Jeff Fiorentino's equipment details - page 2

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Jeff Fiorentino's Green (Metallic pea) mid 80's era Kramer Baretta


All text written by: Guitarist Jeff Fiorentino

This guitar was found in a dumpster near our "old" studio location on 5th St. in Santa Monica CA.  It has a crack in the body and was thrown away probably by either a brain dead fool, or someone's angry girlfriend, or someone that just didn't know any better.  I have a lot of spare parts laying around the house so I put it back together and to be honest its become one of my most asked about guitars.  1. because it's a Kramer Baretta and people love those because of Eddie Van Halen, and 2. because they wonder why I ruined it with such an awful paint color...lol...  All that aside I've done a couple of studio gigs with it, and it's a real nice playing and sounding guitar.  I really like it a lot despite what some think about the color.  Its certainly come a long way from its original final resting place in a Santa Monica dumpster.  As far as electronics go I originally had put it together with a Duncan JB pickup at the bridge, however I changed it to a Duncan PAF 59.  This pickup seems to work better in this guitar.  It gives it a very authentic VH tone especially on big chord ring outs.  Obviously it being a Kramer from the 80's I use it primarily for Van Halen type applications.  But you know it can do Jazzy stuff too.  So if you have a Kramer like this one at home go ahead and take it to a Blues or Jazz gig / jam, it'll do just fine I promise.  The Floyd doesn't float on this guitar and much like the White Kramer I leave this guitar with a flat tuning.  Although because it's a non-floating bridge I can easily tune this guitar to a standard tuning if I want to, but tuning a Kramer to a standard tuning is kind of a sin around here.

Not much more I can say about this guitar, I don't use it a lot on video but I do use it to record a lot of the mp3 files you hear.  It's not a good video guitar because it's hard to see the neck.  Maple necks are easier to watch and see finger movement on.  I use this guitar to record about half the song tracks featured on our Van Halen style product line though, so you've all heard it a Million times.

The neck on this guitar by the way is actually the original neck that was on the White Kramer.  It's a Kramer American neck for the Sustainer guitar with a classic "U" shape to it.  It's a smooth playing comfortable neck.  These vintage Kramers from the 80's are worth their weight in Gold and should never be just tossed away for something as stupid as a crack in a non-essential location.  Frankly there's really no need to throw away a solid guitar body because it's cracked in the first place.  It's just a piece of wood, glue the darn thing back together tightly with some biscuits and it'll be just fine.  I should point out that things get more complex with hollow body guitars, but if it's a solid body you're dealing with, a little glue and C clamps is really all you need per say.  Worst case scenario just cut the darn thing into a new shape.  Make a Triangle out of it or something, who cares.  As long it plays OK that's all that matters.


Jeff Fiorentino, JFRocks.com

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