alterbridgefan
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzU85UxJh54
BOOM
BOOM
An 8-string. And Floyd Rose and Kahler routing options.
- Thread starter jscomposer
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Cagey
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Steve St.Laurent said:
I just noticed Rondo has an 8 string Agile neck on the site at the moment, if you're interested. Also, they have some interesting hardware/pickups for 7-9 string guitars available.
I've tried really hard to like Animals as Leaders, but it's just... hot air, to me. I thought John Petrucci's solo album was great, Jeff Loomis is great... but they're adding flash to substance, and Animals is all flash. In a way they do remind me of Dream Theater, in that they seem to write things to confuse each other as much as possible. I'd like to hear Tosin Abasi sit in with... aw hell, Bonnie Raitt? The Allman Brothers? I have no idea if he actually knows how to play rock 'n' roll music. At the very least it would be comical.
Many moons ago I was inches away from pulling the trigger on a Chapman Stick or "Warr" guitar, same idea. But first I bought up a pile of CD's by the most noted "touch guitar" players, and... there's a very fundamental sameness to the sound, based on tapping back and forth between hands. EVERYTHING is in 2/2 time, they can't swing. And the essential fun in rhythm, to me, is the play back and forth between straight time and triplet feel, AKA "rock 'n' roll." I guess you could try and break out of that 2/2 thing - but who has? I really like the King Crimson era with Sticks abounding, but Adrian Belew played all the memorable melodies. It would be neat to have a stick or a nine-string around to play bass & rhythm parts on.
alterbridgefan
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Abasi is actually an extremely versatile guitarist....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2e3WcsCHQY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M43g2fhDqIU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2e3WcsCHQY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M43g2fhDqIU
SustainerPlayer
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StübHead said:
You could do it?
jscomposer
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:sad:
DangerousR6
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I don't really see the point...If the fretboard is so wide I can land a Cessna on it, it's rediculous.. :doh:
SustainerPlayer
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DangerousR6 said:
Get a jumbo jet! :headbang1:
S
swarfrat
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You dont play 8 string barres. I I think most people playing seven and eight strings are using regular tunings (ie parallel fourths, or major thirds). Personally I think regular tunings makes sense even on 6 strings. Most people playing regular tunings typically use three and four note voicings. I have been playing even two and three note voicings, and finding it completely adequate
TonyFlyingSquirrel
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As much as an advocate for the 7 string guitar as I am, I have to honestly say, the market is so narrow, especially for a small company like Warmoth.
It is even more narrow for the 8 string, and the R&D to prepare it with multiple prototypes, CNC spec revisions, and final approval is more cost and labor intensive than able to recuperate from eventual orders.
For the year that I was at Warmoth, a lil over 5 years ago, I can barely recall getting 3 orders in a one year period of time. With profit margins already low due to a price reduction years earlier and going direct to consumer, it will take a long time before the R&D & prototypes have paid for themselves.
In all honestly, I'm surprised that the line hasn't been dropped, but I am glad it is still there because I am hoping to do one as soon as my house sells.
It is even more narrow for the 8 string, and the R&D to prepare it with multiple prototypes, CNC spec revisions, and final approval is more cost and labor intensive than able to recuperate from eventual orders.
For the year that I was at Warmoth, a lil over 5 years ago, I can barely recall getting 3 orders in a one year period of time. With profit margins already low due to a price reduction years earlier and going direct to consumer, it will take a long time before the R&D & prototypes have paid for themselves.
In all honestly, I'm surprised that the line hasn't been dropped, but I am glad it is still there because I am hoping to do one as soon as my house sells.
jscomposer
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@TonyFlyingSquirrel The unpopularity of Warmoth 7 strings has nothing to do with a niche market and everything to do with their weird scale length options, weird pickup placement, insistence on a questionable licensed Floyd well after an Original Floyd 7 string was introduced, and odd refusal to drill mounting holes in the neck heel. NONE of these should be an issue for an 8 string.
