A seven string guitar that doesn't look like a cartoon metal guitar?

[gwEm]

I see Epiphone do a Les Paul, and they used to do a relatively normal looking V.

Any one know any others? Ibanez RG etc are great guitars I'm sure, but not really me.

Fixed bridge also would be favourite..

Thanks!

[Philly Q]

Not something I've ever given much thought to!  But there is this:

http://www.andertons.co.uk/solid-body-electric-guitars/pid36178/cid671/gibson-les-paul-classic-7-string-guitar-in-ebony.asp

I know there are some seven string jazz guitars out there, but they probably wouldn't fit the bill.

[gwEm]

Not something I've ever given much thought to!  But there is this:

http://www.andertons.co.uk/solid-body-electric-guitars/pid36178/cid671/gibson-les-paul-classic-7-string-guitar-in-ebony.asp

I know there are some seven string jazz guitars out there, but they probably wouldn't fit the bill.

I hadn't seen that one in my search so far. It looks sensible indeed.

A jazz guitar might be going too far the other way..

[AndyR]

If I wanted a seven string, that Les Paul would be tempting.

But I have enough trouble with six strings already!

[gwEm]

But I have enough trouble with six strings already!

Tell me about it! Just when I start to think I'm a half decent player a situation comes along where I'm confronted with the full and ugly face of my limitations.

I've been accused of not sounding contemporary enough. This is true, as you know I prefer early 80s metal and the hard rock classics we all like. The heaviest I go is something like the first Metallica album, or possibly some Rammstein.

All of this stuff is in E-standard. Or possibly Eb standard or drop D. Once a year I try drop C# for "the lolz"

But the point is 99% of the time I play E standard through a JCM800 Marshall. It sounds great to me, but its a dated tone for sure.

My friends in the various music projects I'm involved with would like me to sound a bit more up to date.

I'm looking at 7 string guitars and Mesa Boogie style amps this week.

I not exactly sure how I can sound modern and still like it myself.

I quite like the tone Rammstein and Nightwish get. I know they use Mesa Boogie and it seems like normal six string guitars also. However, I also know "the kids" are using 7, 8, 9 string guitars for Djent which can sound quite ok.

Probably I sound like an old fart now - I'm only in my mid 30s and do like quite a bit of contemporary metal. The thing is, I have not too many ideas how to sound like it, or even if I want to really. You always sound like yourself in the end right?

[AndyR]

not exactly sure how I can sound modern and still like it myself.

THIS ... is the crux of the problem!

Not sure how it will work out for you, but my solution, x years ago, was to go "f*** it, I'm playing what grabs me". I reasoned that two things could happen:

1) I end up liking something "modern" and automatically start picking up on it and getting interested.
2) The old sh1t I'm fascinated by keeps coming round and getting fashionable anyway

I've always been into 60s and early 70s pop, country, etc... But grew up guitar-wise in the era of Rainbow, UFO, Whitesnake, Scorpions, Motorhead, Saxon, Girlschool. Friends etc were pointing me at Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc. Somewhere in that lot I spotted the blues which led me to the Rory, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Free, etc, etc.

So, although I was a NWOBHM dude, I never really learnt to do what the guitarists in say the Scorpions or Judas Priest were doing - to me, they're modern(!). I was more going back a step, even then. Every now and then I'd hear a riff I liked and nick it, but otherwise, as a guitarist, what the rhythm/lead guys were doing in old skool metal didn't make me want to play like that - so I never tried to figure it out.

At the time, from the point of view of "modern" or "fashionable", that was no bad thing really - being able to play blues rock rhythm and lead, with a few quotes from old skool metal guys, fitted into "popular" a lot better than being a straight metal guitarist.

Nowadays, I'm not so sure.

The bottom line, for me, is you've got to be able to get off on playing what you're playing - otherwise, why are you doing it?

Get a seven-string and a mesa type (I checked these sort of amp tones out through modelling and I KNOW I don't want to be going through that sound!! - quite exciting initially, but just doesn't sound/feel very "rock and roll" to me ).

When you've got them, just find out what they do in your hands. You're bound to find something you like about it... and if that fits with what the others are suggesting as "more modern", cool... if not, get a Tele and start learning Keef riffs - that'll always be modern

[Kiichi]

Heck, I can make an Aftermath into a Boogey sound bluesy these days, well at least a slow version of a Govan inspired blues. Anyhow, a seven string does not by default sound more modern. It can sound bloody 80s if you want to.  It just gives you more range without taking anything away. And youīll get into it just fine. Itīs just one extra string that extends down in the usual pattern. No huge stretches, etc. Great fun though if you donīt overuse the string.

Lovely thing is that you can play it standard like a lot of the great as Vai or Petrucci do, or drop it and gain that more modern metal thing without loosing all the usual 6 string stuff.

My 7 string is also not exactly modern metal looking. Superstrat in mahagony. A budget guitar yes, but feels like twice the money to me. Plus I love the feeling playing it. Can recommend to check things out perhaps. Pickups are shiiiite though.

[Dave Sloven]

LOL I don't know why people try so hard to sound like these djent dudes

On the other hand the sounds I like aren't really vintage either ... pickups like the Cold Sweat, Rebel Yell, Warpig, or Miracle Man are the humbuckers that do it for me.  People say that the Stockholm sounds modern but in my hands and in my guitar it really doesn't.

When I play something in C it's more likely to sound 'old school death metal' and dated, e.g. like early Entombed or Autopsy.  To me it's the really middy, tight, and abrasive pickups like the Aftermath that I think of when I think of what a lot of people mean here by 'modern' or 'contemporary'.  I'm just not feeling that sound.

