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The 8 String "Leviathan"

Karl Hungus

Now, a lot of regulars here would know, I've been very seriously considering getting a custom made 8 String guitar from LGM, and it's looking more and more likely that I will be able to afford it (all things going to plan) in the very near future, so I've decided to post a thread about it in hope that the good people of boards will help me out on a few details I'm still unsure of.

Here's the details on the LGM LeVIIIathan

What I've decided on so far:

24 Fret
Mahogany Body
Maple Neck
Quilt Maple Top
Ebony Fretboard
Locking Tuners
2 Seymour Duncan Pickups
Tone, Volume & 3 Way Switch
Metal Pickup Rings
Black Hardware

I've had plenty of silly ideas for custom fretboard inlays, but I've settled on the idea of no fretmarkers on the fretboard face itself, just side markers. I'm nearly thinking just a plain solid black finish aswell, but this is really bugging me altogether whether or not I should get a transparent finish to show off the quilted maple, or a complete custom peice of artwork, only I don't know what that artwork would be. It really has me stumped, but at the same time, I love the minimalism of the solid black and blank ebony fretboard. So any advice here would be appreciated, as I'm just stumped.

As for the Piezo system, that's still kinda up in the air, so to speak, but I'm not sure I want to over-complicate things too much.

Thoughts on the setup so far?
Any advice would be very helpfull.

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Comments

Karl Hungus

Right you are so. Wouldn't having both bridge and nut slanted be best though? Could get very complicated where the frets reach their most angeled otherwise.

feylya

It's gonna be complicated with the frets slanted anyway!

Karl Hungus

Well obviously, but for overall playablity I imagine having the frets straightest near the center of the board, and then fan out equally in each direction seems to make more sense than having a very sharp angle near the nut, or at the 24th fret. I mean, a fret at a 45 degree (or whatever the sharpest would be) angle would be a nightmare, methinks. I could be wrong.

feylya

Well, if you were going to be playing simplistic chords near the nuts (simplistic ie E, C, D, G, A, B, etc) then a straight nut would be better. But if you were going to the fret ****, a straight 12th fret or bridge would make more sense. You have to decide what you'd be playing now and in the future.

dpmasunder

Actually both the nut and bridge are slanted. There is generally one fret placed perpendicular to the centreline of the neck. Usually the twelfth or ninth fret. I'm going to use the ninth for the 7-string neck which is my next project, that will let me guage how much I like fanned frets and help decide what to do on the 8-string.
My main concern with playability and fanned frets is how the offset bridge will affect palm mutes. We'll see......
Oh, btw the 7 neck is going to be fretted for quarter tones.
Hopefully I'll like it. Could turn out a complete waste of time lol.

LGM Guitars

The nut and bridge must be angled, if you were to keep the bridge straight your first fret and nut would have such an extreme angle it would be unplayable. Just picture this, if you had a 27" scale, and a 25.5" scale, and you wanted to keep the bridge straight, that would now mean that your first fret would have to be 1.5" further down the neck on the Low string than on the high string, you're talking a HUGE angle, trying to play that would be near impossible I think.
Because my business is set up with billing and PO boxes in the US as well as Canada, I still have to pay the $75 to Novak for doing the fanned frets regardless of whether I sell it in the US or not.
One of the reasons I have not really considered the fanned frets is then I would really need to offer it as an option in which case it would be done more. I've played a few fanned fret guitars and have yet to see any real value to them, on a bass it seems to make more sense, but on guitar, I'm not sold. I know 2 people with Novak guitars, and the sad part is, neither guitar will intonate properly, so much for the fanned frets improving intonation and string tension.
The offset string saddles are awful to use, they are a pain to deal with in many respects, they also end up making the string spacing wider which is somewhat uncomfortable.
However, as with all my custom guitars, if it is something you absolutely HAVE to have, I will do it, it's just an added cost. Accurately cutting the fret slots on a fanned fret neck is the biggest pain in the butt, fretting also becomes a challenge as the radius of the caul would need to change for each fret, as a result, every single fret must be hammered rather than pressed, this isn't a problem, it's just more time consuming.
In about a weeks' time though I will be a licensed Buzz Feiten installer, so all the guitars will be available with the Buzz Feiten tuning system.

