N(8-S)GD, something unusual in these parts !

For guitars of the straight waisted variety (or reverse offset).
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Flurko
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N(8-S)GD, something unusual in these parts !

Post by Flurko » Fri Jan 02, 2015 6:24 am

Hi everyone !
I thought I'd make a NGD thread about my last acquisition (well, Christmas present, but..).
Some time ago an old acquaintance of mine, a very good guitar player but more interested in metal/shred and what have you got into 8-strings. He bought an Harley Benton, liked it, and later bought an higher-end Agile 8-string for his band.
I asked him and he agreed to sell me the Harley Benton, upgraded with the Agile's original pickups (which he replaced with EMG -metal guy, remember-).
I wanted to try an 8-string for a long time. I'm not interested at all in most kinds of metal, but I like weird guitars so I had to get that thing. The looks are really not my cup of tea, as my main guitar is still my trusty old Jazzmaster, and I think most people here will agree with me on the aesthetics qualities (and lack thereof) of this guitar.
Enough talk, here are the pics :

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And side by side with my FakePaul for scale :

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Some quick words about the sounds, since it's supposed to be a musical instrument :
The pickups (Agile Cepheus, as it seems) are set really low and I like it that ways, as the output is more coherent with my other, single-coil equipped guitars. I can't tell about the distorted sounds, as I only ran it for now in my Vox AC4TV, not really a metal amp. It's quite balanced from one string to another (in standard tuning, with low B and F#), i like the metallic sounds of the lower strings, reminds me of the bass sounds of Young Marble Giants, which I've been playing recently, or some Shellac reminiscences.

That's a wrap for now, I'm a proud owner for now, but I might have to do something to make it look less metal, one day !

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Re: N(8-S)GD, something unusual in these parts !

Post by 017493816 » Fri Jan 02, 2015 7:16 am

Do it.

I love my S8, it was my solution to the "metal aesthetics" issue.

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It has nice stock pups, and isn't quite so blatantly metal that I feel weird playing other genres with it.

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Re: N(8-S)GD, something unusual in these parts !

Post by 017493816 » Fri Jan 02, 2015 7:17 am

Also, the metallic sound you describe comes from having lower strings that are too light or dead. Just so ya know. ;)

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Re: N(8-S)GD, something unusual in these parts !

Post by Flurko » Fri Jan 02, 2015 7:59 am

Yes, I was aware of this for the metallic sound, but the tension feels mostly right. It also comes from the new strings, I'll see how it evolves with time.
Re- the aesthetics, the first thing I did was to remove the stupid truss rod cover (who writes "Rock" on a guitar ?) and replace it with a custom one made from a show ticket. Not perfect, but that'll do for now (and I wasn't aware that the guitar had two truss-rods, good to know!).

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Re: N(8-S)GD, something unusual in these parts !

Post by Stereordinary » Fri Jan 02, 2015 10:29 am

I just recently finished my first eight-string and I'm super pumped on it. I'm a tall guy with big hands and long fingers, so making the adjustment isn't too difficult for me. So far I really like playing it.

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Rhoney Guitars, 2010-2017, 2024

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Re: N(8-S)GD, something unusual in these parts !

Post by Flurko » Mon Sep 28, 2020 2:26 am

Update five years later :

I've very rarely played this guitar, mostly because I don't play metal and the string tension always felt weird. I put some stickers on it because I didn't want to ruin my nicer guitars, but maybe I'll take them off, they look pretty silly.

Really good news though : I stumbled upon the Ernie Ball 9-string set (thomann link but my local music store could order them for me for a slightly lower price).

The biggest string in this set is a 105, but with a guitar-sized ball end, which allows a stable Bass VI E-E tuning on this 26" guitar (plus two top strings) ! I will buy another set like this one of these days and try it on a standard scale guitar (probably my fake hollow PRS), to see how low I can get on a neck that isn't stupidly wide like this one ! ;D

The half P-style pickup in the neck position is just here for testing, the neck humbucker wasn't sounding really great here. Work in progress !

Image

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Re: N(8-S)GD, something unusual in these parts !

Post by burpgun » Mon Sep 28, 2020 5:49 am

Personally, I love the idea of trying to work a guitar like this into a non-metal context. But one question: Is it hard to use something like this in a project that also has bass? Seems like the frequencies would be awfully crowded down there. I only do recording, but even there, getting a Bass VI and a normal bass to balance can be tricky.

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Re: N(8-S)GD, something unusual in these parts !

Post by Flurko » Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:39 am

burpgun wrote:
Mon Sep 28, 2020 5:49 am
Personally, I love the idea of trying to work a guitar like this into a non-metal context. But one question: Is it hard to use something like this in a project that also has bass? Seems like the frequencies would be awfully crowded down there. I only do recording, but even there, getting a Bass VI and a normal bass to balance can be tricky.
I've yet to try it in a band context with another bass instrument. I just joined a project as a "bass-person", and given how playing bass hurts my back and my shoulder I'll maybe bring this instrument along if I don't have too many weird looks !

I need to sort out the wiring, I have an annoying hum/noise problem, If anyone can tell me why, I've put a small sound sample here : https://soundcloud.com/mieuxdecorrosion ... -tone-test (with guitar rig amp sim).

I thought everything was grounded properly, the wiring is pretty simple but I might have made some mistakes !

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