S
swarfrat
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Warmoth does offer 28.625 seven strings. i wonder how many of the three sold were baritone vs the 25"?
Seriously dude. It's a cool concept. But it suffers from a huge marketing problem (That Warmoth alone can't solve). The entire industry currently pitches 7's to a very narrow subset of a corner of a niche market of a sub genre descended from the leftovers of a 80's hair metal that only guitar players listen to, detuned chugachugadeathmetal.
Seriously dude. It's a cool concept. But it suffers from a huge marketing problem (That Warmoth alone can't solve). The entire industry currently pitches 7's to a very narrow subset of a corner of a niche market of a sub genre descended from the leftovers of a 80's hair metal that only guitar players listen to, detuned chugachugadeathmetal.
TonyFlyingSquirrel
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The few that I sold were 25" scale, and even fewer 6 string baritone necks.
It's just that narrow of a market, in general.
Even signature guitars are of low amounts compared to other models in a company inventory.
The Les Paul, and the Jem are probably the single largest sellers out there.
I have friends who have siggy models with some of the largest manufacturers out there, sans Gibby & Fender. They're not selling thousands and millions of signature models by the advertised artists. Not even hundreds per year, but more in the "few dozen" per year category. The only reason that is even possible is because they're not terribly different models as far as stock bodies/headstock designs by these manufacturers. It's usually a graphic, choice of pickups/hardware, and a unique inlay, and the fact that they're made overseas on chump change labor. If they were made in the USA, their prices would be through the roof and sales would be even less.
All that is to say, that the 7, 8, & E.R.G. market is an extremely narrow one in general, no matter what the scale length. Those models in comparison to a company's more widely known knockoffs of SuperStrats, & LP-derivative designs are excruciatingly low. Because the demand is so low, the cost of meeting that low demand is not profitable for an American owned family business paying American Labor rates and high operational costs with an already low profit margin.
The math simply doesn't add up.
It would literally take several years for a small company like Warmoth to recuperate the R&D costs, especially taking into consideration that the labor set aside for its R&D is removing someone from normal production of the bread and butter items like Strat/Tele necks & Bodies, which then brings up the topic of "opportunity cost". You have the labor for R&D of a new product, with the timeline that it would take to recuperate that cost and actually begin turning a profit, a low one at that, and then the missed profit from diverting labor to a specialty project that is a gamble, at best.
Believe me, I am indeed a proponent of these limited markets, and would love to see more artists use 7, 8, & E.R.G.'s become more widely accepted outside of the predominately heavier music genre's. I play my Baritone Tele almost entirely as a Blues or Country instrument. I'd love to see more of this.
I'm just saying that from a financial perspective and good business perspective that I understand why most manufacturers that already have their niche market don't. When the demand becomes high enough, they'll adjust, but for most, the demand is minimal by comparison.
It's just that narrow of a market, in general.
Even signature guitars are of low amounts compared to other models in a company inventory.
The Les Paul, and the Jem are probably the single largest sellers out there.
I have friends who have siggy models with some of the largest manufacturers out there, sans Gibby & Fender. They're not selling thousands and millions of signature models by the advertised artists. Not even hundreds per year, but more in the "few dozen" per year category. The only reason that is even possible is because they're not terribly different models as far as stock bodies/headstock designs by these manufacturers. It's usually a graphic, choice of pickups/hardware, and a unique inlay, and the fact that they're made overseas on chump change labor. If they were made in the USA, their prices would be through the roof and sales would be even less.
All that is to say, that the 7, 8, & E.R.G. market is an extremely narrow one in general, no matter what the scale length. Those models in comparison to a company's more widely known knockoffs of SuperStrats, & LP-derivative designs are excruciatingly low. Because the demand is so low, the cost of meeting that low demand is not profitable for an American owned family business paying American Labor rates and high operational costs with an already low profit margin.
The math simply doesn't add up.
