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Showing posts with label 8-string. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 8-string. Show all posts

Novax Charlie Hunter 8-string guitar

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It's been a while since we last fed our too-many-strings category - and today no many-necked harp, no video game title song tapped on a 16-string bass, no Meshuggah-like juggernaut riff performed on an 8-string hyperstrat, but a very classy 8-string Novax Charlie Hunter Solidbody 8 guitar with a strange but ergonomic Les Paul extrapolation body in beautiful natural finish and a fanned fret neck.

It combines 5 guitar strings and 3 bass strings with separate electronics including 2 jack outputs and Bartolini pickups specially conceived fort it. Jazz musician Charlie Hunter contributed to its conception and used it extensively as you can see on the video below (there is also a semi-hollow version of this guitar).


So it there still someone who thinks that a 8-string guitar is a gadget?

Bertram

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3:33 PM | Labels: , , , , , , ,

Vega console guitar from the 1930s

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This 8-string Vega console guitar (basically a lap steel with legs!) has more than a touch of the Art Deco about it, with decorative chrome accents and bakelite knobs. The feature that I find most intriguing, though, is the tuning apparatus. I've not seen anything quite like that on a guitar before. Compact, it isn't!

The five bakelite-topped tone controls are labelled "Contra", "Bass", "Normal", "Treble" and "High".

A fascinating instrument; I'm sure you could make a whole blog on the subject of slide guitars alone. Unfortunately I know precious little about them.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

7:10 AM | Labels: , , , , ,

Crimson 8-string fanned-fret guitar

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I've been meaning to write about Crimson Guitars for ever. The guitars are painstakingly handcrafted by Ben Crowe and his trusty assistant Igor, and if you've ever had any interest in the construction procress then I recommend you follow the Crimson Guitars workshop diary on the website or alternatively on Facebook as Ben seemingly documents every step of the build for each guitar. They also produce their own hardware including tremolos, headless tuning systems, control knobs, bridges, etc, whilst pickups are often by Wizard, but of course they can be whatever the customer requires.

Past instruments have included those made from exquisite tonewoods with highly controured ergonomic bodies, touch style instruments, carved perspex guitars and basses, and clients include (appropriately enough) King Crimson's Robert Fripp and Charlie Jones, bassist with Robert Plant, Goldfrapp and Siouxsie Sioux.

This particular instrument is a fanned-fret multi-scale 8-string guitar which is suitable for touch-style playing. Crimson guitars are bespoke instruments built specifically to a customer's requirements, but they do produce the occasional stock instrument. I'm sure Ben won't mind me saying that this guitar, now being offered on eBay, only became available as a stock instrument because the customer changed his mind and decided he didn't like the slanted pickups. Unperterbed, Ben began the whole process again and built a second 8-string fan-fretted instrument for the customer. I have to say, the original that we see here with the slanted pickups looks much much better, but if the customer wants straight-aligned pickups that's what he gets!

If I ever come into money, my dream is to commision a Crimson guitar. I think they are so fantastic, I included two in the "500 Guitars" book.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

10:18 AM | Labels: , , , , ,

Agile Intrepid 8-string

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Agile Intrepid

Well I have to say that I have this thing with 8-string guitars - maybe that will stop when I actually played one - and I have it now for the Agile Intrepid here... I like it better in 'bloodburst' (that's macho talk for good old 'transparent cherry') but I didn't want to use a catalogue picture...

Tried to find a demo of it on YouTube but each time it was someone playing Meshuggah (I have nothing against Meshuggah, they're quite good but I find them girlie - probably because that's the kind of music that my girlfriend likes...). But I say it again: you don't have to play metal when you have more than 6 strings!

12:56 PM | Labels: , ,

the more strings, the better: Brooklyn Gear GB8

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Brooklyn Gear BG8

I've never had the opportunity yet to put my fingers on a 8-string guitar, but I hope that one day I can have something like this Brooklyn Gear GB8. It must be like playing with the thunder! I guess that it's not a guitar you should play like a regular one - with just a lower and a higher string. I'd rather use it in open tuning in a modal scale like a zither or something.

This one is nice because it doesn't look like another pointy superstrat like ESP's or Ibanez's, since - and it's a pity - over 6-string you're supposed to play metal.

11:52 PM | Labels:

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