Something like a Cold Sweat set in a seven string V might be a good compromise for you if you can get used to jumping over the B string most of the time.  Either that or a regular guitar tuned to B with the high string missing. I rarely use that string myself.

[AndyR]

Either that or a regular guitar tuned to B with the high string missing. I rarely use that string myself.

WOW! That's a good idea. I noticed a while back that some of these more modern sounds with low grunt don't seem to use the top strings much (I'm sure some do, but that "sound" doesn't seem to involve a lot of top strings in general) ... but I'd never made that connection.

(DO bear in mind, when we're talking "modern", that to me, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, etc, are the young upstarts, the kids music I couldn't get into... everything "rock" after that is mostly unknown to me! )

[Dave Sloven]

Death metal guys have been doing that for ages.  You're not yanking my chain are you?

A friend of mine here has a Gibson SG Standard tuned to B with a 60 gauge low string.  To me that's probably as low as anyone would want to go with an SG due to the scale length but with a normal Fender scale guitar even A# standard would be doable.  I'm pretty sure there are guys here with six strings in Drop A etc.  You just need to change the nut and maybe the bridge saddles.  On some guitars it might be the case that there is not enough adjustment in the saddles to get the intonation right.  But if my friend was able to get an SG to B standard I guess most guitars could handle it.  He used EMG 81/85 pickups when I last saw it but not in the photo below, at least not in the neck



To me seven strings aren't worth the strain on my middle-aged wrists.  I prefer the narrower neck.

[gwEm]

Thanks Kiichi, that doesn't look too silly at all. The natural finish makes it look more distinguished.

[gwEm]

Death metal guys have been doing that for ages.  You're not yanking my chain are you?

A friend of mine here has a Gibson SG Standard tuned to B with a 60 gauge low string.  To me that's probably as low as anyone would want to go with an SG due to the scale length but with a normal Fender scale guitar even A# standard would be doable.  I'm pretty sure there are guys here with six strings in Drop A etc.  You just need to change the nut and maybe the bridge saddles.  On some guitars it might be the case that there is not enough adjustment in the saddles to get the intonation right.  But if my friend was able to get an SG to B standard I guess most guitars could handle it.  He used EMG 81/85 pickups btw

To me seven strings aren't worth the strain on my middle-aged wrists.  I prefer the narrower neck.

Thats an interesting take. I had heard people did such a thing. I was thiming 7 string would be good, as then I could easily play all my usual songs at gigs too.. Along with the modern stuff I aspire to write. But for a play about at home, it should work well.

[Dave Sloven]

It's worth saying that my friend with the SG was a rhythm guitarist mainly, so it might be the case that the intonation wasn't 100% correct but he could get away with it as he wasn't going high on the 3rd string etc

He was eventually taken out of the game with carpal tunnel syndrome by the way ... I think the SG was the widest neck he could cope with at that point.  He had an operation but left the band at that point.  Dad duties were getting in the way of overseas tours etc as well

[gwEm]

So, although I was a NWOBHM dude, I never really learnt to do what the guitarists in say the Scorpions or Judas Priest were doing - to me, they're modern(!). I was more going back a step, even then. Every now and then I'd hear a riff I liked and nick it, but otherwise, as a guitarist, what the rhythm/lead guys were doing in old skool metal didn't make me want to play like that - so I never tried to figure it out.

Interesting! As you might imagine, the bands at school we all listened to were Metallica, Megadeth, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Guns and Roses, Greenday etc. I liked them, but never really enough to want to get into playing. When I heard some NWOBHM that was the moment when I thought I wanted make music like that! Playing like Judas Priest and the Scorpions is totally my cup of tea.

As you say maybe I should stick to that, and I will. But I also like alot a few "contemporary" bands that mix in electronics, particularly Rammstein and some Rap/Nu Metal (not Djent per se). I've learnt their riffs and so on, but it doesn't seem to sound quite right through a Marshall in E-standard.

Maybe even if I get the right sound it still won't sit quite right with me.

[AndyR]

Interesting! As you might imagine, the bands at school we all listened to were Metallica, Megadeth, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Guns and Roses, Greenday etc. I liked them, but never really enough to want to get into playing. When I heard some NWOBHM that was the moment when I thought I wanted make music like that! Playing like Judas Priest and the Scorpions is totally my cup of tea.

So I "stepped back a generation" (in guitaring terms)... and so did you!

I wonder whether lots of folks do that?

I actually tried to go back further at the time - my heroes were going "don't listen to me, listen to Muddy, the Kings, Robert Johnson". I tried it but didn't get that stuff back then. Years later I did, but not when I was starting (I think I remember reading that Malcolm Young went through the same thing, he went to check out the old guys, thought "WTF?!"... but later understood where the stuff was really coming from).

Death metal guys have been doing that for ages.  You're not yanking my chain are you?

Ha! Ha! No! I'd never put two-and-two together and realised what some of these tunings would mean. So I was suddenly thinking "hey that's a brilliant idea!" (If you'd kept quiet I'd have spent the rest of the day thinking it was yours!  )

The only non-standard tuning I use is Open G (or Hawaiian) or sometimes Open D, both for slide. I learnt the G first and gigged with that a fair bit (we're talking early 80s). Then the drummer was learning slide, and he favoured D because the 6th string is then the root and the "Elmore James" lick is available on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd (actually, he preferred E, but I wouldn't let him tune my guitars to a higher tension!). For G, if you're playing in a band, you might as well take the 6th string off like Keith Richards does. Anyway, I really struggled with D until I figured out it was exactly the same shapes as G, but one string across with an extra one on top.... (I still struggle with the guitar sounding that low, though, it don't sound right to me... the bassist is meant to be making those noises! )

So, yeah, I should have figured out that "tune it to B" isn't that way-out an idea.