dpmasunder

Interesting LGM. I haven't played a fanned fret guitar here yet. I can see problems with the Novax CH 8-string design. What specific intonation problems were you seeing? Feel free to email me if you don't mind discussing it further. The Buzz Feiten system I like, however to become an authorized installer they expect me to travel all the way to the States to do their little training thing. Maybe some day I'll have other reasons to go that may make such a thing viable, but for the time being........

Karl Hungus

Hmm... That's definetly something to think about.
Although, I've never liked the style of the novax guitars themselves, so perhaps its more to do with what Conklin has done with the patent that's gotten the noteriety of the fanned fret system? God knows I'd never want one of those Charlie Hunter 8 strings, horrible looking thing altogether. Still, it's definetly something to look into more, and I'd like to know more about the problems you found with the fanned frets.

Still, I'm glad to see that the fanned frets is something you're willing to do, and I'm also glad to see that you'll be offering the Buzz Feiten system, which is definetly a possible alternative.

Thanks again for the feedback.

feylya

I'd take the Buzz Feinten tuning system over the fanned frets any day.

Karl Hungus

Anything is a possiblity at this stage, feylya.

I still like the idea of the fanned frets though, it seems to make a lot of sense. Although I will of course have to find some way of trying out a guitar with them to really get the best view on them, but chances of just finding somewhere/someone in Ireland who has such a guitar is very slim.

dpmasunder

Fanned frets acheive a different thing to the Feiten tuning system. I can only see a use for them for guitars with at least 7 strings. Basses 5. It's all about getting a longer string length moving for the bass notes, without increasing tension in the treble strings. There's no reason a fanned fret instrument can't also be a Feiten tuning instrument.

Karl Hungus

Hmm... BOTH the Feiten system, and Fanned Frets? Now there's an idea.

[Deleted User]

what is this Feiten tuning?

feylya

It basically makes every fret equally out of tune as the next. The way the guitar is designed, when you have the open string and 12th fret in tune, other frets will be slightly out of tune.

Doctor J

Hmmmm, it hasn't been that big a deal for the last 500 years...

feylya

Meh, true that. Still, Satch and Vai can hear the difference and we all know how unskilled their ears are... Sure, everyone has that sort of hearing

Doctor J

Yeah, and once the sound engineer has smothered it in reverb at the gig it really comes into it's own

Do Floyd have a Feiten locking nut yet?

feylya

You don't know how the system works, do you?

Doctor J

Slight increments into the nut which change the length per string ever so slightly? TBH, saw something on it a while ago, thought of a 59 Les Paul into a Marshall stack, thought meh, I can live without Buzz

feylya

Nope, that's the Earvana compensated nut. The Buzz Feinten system moves the nut towards the bridge by a few cents.

Electric Guitar
................OPEN.....12th...(cents)
    E            00        00
    B           +01        00
    G           -02       +01
    D           -02       +01
    A           -02        00
    E           -02        00

Doctor J

As I said, I can live without Buzz. Sometimes folk can get anal about things like that and then chorus the **** / flange the **** / phase the **** out of their tone anyway. You should forego jumbo frets, get teeeny little ones that are just a breath away from it being fretless so you can't bend the string down between the frets and maybe some guardrails on either side of the string so it can't be bent sharp or flat towards the other strings. That way it'll always be just right in tune and in perfect harmony, which is what rock and roll is all about

feylya

Just get a robot to play. Or a monkey. Or a robot monkey

Doctor J

Just sell your guitar and get a midi rig and keyboard

feylya

Then I'd be turning into Mr_Angry... >_<

Doctor J

Ooooh cheap shot

feylya

I'd better not say any more. To the PMobile!