It would literally take several years for a small company like Warmoth to recuperate the R&D costs, especially taking into consideration that the labor set aside for its R&D is removing someone from normal production of the bread and butter items like Strat/Tele necks & Bodies, which then brings up the topic of "opportunity cost". You have the labor for R&D of a new product, with the timeline that it would take to recuperate that cost and actually begin turning a profit, a low one at that, and then the missed profit from diverting labor to a specialty project that is a gamble, at best.
Believe me, I am indeed a proponent of these limited markets, and would love to see more artists use 7, 8, & E.R.G.'s become more widely accepted outside of the predominately heavier music genre's. I play my Baritone Tele almost entirely as a Blues or Country instrument. I'd love to see more of this.
I'm just saying that from a financial perspective and good business perspective that I understand why most manufacturers that already have their niche market don't. When the demand becomes high enough, they'll adjust, but for most, the demand is minimal by comparison.
jscomposer
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One of those was probably me, unfortunately.TonyFlyingSquirrel said:
Look, I get it's a niche market, and there are R&D costs, and [nothing new under the sun]. But another relatively small American manufacturer that sells direct, Carvin, seems to do just fine with 7 & 8s. Rondo's doing fine as well, and they're even smaller. Of course the big names like Ibanez and Schecter are doing fine. That's because THEY LISTEN TO THE FOLKS WHO BUY AND PLAY 7 & 8 string guitars. The cockamamy configurations Warmoth insisted on all but guaranteed they'd flop. And you want to point to that as evidence a Warmoth 8 string would be bad for business? Sorry, but Warmoth needs to...
TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY.
stratamania
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Perhaps the responsibility taken is to make business decisions on what is potentially profitable for a business.
If Ibanez for example along with some others are already catering to a niche market even if bodies and necks are made available how many of those players are going to suddenly want to go the DIY route ?
Probably few I would imagine.
This reminds me a little of the recent innovation discussion. The conclusion is perhaps the same, no one vendor is likely to be able to offer everything so the customer then has to look round the market or set up a business to make what isn't available.
If Ibanez for example along with some others are already catering to a niche market even if bodies and necks are made available how many of those players are going to suddenly want to go the DIY route ?
Probably few I would imagine.
This reminds me a little of the recent innovation discussion. The conclusion is perhaps the same, no one vendor is likely to be able to offer everything so the customer then has to look round the market or set up a business to make what isn't available.
TonyFlyingSquirrel
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Exactly.
With that having been said, it is not Warmoth's responsibility to be the "be all and end all" to all DIY consumers.
They do some custom work, inquire within, but you have to be prepared to pay for it. After all, you have to take into consideration the "opportunity cost" and the diversion from production, and they most certainly are going to make sure that their operational costs are recuperated somehow.
My TFS6 was, and 18 years later still is, my dream 6 string. No other company offered what I wanted, so I went to a local luthier and put myself on the waiting list, for 2 years. I passed up a quilt lam top and waited another 6 months until I found the "right one" and I paid considerable cash then $2500 + $500 for a custom built case.
If you want it that bad, you'll pay what either Warmoth quotes you, or what someone else does, that is of course, if they agree to do it in the first place. The problem for some is that they don't want to pay what would actually be financially conducive for a company to do the work in the first place.
With that having been said, it is not Warmoth's responsibility to be the "be all and end all" to all DIY consumers.
They do some custom work, inquire within, but you have to be prepared to pay for it. After all, you have to take into consideration the "opportunity cost" and the diversion from production, and they most certainly are going to make sure that their operational costs are recuperated somehow.
My TFS6 was, and 18 years later still is, my dream 6 string. No other company offered what I wanted, so I went to a local luthier and put myself on the waiting list, for 2 years. I passed up a quilt lam top and waited another 6 months until I found the "right one" and I paid considerable cash then $2500 + $500 for a custom built case.
If you want it that bad, you'll pay what either Warmoth quotes you, or what someone else does, that is of course, if they agree to do it in the first place. The problem for some is that they don't want to pay what would actually be financially conducive for a company to do the work in the first place.
