The 8 String "Leviathan"

Doctor J

Yeah, I like the idea of fanned frets and you're right, it's a huge change anyway so maybe putting the fanned frets now would be a good idea, it's gonna be a steep learning curve as is, so **** it, why not?

Karl Hungus

Doctor J wrote:

Yeah, I like the idea of fanned frets and you're right, it's a huge change anyway so maybe putting the fanned frets now would be a good idea, it's gonna be a steep learning curve as is, so **** it, why not?

Well that's sorta my view on it.
I don't think it's going to be that steep as such. I'm already doing excersizes to help me adjust more to the increased scale of the 27" neck by playing 1 3 5 7 up along each string as fast as I can. Probably a bit ahead of myself there, but it's a very good excersize I find. Aswell as that, even the increased neck is going to take getting used to, so there's going to be a lot of adjustments to be made. It's practically baritone scale.

Actually, would you have any good excersizes you could PM me later? I'm always on the look out for 'em.

Doctor J wrote:

This is a bit of a surprise. I would have thought B to A myself. TBH I can't really see the point of going this low. You're going to have difficulty finding an amp that can deal with that frequency range. Realistically you're looking at running a crossover splitting the low frequencies from the high and feeding a bass amp and a regular guitar amp, either that or a keyboard amp. I think you'd be compromising your tone either way. If you're playing the low F#, you are playing the same note as the second fret on a regularily tuned bass, you don't want that coming out of a Mesa. A low tuned bass isn't going to play the F# below that so if you're playing along with a bassist you'll both be playing the exact same notes, and kill each other's tone. I think B is plenty low myself, but it's your call.

It's the same tuning that Meshuggah use, and I don't believe they've had any problems using regular guitar amps for their 8 strings. Although as far as I know, they use Line 6. In fact, I know many people have realistically down-tuned their 7 strings from a low B to god knows what without problems. A friend of mine has a 7 that he has downtuned and cranks straight through a Marshall stack (He doesn't use pedals) without any problems whatsoever, and he also has a second guitar which he keeps in standard E tuning which he uses through the same marshall.

I don't think there'll be that much of a problem at all, but I'll obviously look into it more, and see what's the story with amps. Maybe bass amps are more suited for the additional low-end than a regular guitar amp, but isn't the standard for an 8 string bass F# - C tuning, and I don't think there's ever any problems there.

As I said though, I'll definetly look into it more.

Doctor J

You can go low with bass but you need serious equipment to be able to hear it. A decent 15" bass cab will put out maybe 30Hz to 4kHz. Human hearing starts at about 20Hz, if you've good hearing. To put this into perspective, a regular low E on a guitar is about 83Hz. Your low F# will be around 46Hz. At that level, you're really just playing bass. EQ on guitar amps isn't really designed for frequencies that low, plus you need a lot more power to drive low frequencies, it all adds up €€€

D!ve^Bomb!

plus the lower the frequency the less audible the sound.. they should have frequency response charts for amps.. i've never seen one anyway

Doctor J

newband wrote:

frequency response charts for amps.. i've never seen one anyway

Bass amps generally do, but guitar amps don't because they're generally not hovering around the borderline of practicality vs price vs audibility. One issue I see is that on a guitar amp, generally the low frequency EQ is a shelf - ie - say it starts at 150Hz, when you turn up the low end it boosts everything below 150Hz equally and that's not a big issue with a regularily tuned guitar, but you've got almost an extra octave below what's 'normal' which I don't think a guitar amp is really designed for.

Edit -> these are the controls on my Ashdown bass amp

+/-15dB @ 45Hz
+/-15dB @ 180Hz
+/-15dB @ 340Hz
+/-15dB @ 660Hz
+/-15dB @ 1.3kHz
+/-15dB @ 2.6kHz
+/-15dB @ 7kHz shelving

It's got the low frequencies in mind and offeres plenty of flexibility to add/remove to a decent degree. Many bass amps have even more control over the EQ. Your average guitar amp has just low, mid and high.

Karl Hungus

I hate to bring up Meshuggah again, as they're not a band I'm trying to emulate, ever mind being much of a fan of in the first place. But seeing as they use F# - E, and they pulled it off both in studio and live, I'm certain there's the equipment to take it. Especially considering that it's not just LGM that are offering a low F# 8 String guitar, but Ibanez, Nevborn and Conklin (I think) also offer said tuned custom guitar. Though I'm sure that Conklin mostly do B - A, and that's what Rusty Cooley plays.

I'm not disagreing with you that the right equipment will be limited, but not quite as problematic as all that. Maybe I'll need a Line6 amp to take the Leviathan, if so, I can easily snatch one up sans problemos. At a stretch, I could do something silly and run a marshall head through a bass amp? Mightn't work for the 8 string, but I think that the guitarist from tool did that (And could very well still do) to get his sound. At the least it's worth looking into.

