustable bridge construction (like the bridge of an acoustic guitar), which has to be filed to the right height. What sounds like a step back is actually a pro for the player: Much less to think about when it is set up correctly (and if you know what you are doing, it can still be quickly adjusted with just a file). The intonation can be corrected much faster by moving the whole bridge – all without tools. The connection of solid brass from string to body results in a beautiful bass response.”
Pickups:
Neck / SCII DESCRIPTION:
The most "zen" pickup I had under my fingers. It's so well ballanced and just a pleasure to play. Compressed jet open sounding – definition in the bass, nice midrange and silky highs. Twang, sparkel, mojo... what ever you call it - the Magnet Mount SC2 got it.Â
SCII SPECS:
regular output / volume
Even frequency response with slightly pushed mids
6000 Windings (6.2K Ohm output resistance)
43AWG / 0.56mm copper wire
Scatterwound
6x Neodymium Magnets
Bridge / HB2 DESCRIPTION:
A very linear humbucker with everything you might ever need. Compressed jet open sounding – classic humbucker warmth that reminds me of a under-wound PAF. Typical neodymium fatness without being muddy.
HBII SPECS:
Regular output / volume
Even frequency response with slightly pushed mid-range
2x3.000 Windings (6K Ohm output resistance)
43AWG / 0.56mm copper wire
Scatterwound
12x Neodymium Magnets
Specs:
Model: Orbit Baritone
Color: Oyster White
Scale: 28.5”
Nut width: 1 & ¾”
Nut Material: Tusq
Neck: Smoked Oak w/ carbon fiber reinforcements and truss rod access at headstock
Neck Profile: Verso Chunky C - .84" -.94"
Fingerboard: Smoked Oak w/ 16" Radius
Position Markers: Side markers only
Bridge: Handmade & pre-intonated Oak wood w/ brass saddles
Pickups: 2 movable magnetic pickups. SC2 in the neck and HB2 in the bridge position (Smoked Oak covers)
Controls: 1 Vol, 1 Blend Pot (Smoked Oak knobs)
Tuners: Schaller M6 locking
Weight: 6lbs 4.2oz
Case / Accessories: Mono Sleeve Protective Gig-Bag w/ Richter Leather Strap
