Lets look at our guitars thread

[Lefty]

kazste said:

After much deliberating i treated myself to this.



Les paul deluxe 2015 in pelham blue. Tried a few this felt by far the nicest and combined with the looks, the blue changes in relation to the light, it was by far my favourite.

Will sit alongside my squier affinity telecaster and is the start of a hopefully good quality collection of guitars which i can learn to play with.

Gorgeous thing, I just missed out on a 335 in Pelham blue on fleabay, stunning colour

[davepoth]

Lefty said:

I think it's a lovely looking thing, I really do. But I still wouldn't buy a brand-new relic' d guitar, not sure why!

I ruined the finish on my guitar fairly quickly, but it feels more honest that way.

[jbudgie]

kazste said:

After much deliberating i treated myself to this.



Les paul deluxe 2015 in pelham blue. Tried a few this felt by far the nicest and combined with the looks, the blue changes in relation to the light, it was by far my favourite.

Will sit alongside my squier affinity telecaster and is the start of a hopefully good quality collection of guitars which i can learn to play with.

Nice , ...but, prefer the standard colours for an LP.

[kazste]

I understand that and i had the same from my dad who i took down to have a look at it to help me pick as he is a long time player and collector, for me though and as bad as this may sound to some i know nothing of the heritage apart from gibson are a well known brand who makes some good guitars therefore i was free to pick the colours i like and not worry to much about the fact its not a form of burst.

I do respect your and others opinions but for me i liked the way it looked in pictures and went weak in the knees when i saw it for real.

[Baryonyx]

Mastodon2 said:

I didn't think I'd ever buy another 8 string after my RG2228, but here I am with an RG8. I wanted 7 string I could tune to A standard (one whole tone below standard) and wanted a longer scale to help maintain a decent string tension for fast, technical riffs. I decided to go the whole hog and get another 8, the low string is just a bonus, it will be tuned to E, one octave below a standard 6 string guitar low E string.



the pickups are actually pretty nice for standard Ibanez items, though I'll swap them at some point. I was thinking a Seymour Duncan Nazgul / Sentient combo, but I don't want anything too harsh, so I may end speaking to Bareknuckle and seeing what they recommend. I'll probably go for their distressed camo finish covers on the pickups to give it some visual flair and break up the black, or see if they can do me a green cover to mimic the classic black / green Ibanez Universe.

Looks like a bit of a beast.

[bga]

[quote=Mastodon2]

Worlds apart in terms of quality! Try getting a Blackmachine though, the man behind the brand, the enigmatic Doug, doesn't even build all of them these days, he took on another builder who had a shop called Blackat to build the simpler BMs. I think the Blackat guy is handling the B6s or something,[\quote]

AFAIK it's Feline who are building the B6 alongside their own awesome guitars.

[Mastodon2]

Sorry, I'm mixing Feline and Blackat up, the multiplicity of these generic luthiers and their unimaginative names often overwhelms me.

[ST150HB]

Baryonyx said:

Mastodon2 said:

I didn't think I'd ever buy another 8 string after my RG2228, but here I am with an RG8. I wanted 7 string I could tune to A standard (one whole tone below standard) and wanted a longer scale to help maintain a decent string tension for fast, technical riffs. I decided to go the whole hog and get another 8, the low string is just a bonus, it will be tuned to E, one octave below a standard 6 string guitar low E string.



the pickups are actually pretty nice for standard Ibanez items, though I'll swap them at some point. I was thinking a Seymour Duncan Nazgul / Sentient combo, but I don't want anything too harsh, so I may end speaking to Bareknuckle and seeing what they recommend. I'll probably go for their distressed camo finish covers on the pickups to give it some visual flair and break up the black, or see if they can do me a green cover to mimic the classic black / green Ibanez Universe.

Looks like a bit of a beast.

Love the look of it, wouldn't know where to begin playing it though!

[Don1]

Very cool.

[interloper]

Mastodon2 said:

I didn't think I'd ever buy another 8 string after my RG2228, but here I am with an RG8. I wanted 7 string I could tune to A standard (one whole tone below standard) and wanted a longer scale to help maintain a decent string tension for fast, technical riffs. I decided to go the whole hog and get another 8, the low string is just a bonus, it will be tuned to E, one octave below a standard 6 string guitar low E string.



the pickups are actually pretty nice for standard Ibanez items, though I'll swap them at some point. I was thinking a Seymour Duncan Nazgul / Sentient combo, but I don't want anything too harsh, so I may end speaking to Bareknuckle and seeing what they recommend. I'll probably go for their distressed camo finish covers on the pickups to give it some visual flair and break up the black, or see if they can do me a green cover to mimic the classic black / green Ibanez Universe.