Edit: Meshuggah do indeed use Line6... DocJ? Your thoughts on Line6?

Doctor J

Personally, I just can't really see the use of that low a note if you ever plan on playing with a bass player, you'll be playing the same notes. It'll be like having two basses and a bass drum all fighting for the same frequencies in a mix. Nasty. Given the potential use for a low F# vs a high A, I think the A would be more useful. Messuggah get away with it because they've got a sound engineer who knows their setup backwards and everything (bass tone and kick drum) is tailored to accomodate the low tuned guitar. Just listening to Nothing here, there isn't really any low end in the bass, it's just a shadow behind the guitars. They don't have that much low end in their sound. That works with what they're doing but if you were to go from that to a melodic Opeth type acoustic part for example, with those tones, and it'll sound like cold, wet gick. You roll into any venue or even studio in Ireland and they won't be able to deal with it. I shudder to think what that would sound like in Dorans You're looking at a really complicated (and very expensive) amp setup to utilise the guitar which you will have serious difficulty in using outside of practicing by yourself at home. In my experience, low A is about as low as a metal band can realistically go to without drastically and horrifically compromising their sound to suit the low, low guitar and, being honest, how often will you use the really low notes? Even then, you need someone who really knows what they're doing to engineer it so that it works and it's not just a wall of low end sludge. I mean, how many Metal albums have you heard where the bass drum, bass and low chug guitar are all muffling each other even in E? I think the F# string just isn't a practical option, given the expense (suitable amplification) and considerable inconvenice it entails. Just my opinion, I could see more functionality in an A. Even with a low B you could drop it to low A easily enough, I've done it myself in the past but it and the bass just start getting in each others way to much to make it anything other than a bit of a pain in the ass.

Karl Hungus

Hmm... This really is less than encouraging.

The 8 String is something I am really getting excited about, and the thoughts of some of the things I could do with it are quite phenominal. Seeing as it's something I'd asked around quite a bit for before, with Feylya finally introducing me to LGM where it actually looked like it was a very realistic possibility of buying it, and not something completely outrageous. I mean, just think how it would sound at some of the slow, heavy, almost droning passages of some music I'd be able to write. Makes me shiver, thinking about it. Either that, or this cold weather. I'd just love to experiment around with those kinda tones coming from a guitar.

And lets not forget just how plain COOL it would be!

So is there nothing I can do realistically about the problems you've pointed out? Would it be possible to run a guitar head through a bass amp, and it not sound like wet gick? I don't particularly want wet gick from a guitar. It'd probably kill my little pal Microcube too, which is definetly not good.

I really don't want to abandon the idea of the 8-string just yet, so any help with making it a proper possibility would be extremely helpfull indeed.

feylya

A guitar head into a bass amp? Explain...

Karl Hungus

feylya wrote:

A guitar head into a bass amp? Explain...

Bass cab even.

Could be a silly idea of course, but lets say something like this into something like this. A possibility of making all that low end work properly, without everything sounding like sludge? I dunno.

feylya

Diamond Darrell runs a Randall head into a 4x12 cab and a 2 x 15 cab. The 2 x 15 is generally a bass cab... Can be done...

Karl Hungus

Hehehehehe... "Diamond" Darrell.

So it is a distinct possiblity that some rather nifty guitar head (Doesn't have to be a Triple Rectifier of course, but it would certainly be excellent) through a bass cab would be a perfectly realistic solution to cope with the leviathan? I'm starting to get optimistic once again.

Karl Hungus

Oooh, perhaps one of these babies would be of use? Looks very nice.

Oh, and bugger that double guitar stand I'm after, one of these would be far more usefull.

Doctor J

There's nothing wrong with the 8, I'd just go for B to A instead. Notes that low, they sound better coming out of a bass, 34" scale, big fat strings, amps designed for those frequencies, it just doesn't make sense to me to try it on guitar. I mean, if someone suggested playing a 27" scale bass through a guitar amp... it just doesn't sound right. If you want notes that low, use a bass, they are bass notes. Distorted bass noted sound mushy, regardless of the amp, it's just the characteristics of low frequencies. I think a high A would be vastly more useful, practical and be much less of a compromise to the overall functionality of the instrument.

feylya

A high A? What string gauge would that be???

Doctor J

7 or 8?

feylya

Christ, that's small.

Doctor J

I think George Lynch had ESP make him a 7 string with a high A instead of a low B. It has been done.

feylya

Aye, I know it's been done. A lot of jazz players use 7's that way don't they?

Can't say I'm familiar with that model of ESP GL.

