Guitar Info

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

guitarz.blogspot.com:

We've heard of 12-string basses before, but ordinarily (if such an instrument could ever be said to be ordinairy) they consist of four courses of tripled strings. This Prat 12-string bass is an ERB - Extended Range Bass - and has 12 individual courses.
Yes, such instruments can sound very nice, although I'm yet to be convinced as I've never heard a truly incredible (or even particularly memorable) piece of music made with one. Touchstyle instruments have been around for a long time (I can't imagine this Prat 12-er can be played any other way than touchstyle), but they've not really set the music world alight innovation-wise have they? They just remain an intrtiguing curio; the audience is more interested in the number of strings and unusual playing technique than the actual music produced. (Oh - prove me wrong, someone!)
This post originates at http://guitarz.blogspot.com - beware of those damned scraper blogs!
I've said it before and will very likely say it again: if you want that many strings, get a harp already!

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

guitarz.blogspot.com:

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!

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Here's another delightfully eccentric hand-made bass from Steve Wishnevsky, a.k.a. Wish Bass. This unique, one-off fan-fretted bass is called the Holy Lobe Bass and is currently up for grabs on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $500. The through neck is made from laminates of mahogany, purpleheart and maple, and the body is of wild cherry. As on other Wishbasses, there is no trussrod. It also features a Kent Armstrong humbucker, and the controls are basic being just limited to just a single volume.

G L Wilson

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

Any Strat fans searching eBay for the weird and wonderful may well have missed this Peter Kellett Strat type guitar because the seller has, for reasons unknown, very ingeniously listed it as a Tele type guitar. It's a guitar that ticks off several of our "weird" boxes. Firstly you'll notice it has an over-the-top "Western" graphic applied to the front of the body. The body itself is anodized aluminium and the listing claims it is "From the last of the Harly Davidson bodies" (sic) which would imply that the body is genuine Fender. The most unusual feature, however, is the neck which features the Novax (or "Kovax" as the seller insists on calling it) patented fanned fret system so that the scale length varies for each of the strings, the top E having the shortest scale and the low E having the longest and which supposedly makes for more comfortable left-hand positioning.

For more guitars in a similar vein, see kellettguitars.com.

Charlie Hunter's Novax fanned fret guitars