7-strings

[Bernardo Pires]

whats your opinions about 7-strings guitars? Playability, tone, neck, etc

[arp]

Novax guitars absolutely intrigue me.
They have some absolute killer 7 and 8 string models.
Why am I so interested..?
You have the posibilty to develop a really unique Jazz guitar technique.
If only I could afford one. It would be an archtop,have 3 bass guitar strings (bottm E , A and D and 4 guitar strings D, G, B, and top E. )
I would like to develop a Jazz playing technique so that I would be playing my basslines on the bass guitar strings and the melody, comping and improve on the 4 guitar strings. Difficult yes, but I think it could probably be done. Martin Taylor's technique is like that, but he does it on a normal 6 string...and spectacularly !

[Matt]

charlie hunter?

[mahayana]

Hey Matt. I'm just saying Hi to everyone that might still be here. I've never played a 7 string, not sure I've even seen one except in the guitar mags. I do play the low string chords though, mostly for intros. You'll have to mess around to get bass comps to go with improv, unless you pause a lot, you know, hit a low chord, 5 or 6 high notes, bump, da,da,da,da,da, bump, da,da,da,da,da, bump, da,da,da,da,da, bump...that kind of thing. Then bass pickup note for the next series.

Hope you find your ax. I'm mostly playing on an old Harmony archtop acoustic that I bought in a box, neck off, top unglued, painted an ungodly green all cracked and crazed. Interesting project to strip the finish (even the Harmony logo was painted on, it's gone now), put it back together, etc. The only ID left is samped on the inside of the arched back, under the top f hole.

F-62 H8 2050M1214

I think it was a cheap mass-produced "folk" guitar, from the Kingston Trio era. Thanks be it has a moveable adjustable bridge, so I could get it intonated correctly. I think the neck is poplar, with a maple fretboard. Not sure what the body is made of, it's light colored wood, no internal struts!

[Professor1]

A friend has a Benedetto 7 string. It's beautiful, sounds great, has a surprisingly small neck and is very light in weight. When he plays in a rhythm section, he doesn't use the low B string at all. It steps on what the bass player does, and trying harmonies, like 3rds that low also doesn't sound good, because they just rumble. That might be fine for Metal, but doesn't blend so well with Jazz.

[mcharris]

I've been playing jazz on 7-string guitars for several years. Playability and sound really depend on what kind of 7-string you have. My first was a Schecter semi-hollow body. It was inexpensive, sounded acceptable through my Polytone Mini Brute, but over a few months I found more and more things to dislike about it. I replaced it with a 1960's Gretch George Van Eps model. Van Eps was the inventor of 7-string jazz guitars and actually played that model on several classic recordings. I like it a lot.

I also have a Benedetto Manhattan Custom 7 (the first out of the Guild Custom Shop). It sounds great played both with and without amplification. Bob Benedetto knows a great deal about building 7-string jazz guitars. His instruments are works of art. Like the Van Eps, if you can't say what you want to say with it, it's not the fault of the instrument.

There was mention in a previous posting of the low B string. That is a rock contrivance. The traditional jazz tuning for the lowest string is A. That enables relatively straightforward fingerings and also gives you something important for accompaniments and solo playing: a B-flat bass note. The point of the 7th string (to state the obvious) is to have true bass notes under chords regardless of where they are played. I never use it for rhythm playing.