Karl Hungus

Doctor J wrote:

There's nothing wrong with the 8, I'd just go for B to A instead. Notes that low, they sound better coming out of a bass, 34" scale, big fat strings, amps designed for those frequencies, it just doesn't make sense to me to try it on guitar. I mean, if someone suggested playing a 27" scale bass through a guitar amp... it just doesn't sound right. If you want notes that low, use a bass, they are bass notes. Distorted bass noted sound mushy, regardless of the amp, it's just the characteristics of low frequencies. I think a high A would be vastly more useful, practical and be much less of a compromise to the overall functionality of the instrument.

You make it sound like I simply want the 8 string solely to chugg the low F# with some low B for variety. That's obviously not what I'm after at all, so saying "use a bass" or that it's a 27" scale bass is a little condescending. What am I going to do, use a regular E guitar, then swap to a bass half-way through a song!?

Personally, I don't see that much use I'd make of a high A at all (care to try and pitch it to me? ) so if there wasn't a low F# 8 String available, I simply wouldn't bother my arse, I'd just got for a 7 String.

Funnily enough, I tried messing about with the microcube and my bass today, just to see how it would sound, and I have to say it didn't sound too bad at all, if considerably fuzzier on the E string than through my Trace Elliot. So even just practicing with the 8 String through the microcube doesn't seem to be that much of a problem at all. Although, I'd rather not just in case, you never know, 2 hours of playing, and the speaker blows on me?! :eek:

I don't know... I'm kinda stumped again. I've an idea in my head of things I want to do with the extra low end, and it's quite exciting altogether, but at the same time, there's a nagging part of me that says you're probably right and that maybe low F# is just going to sound like wet gick? I like wet gick, but from the women, not from the guitars.

feylya

Get a 7 string first. Really.

Karl Hungus

Bah... I don't know anymore.

feylya

Then you must think some more

Karl Hungus

Well, the whole reason I put this thread up in the first place is to make sure I'm 100% certain about what I wan't, and get advice on options and the like. At least it has generated a lot of thought, so I'm more knowledgable now than when I started it.

I'll still try and argue the case of the low F# with the good doctor and see what conclusions I can draw from there.

Another idea I had, which could be really very cool indeed, is getting progressively lighter fret wire as it goes up the neck. So lets from the 12th or 15th fret onwards we use medium fretwire, then maybe from the 18th or 20th, light fretwire. Is this a good idea, or would it **** up the intonation somewhat?

feylya

Absolutely no reason to do that. At all. I believe it has been done but it'll just make string bending harder.

Doctor J

Not trying to be condescending, just trying to explain a potential problem in my eyes which, if you're spending two and a half grand on a guitar, I'd want to fully explore and be entirely comfortable with before I had to pay out. I appreciate I'm probably not doing a great job of the explanation. I'm not suggesting you'll switch to playing basslines, just that you'll be playing bass notes, bass frequencies, the bass register, through the same system as you'll be playing your high E (or high F# if you do a full bend on the 24th fret). There isn't a single speaker out there that can do that well. My concern stems from my sound engineering training and new found awareness of frequencies and what's involved in reproducing them cleanly. I just don't think a regular guitar amp would be able to accurately reproduce the low notes, principally beacuse a guitar amp (and speaker) has to be able to reproduce the full range of notes found on a guitar. To be able to reproduce the high notes and the very low notes is, in my opinion, too much for your average 12" speaker. Guitar speakers are usually thinner (cone) than bass speakers and therefore less keen on really low frequencies. Your guitar is going almost a full octave below what a normal guitar amp is expected to deal with. It could do it, sure, but there'd be a compromise in sound quality, no question. But you're looking to have a great guitar with no compromises. A guitar amp doesn't have the EQ to be properly able to clean out the poxy low frequencies which sound boxy and muddy and need to be dealt with. A bass amp doesn't have the finesse required to really shine in guitar frequencies. To me, it just looks like this will be an expensive exercise, way beyond the initial cost of the guitar. The 8 string to low F# has an enormous range which a single conventional amplifier just won't be able to make the best of. Sure, the microcube can play bass, but bear in mind you're not whacking it out at 300W. You'll most definitely need a crossover to separate the low frequencies and run them to their own amp. This amp will need to be more powerful then your guitar amp because there's more effort invovled in pumping out low frequencies. So you've a bass amp and cab, a guitar amp and cab, do you separate the signal before or after the effects? A distortion that works well on really low frequencies won't necessarily sound good on a normal guitar range. so buy two sets of effects? Then you've got to balance them and blend them and make them all work happily together. It just seems like way too much grief and effort for something that should be the light of your life. As I see it (and I'm probably being a little melodramatic, I admit) you're setting yourself up for a world of compromise, either your tone will suffer or you'll have an area on your guitar which you're reluctant to use. Either scenario is a bad thing for the guitar of your dreams. But as I said, talk to someone who has one, get their experience, all this is specualtion and quite possibly arse talk. I just know I wouldn't want to send a low F# through a 100W 4x10" at full whack unless I had a video camera pointing at the cab

As for the fret wire, I think the bigger frets need to be up the treble end. I'd even suggest a slight scallop from frets 20 to 24, it's where you have the least room to really dig in so why make it harder? Actually, I think the old Jems were scalloped like that?