I'm pretty sure that the big innovations in that kind of thing don't come about from people who "do R&D" and design "prototypes" and "re-tool" and all, just somebody who buys some wood and makes the darn thing. And some fail, and some succeed. It wasn't till about 20 years ago that people began to really reliably make great six-string electrics, and then it wasn't Fender and Gibson but those who had watched some of their mistakes, like Music Man and PRS and the "duplicates only better" ones like Heritage and Music Man and, originally Warmoth.
There's a warble back-and-forth between musical needs and equipment innovations and it's really hard to read - a "nine-string" anything seems to me to have at least one root in the tapping of notes to produce sounds, in fact it may be an outgrowth of that in that more strings lets you stay out of your own way. But whatever "pop music" is, it isn't predictable. If you'd looked around in 1975 and predicted that rap music would take over in 15 years you'd have looked like an idiot, and if you'd predicted in 1990 that "American Idol" would be the biggest financial engine in music in 2005, ditto. Right now "retro-ness" seems to the biggest bang going, and if that ain't a sign something's gonna break, we're doomed.
There's a warble back-and-forth between musical needs and equipment innovations and it's really hard to read - a "nine-string" anything seems to me to have at least one root in the tapping of notes to produce sounds, in fact it may be an outgrowth of that in that more strings lets you stay out of your own way. But whatever "pop music" is, it isn't predictable. If you'd looked around in 1975 and predicted that rap music would take over in 15 years you'd have looked like an idiot, and if you'd predicted in 1990 that "American Idol" would be the biggest financial engine in music in 2005, ditto. Right now "retro-ness" seems to the biggest bang going, and if that ain't a sign something's gonna break, we're doomed.
jscomposer
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stratamania said:
Who'd want a made-in-USA quality 8-string, that requires assembly a monkey could do, at the same price or less than the Korean/Chinese/Indian-made shit out there that people spend hundreds of dollars upgrading anyway? Probably a lot.
TonyFlyingSquirrel said:
KNOCK! KNOCK! ANYBODY HOME? We're not talking about custom work. We're talking about production. No one's expecting Warmoth to offer 8 different scale lengths, 5 different fanned fret necks, ridiculous shapes, etc. Even Schecter, who offers dozens of 8-string models, really offers just 1 or 2. It's all the same guitar, just different pickups, finish, hardware, inlays, wood, etc. You see Warmoth's extremely limited 7-string configurations? That's what we're talking about, except done right, unlike their 7-strings.
Thank you, pessimistic 6-string players, for continually bumping this thread. :laughing7:
stratamania
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Probably not as many as you imagine. Step back and take a look from a view of how many of these instruments are actually on sale percentage wise compared even to 7 strings let alone 6 strings. Then factor in what percentage of players build their own.
I'm not saying that it wouldn't be nice to have the choice, it's just not probably as likely.
I'm not saying that it wouldn't be nice to have the choice, it's just not probably as likely.
Truth can be kinda.... evil sometimes. And the truth is, 7-string players can get pretty much what they need right out of the marketplace, because (eee-eevil truth) the woodworking part of making solidbody electric guitars is really pretty easy. Even all the facts about properties of wood, different truss rod methods, fretting and all that - it's all out there, for the taking. There are probably 50 people in every single moderate-sized city who have enough of a workshop that they could bang out a fine guitar, just copying what's already there.
Case in point - Jeff Baxter and Brian May both got very far along in their careers - playing guitars they and their daddy made in daddy's workshop! Eddie Van WHOSIT?
If you hang around sevenstring.org a while, you'll find that there are several different people who are quite happy to make you any neck you want, and not exorbitantly priced either! $300, $400... and I'm sure they don't prototype everything and write a new CAD program for the CNC for each thing they make - because they don't have and don't need CAD and CNC to chop up some wood and glue bits together! Devising and duplicating mass production techniques to make... 3 of something every few years is doing it the hard way, but Warmoth IS in the mass-production mode, essentially. I have been railing for a while now about how much more business they could do if they actually hired a "floater" or swing shift chef, the guy who knows all the aspects and equipment but is there specifically to pull stuff off the line and weird it all up & out for us weird customers.