LGM Guitars

I think the biggest issue with the fanned frets intonation wise is that if you aren't deadly accurate when playing the strings, you are in effect changing the scale length you are intonated to. In other words, you need to be sure you are pushing the string straight down, not bending it as you push it down. This is most noticable in chords. On straight frets if you move the string back or forth across the fret the effect is pretty small, on the fanned frets it is potentially larger. With a guitar, particularly in the higher strings, the the tension / pitch relationship is much greater than on a bass string. Imagine playing with a slide, when the slide is directly over the fret the note is on pitch, if you are ahead of or behind the fret it's not, the fanned fret moves in the length of the string when you bend it. Not that you can't learn to play around this, but when chording it means you have to be more accurate. On a straight fret even though bending the string will put it out of tune, it's less noticable than if you bend it PLUS the fret is moving closer up towards the bridge. Your string is intonated based on the relationship between the open string and the octave (12th fret) If when doing intonation you bend the string, you are not getting an accurate intonation. Imagine now having a string bending, and a fret that is basically moving forwards and backwards on each string. When you bend a note, the fret moves away from or closer to your finger as you move across the board, this also by my way of thinking makes bending strings a little more complex, especially in the higher frets. I like doing 2 and 3 full step bends, on a fanned fret guitar, in the upper frets, this means that as you bend the string across the board, your finger must also move in between the frets because of the angle.

The Buzz Feiten system probably wouldn't work on a fanned fret 8 string due to the width of the neck and the width of the nut increasing as it is angled (the geometry of it would require a longer nut to span the board if it's angled than if it's straight across) Also, because the Feiten nuts are machines, it means it would also affect the string spacing if it was angled.

The Feiten system can be used with a floyd rose lock nut as well, I asked about that, as soon as I receive my training package I will talk more about how the system works, I just want to make sure I have a full understanding of it first.

Doctor J

Thanks Jeremy. Do you think the Feiten system makes that much of a difference?

Karl Hungus

Hmm... Thanks very much.

Definetly something I should put more thought into now. Perhaps trying before I order fanned frets really must be done. And I'll be looking farward to hearing from you once you know more about the Feiten system. Definetly seems a more reasonable alternative at this stage.

dpmasunder

I'd agree you may not want to order fanned frets at this stage.
What string guages/tuning do you use on standard guitar?
If you're into low tension you may have to go with an .008 on a 27" scale.
With standard tuning on the 25.5" scale 7 I use - 65, 52, 42, 30, 17, 13, 10.
Lately I've been tuning the treble b & e to c & f, so the interval between all strings is the same. I'm using 12 and 9 guages now. Got the idea when I was setting up a 6-string bass. Suddenly the whole guitar made more sense. Weird eh?
My point is that I don't think I could tune those strings higher on a 27" scale. Maybe an 8 would work but 8's break pretty easily so I'd prefer not.

Damn good point that LGM made there re. technique on fanned frets.

The most info I've found on the Feiten system is the patent application. You can read it on the US Patent Office website. Basically it is a two step method. First the nut is moved closer to the bridge. This is something luthiers have been doing for decades to improve intonation on the first couple of frets. The difference is Buzz has bothered to work out exactly how much closer to move it for various string tensions.
The next part is to intonate the guitar slightly off to make everything equally out of tune. Again he has various secret formulae for types and guages of string. The difference between normal tuned and Feiten tuned is slight but definitely noticable, at least to people with well trained ears. I'd bet, however, that the majority couldn't tell the difference.
It is still a worthwhile thing to do.
Just had a thought about fanned frets.
The string hits the nut on a standard fretboard like this :

|---
On a fanned fretboard it looks like this :

/---
Wonder if this has any effect on the open string vibration? Certainly would be something to factor in on Feiten tuning.