Damn out strung by 1 and no doubt out quality'ed as well! Do you mind if I ask what tuning are you using if your lowest is an extra low E? On my seven I have gone for a pretty conventional, low B followed by the standard EADGBE tuning, it makes noodling make sense as everything is sort of were you expect it.

[Mastodon2]

interloper said:

Damn out strung by 1 and no doubt out quality'ed as well! Do you mind if I ask what tuning are you using if your lowest is an extra low E? On my seven I have gone for a pretty conventional, low B followed by the standard EADGBE tuning, it makes noodling make sense as everything is sort of were you expect it.

Standard tuning for an 8 string is F#BEADGBE, the 5th fret of the lowest string is a B, just as the 5th fret of the lowest string on your 7 is an E. I've got an Ibanez K-7 tuned BEADGBE, so I have this 8 string tuned EADGCFAD, which is just tuning each string to one whole tone below standard.

This is not an expensive guitar - they're about £300-£350 depending on where you look. At this price range you'll want to check a guitar over in detail before you buy, Ibanez have strong quality control in place, but it's a £350 guitar. Mine has the odd rough fret end and the rosewood of the fretboard is pretty pale (not dry thankfully, just pale), but play it next to my K-7 and you can tell which one is the £350 guitar from Korea and which one is the £1200 guitar that was built in Japan.



Despite being a cheap guitar, the pickups are nice enough. I don't expect much at this prince point, but they're good enough that I don't want to change them immediately but I put any real mileage on the guitar - but they will be going eventually for some top class Dimarzios or so Bareknuckles.

For those who've never played an 8 string, or a 7 for that matter, it's easy once you get you get your head around the fact you've just added 2 lower strings. Ignore those and the other 6 strings are just a regular guitar. It can take a little while to re-calibrate but if you play some stuff you know on it it quickly makes sense how the lower strings tie in with the rest.

8 strings will never take off with the mass market, just as 7s didn't, the blues rambler or 3 chord banger doesn't need the extra range and the potential for economising motion that extended range guitars offer, and while 7 strings are not a compromise at all, 8 strings are a compromise; To get reasonable tension on the lowest string, you need at least a 27" scale and that means higher string tension across all of the strings, meaning the guitar feels stiffer to play, and it's a bigger stretch between frets as each of the fret gaps becomes wider. Even with a 27" scale and a heavy string, the lowest string is still only really good for single note riffs, it's too mushy to add in chords. To get a really tight, bright low string you need (imo) 29" scale, which is really long and the higher strings will play like st as they'll have so much tension in them. To get 8 strings and beyond to really play well across the range, you need a multiple scale length guitar, with a decent fan, say 29" on the low strings to 25.5" on the high ones. See below.



They look crazy, but the slant of the frets actually follows the wrists natural range of motion, though chords become more difficult, so there is always a compromise of some sort when you get this many strings. I really only wanted a 7 string, but as this 8 was cheap and 27" scale, I thought it would work well in lower tuning I use it in. It's turning out to be a belter of a guitar so far. Many thumbs up from me and for £350 you can't go wrong.

[IainT]

Mastodon2 said:

Even with a 27" scale and a heavy string, the lowest string is still only really good for single note riffs, it's too mushy to add in chords. To get a really tight, bright low string you need (imo) 29" scale, which is really long and the higher strings will play like st as they'll have so much tension in them. To get 8 strings and beyond to really play well across the range, you need a multiple scale length guitar, with a decent fan, say 29" on the low strings to 25.5" on the high ones. See below.

My bass is 37" on the B, 34" on the G and, with appropriate strings, the tension and tone between strings is nicely matched.

On the bass the benefit of a really tight low-B is obvious and the bass adapts really well to low F# tuning with slightly heavier strings - if I were playing music that uses that. As you noted in your posts though - the real benefit is ability to reduce lateral movement. Good on bass, great for shredding I guess! More tonal options too given the ability to pick different fretting positions to control attack/fatness.

I suspect fan frets on guitar and bass will remain a novelty though - even though Ibanez have recently ventured into that on their basses. It will benefit the higher-end manufacturers like Dingwall though as people who get on with the bulk produced look to upgrade.

[Baryonyx]

I doubt it'll have any real effect on Dingwall, they've been going, and making fanned fret basses, for over 20 years.

[Herkybird]

Here's my 2 Strat's, A David Gilmour and an Eric Johnson
I've also got an Ibanez JS1000 BSB Joe Satriani, Ibanez Jem 7VW, Jem BSB, Euphoria EP10 acoustic, Dean 91E, and a few others lying around or out on load with family members.

[Mastodon2]

Get some photos of those Jems up.

[Don1]

Indeed!

[Herkybird]

Ok, there you go then. The Jems, JS, Euphoria and the H&K they all get plumbed through.

[Herkybird]

Edited by Herkybird on Friday 14th August 09:04

[Herkybird]

[Herkybird]