Edit -> I'd be keen to hear Eoin Madsen's take on the F# thing, he knows this stuff better than I do.

Karl Hungus

God help me if I ever tried to tune down to a low, low E.

No, you're not being condescending DoctorJ, you're helping my out quite a lot. I need the feedback, and your input is quite valueable.

Incidentally, I also signed up at www.extendedrangeguitar.com to see what their take on it is, and one of the moderators has ordered a F# 8 String from LGM, so I can see how he finds it. Perhaps even ask him if he would make a recording for me, so I can see exactly how it would sound in practical use. None of the users there seem to see any problems with playing those low frequencies through a decent amp, so it's really up in the air as concerning how serious an option it is, without having to do some insanely complicated amp-jiggery.

That's not to say that I'm not taking your points into consideration, because I am, and currently I'm also taking into consideration the option of a 7 String if the whole 8 malarky turns out to be too overly complicated. I'm thinking the 27" scale option that's available for the 7s on LGM would be worth taking, and perhaps the fanned frets also. I'm not making any definite decisions now though, and I'm still entertaining the 8 seriously, just that I'll wait untill I can hear what it sounds like. Maybe it'll sound like wet gick, maybe it'll sound absolutely phenominal, and I'll say "Hell yeah! Why was it even a question in the first place?"

So, if I still do get the 8 String, want to come to Galway and try it out sometime?

Doctor J

Hmmm... I'll probably have to visit the sister in law while I'm there... Ahhh **** it, why not?

I'm looking at his purely from the technical side of it, I like the concept of extended range, hence the 6 bass, but I'm just weary of the capability of regular (and affordable) amplification. If it meant you had to set up some sort of customised amp and cab, and then lug that around every time you wanted to play the guitar, it'd sour the whole experience of the guitar itself. I still think the idea of the high A would give you many of the notes you were going to get with 29 frets except you'll actualy be able to play them, not just tap them, so don't abandon the idea of the 8 string just yet

Real Extended range

Karl Hungus

I'm really not too sure I'd bother with a high A, because I can't see that much use for it bar some widdley soloing. I won't write off the notion yet, I would like to look into all possibilities, but I just can't see myself getting any use out of a high A. A low F# on the other hand, think of some fast Death Metal, with slow crushing lows of something like Isis. And add in that fretless bass I'm thinking of getting, my god it could be phenominally unique!

You're perfectly right though, an over-complicated amp setup would more than likely sour the experience and practicallity of it. Maybe a drop A could be more than enough extra low end for what I wan't to do? Probably the only band using the 8 strings at the moment are Meshuggah, and that kind of style certainly isn't what I've got in mind. I'll have to see if I can hear some of the 8 string stuff this fellow on the extended range forum can get out of his once he gets it.

Speaking of the extra low end, what do you think of the Mark IV 'Wide Version' which supposedly has a "Broader enclosure for more bass punch"? Sounds exactly the thing for me. It's the exact same price as the regular Mark IV combo, and seeing as I'm just about to start a new job (yay!) something like that wouldn't be too out of the question at some stage next year. Do you think it's actually got anything up on the regular Mark IV, and if so, assuming I do go for the F# 8 String, do you think it would be suitable, without any overly complicated adjustments to be made?

Oh, and that is some crazy bass!

Doctor J

I think drop A is plenty low. Even if you were to detune to regular D, have the low A (and a high G perhaps?) - low A is about as low as a bass can go and still be audible (and have a chance of being audible in a venue over a regular PA) - never mind a home stereo You still have an octave between the bass and the guitar (think God Of Emptiness, the extra whoooomf the bass gives when it's played an octave lower). Once the bass and guitar are playing the same notes and you don't have the option of the bass going lower, then it makes the bass redundant and you sound like a detuned And Justice For All.

As for the amp, 1x12", seems to use bass reflex for enhanced (but not clear) bottom end, but it doesn't mean actual bass notes. It's just a bigger cab designed to acoustically enhance a warmer low end. I don't think 85 watts is enough for bass frequencies, nor is a 12" speaker suitable for bass and high frequencies. An 85 watt bass amp would be foook all use with a drummer, whereas a 70 watt guitar amo would be ample. As I said, bass cones are usually a bit denser, they need to be for pushing out low frequencines. They don't move as fast as thinner speakers, like guitar cones which need to be able to put out more high frequencies than a bass cone. I would say it might be wise to get in contact with Mesa and tell them what you want to do - ie F# at 46Hz - and see what they say. Maybe a denser 12" and a tweeter (getting into keyboard amp territory) might be a solution.