I mean, I'm with you on the "need" for more seven stuff. I started with an awful Ibanez 7, one of them GIO ones. Then I got an good Ibanez - 7420? 6420? Something like that, a good Japan-made seven. But it had their tiny little neck. Then I built a Warmoth 7 with the standard-thin-only neck, 25" scale to ensure your Low B is either always going out of tune, or sounding tubbier'n Mariah Carey off her diet. AND it had copied Ibanez's popsicle-stick neck. But then, low and behold, I discovered from one of my students that Schecter makes some sevens with some genuine meat in the neck. Yay! So I have a 1999 K-built C7+ and a later... Damien? Demon? All-black superstrat-type with just the cutest, most adorable li'l bats on the fretboard. And then right all at once, my hands and arms and spine began sending messages that I was through with sevens - trigger finger, carpel tunnel, thoracic outlet syndrome, YAAK! So now the C7+ has a jacked up nut and is one of the finest slide guitars ever, and the batty Damien 7 is just here for... company?
Yes there ought to be more seven-string choices - but Warmoth just won't be the one to make them. Which is fine too. I strongly suspect they hit on that 25" scale because they wouldn't have to make another-length trussrod.... now if someone could PLEASE explain why Carvin, with all their huge selection of options, models & sizes - ALSO ONLY MAKE POPSICLE-STICK NECKS?!? I would own about three of them if they weren't so damn dumb they can't figure out how to make more than one neck size. :icon_scratch:
Case in point - Jeff Baxter and Brian May both got very far along in their careers - playing guitars they and their daddy made in daddy's workshop! Eddie Van WHOSIT?
If you hang around sevenstring.org a while, you'll find that there are several different people who are quite happy to make you any neck you want, and not exorbitantly priced either! $300, $400... and I'm sure they don't prototype everything and write a new CAD program for the CNC for each thing they make - because they don't have and don't need CAD and CNC to chop up some wood and glue bits together! Devising and duplicating mass production techniques to make... 3 of something every few years is doing it the hard way, but Warmoth IS in the mass-production mode, essentially. I have been railing for a while now about how much more business they could do if they actually hired a "floater" or swing shift chef, the guy who knows all the aspects and equipment but is there specifically to pull stuff off the line and weird it all up & out for us weird customers.
I mean, I'm with you on the "need" for more seven stuff. I started with an awful Ibanez 7, one of them GIO ones. Then I got an good Ibanez - 7420? 6420? Something like that, a good Japan-made seven. But it had their tiny little neck. Then I built a Warmoth 7 with the standard-thin-only neck, 25" scale to ensure your Low B is either always going out of tune, or sounding tubbier'n Mariah Carey off her diet. AND it had copied Ibanez's popsicle-stick neck. But then, low and behold, I discovered from one of my students that Schecter makes some sevens with some genuine meat in the neck. Yay! So I have a 1999 K-built C7+ and a later... Damien? Demon? All-black superstrat-type with just the cutest, most adorable li'l bats on the fretboard. And then right all at once, my hands and arms and spine began sending messages that I was through with sevens - trigger finger, carpel tunnel, thoracic outlet syndrome, YAAK! So now the C7+ has a jacked up nut and is one of the finest slide guitars ever, and the batty Damien 7 is just here for... company?
Yes there ought to be more seven-string choices - but Warmoth just won't be the one to make them. Which is fine too. I strongly suspect they hit on that 25" scale because they wouldn't have to make another-length trussrod.... now if someone could PLEASE explain why Carvin, with all their huge selection of options, models & sizes - ALSO ONLY MAKE POPSICLE-STICK NECKS?!? I would own about three of them if they weren't so damn dumb they can't figure out how to make more than one neck size. :icon_scratch:
