Extended range guitars are stupid

When the 2010s decade started, some really good things happened with guitars.

One of those good things is that bunch of guitar companies starting bringing back their older, classic designs that had not been made for years if not decades. Another good thing is that we started seeing guitar colors that hadn't been around for a while either. And yet another good thing was that in the sub-$500 range, some really good guitars started appearing from just about every major brand.

On the flip side of that however is the utterly stupid thing known as the extended range guitar, which is absolutely one of the most useless guitars that exists.

Above is one of those useless guitars, an Ibanez RG9. The 9 is in the model name because yeah, it has 9 strings. There are also 8-string guitars (Schecter has a bunch), and of course the 7-string guitar has been around for a good long while now. In fact, it's been around so long that one can be had new for dirt cheap.

The 7-string, while stupid, is at least usable. But when you go 8-string and above... yeah, that's useless.

Standard arguments that extended range guitar fans say

"You should listen to [insert some artist I don't care about] here. He plays extended range and sounds awesome."

You think that guy sounds awesome. I don't. Shut up.

"You bash on extended range guitars because you can't play them!"

No... I bash on extended range guitars because they are legitimately stupid things that sound like a fart in a can.

If I wanted an 8-string instrument that actually sounds good, I'd play a mandolin.

"[Insert company here] sponsors [insert artist here who plays extended range instruments], so that proves players like them!"

No... Just because some artist endorses some brand does not automatically qualify it as "good", but you evidently think it does.

Fart in the key of Fail

There comes a point on a guitar when you tune so low - even lower than a bass - that anything played literally sounds like a fart. A big, long, stuttered fart. And if the sound is distorted, congratulations, you've achieved Distorted Fart Status. Might as well name your band The Flatulence, because that's what your guitar sounds like.

In other words, the extended range guitar is the fart guitar.

The dumbest thing I've read concerning people who defend the fart guitar is, "I like to feel the notes and not hear them." Yes, that is what they really say. That being true, why even bother with the guitar to begin with? Why not just go into an audio editor and create the same noise, because it's not like you can distinguish a note out of it.

"Guitars for people who don't want to admit they play bass"

That's a comment I saw on a YouTube video of someone demoing a 9-string guitar, and it perfectly describes the 8 and 9-string player. Those guys aren't guitar players but rather bass players pretending to be guitar players.

The only 8/9 string players I've seen that even come close to making one of those guitars sound tolerable are those that play it like a bass, meaning little to no overdrive, finger use only, a lot of slap and no pick. Oh, and a ton of processing, because they all sound awful.

Hot tip if you own an extended range fart guitar: Use this bass overdrive. You'll thank me later. Why? Because with that drive pedal, you get the one thing you need the most for the bass strings. DRY signal blend.

Why do 8 and 9-string guitars sound so awful?

Simple answer: They all have the totally wrong pickup type. Every single one of them.

The problem with every single one of those extended range instruments is that the bass strings greatly overpower the treble strings, and because the pickups are one piece all the way through, there is no way to achieve even string balance.

If one were smart about it, the best kind of pickup for one of these guitars would be a SPLIT-COIL. Yes, the same kind seen on the Fender Precision Bass, except made in a taller, skinnier fashion to fit the modern extended range guitar.

With a split-coil, the player could LOWER the bass side of the pickup and RAISE the treble side as much as need be until a proper string balance is achieved.

On the RG9, there are only two screw adjustments per pickup. That's it. The only thing you can do is lean the bass side down and raise the treble side up, but then that kills the bass tone and makes the treble tone too in-your-face.

Were it a split-coil pickup, you could have much better control over the balance for both the bass and treble sides.

But nobody has been able to figure this out yet, much less build one.

Here's another good idea: The bass side of the split-coil could actually be voiced for bass use, and the treble side for more midrange/treble frequencies. But nobody has thought of doing that either.

The first half of the split-coil would cover the 1, 2, 3 and 4 strings. The second half covers the 5, 6, 7, 8 (and 9 if present). Each half of the split has its own height and lean adjustment. This would make perfect sense on the extended range guitar to get the best possible sound out of it. But that's not what you get. Instead, you get this big, long, worthless pickup that can never be adjusted to have proper balance across all strings because the adjustments you need don't exist on it.

The only possible way to get a pickup that isn't split on an extended range guitar to sound right is if every single pole piece was adjustable, like on a P90 pickup where every pole can be raised or lowered with a flathead screwdriver. At least then you could lower the bass side poles so they wouldn't overpower the treble side poles so much. But again, nobody has thought to do that.

If the 8/9 string extended range guitar is supposed to be a hybrid of an electric guitar and an electric bass guitar, the pickups should be split up to accommodate each half of that hybrid. Instead, you get pickups made for an electric guitar only that make the bass strings sound like a trebly, nasty mess.

Until someone gets the bright idea to design better, PROPER pickups for extended range guitars, they'll be nothing but fart guitars.

"Is there any way I can get proper pickups for my extended range guitar now?"

Sure, but you'll have to have it custom fabricated.

Call Bartolini or Nordstrand and they can do it for you. Ring them up, tell them you're trying to achieve even string balance on your extended range guitar, and they will be able to custom fabricate pickups that will do just that.

Bart and Nord have been building pickups for custom instruments for a really long time and they totally know what they're doing. If it doesn't exist, they will make it exist and build it.

Yes, you will spend a big coin for those pickups from either company. Worth it? Yes, because it will finally make your extended range instrument sound proper and not like the fart machine it is now.

Weird Al "Tacky" review

I've been a Weird Al listener for a long time, and something a lot of people don't take into consideration is just how damned good of a musician he is.

Below is Tacky from Al's latest album "Mandatory Fun". I had absolutely no idea what song it was parodying, so I had to look that up (it was Pharrell Williams' Happy).

I listened to Tacky first, then Happy afterward. Al's parody rendition is the better song. It's better mixed and the vocals are much better defined. In fact, it's a perfect mix.

Al continues to outdo himself for each album he releases. At this point he's become so good at it that the parodies he makes are often better than the real songs, such as Tacky is.

When I listen to Tacky, I don't think "funny parody song", but rather just a really good piece of music that really stands on its own. You don't get much more sonic perfection these days than a Weird Al album. And no, I'm not making a joke there. The music he produces has an amazing sonic quality to it.

Are the neon color guitars coming back in style?

There was a time in the 80s when neon-colored guitars sold fairly well. Has that time come again?

Take the Jackson Soloist SLX in a color they call "Slime Green". I call it Neon Green. It is no different than any other Soloist SLX, save for the color, which by the way is not only the body but the back of the neck as well. If you're going to do a "loud color" guitar, you might as well do the whole thing including the neck, which Jackson did do.

Neon colors are green, pink, yellow, orange, purple and blue because those are the only colors you can get to neon-like brightness. The most common were green and yellow.

If for whatever reason I wanted a neon-color guitar, I would go with orange, solely because it's one of the rarest neon guitar colors due to the fact it's not easy to get the mix right, and not easy to make super-glossy. Pictures do no justice as to how cool a neon orange guitar looks that had the paint applied right. And to date, Ibanez is the only company I've ever seen that got neon orange on a guitar body correct. It is only available on high-end models priced at a minimum $1,000 USD, and the color is called Fluorescent Orange.

Does Ibanez currently make any guitars in that color? Nope. Or not at the time I write this. They should because the RG Series takes to it quite well.

Is the neon-color electric making a comeback?

I think so. I see way too many electrics right now in dopey flame-tops and bursts. Neon-color guitars are just one solid color, and we haven't seen any for sale regularly for about, oh, close to 30 years.

Fender (along with Squier) brought back their cool colors like Surf Green, Sonic Blue, Shell Pink, Lake Placid Blue, Daphne Blue and several others. But the other guitar companies stayed with the dopey flames and bursts.

Heck, even Fender had a neon-ish color once. Graffiti Yellow. And oh yeah, it looked real good on a Strat. That would be a nice color to see again from the big F.

Jackson right now is on the map with 1980's-neon color Slime Green. If it sells well, we may see more neon colors sprout up soon. Or if it doesn't capture the attention of the guitar player masses, grab your neon-colored Jackson while you can.

Most of the famous rock songs you know have isolated guitars that sound like crap

An individual most would consider a rock god of sorts is Randy Rhoads. Was Randy a good player? Yes. But his studio tone was total crap.

If you look up what Over The Mountain sounds like with just the guitars heard, it sounds awful. The guitars are nothing but a trebly, clacky, nasty mess.

Why do the guitars sound bad on their own? It's not for lack of guitar playing ability, but rather because they were purposely recorded that way.

And why were they purposely recorded that way? Because it worked better for the overall mix of the song. Or at least what the producer at the time thought was the best mix for the song.

There was a period of time between roughly 1975 through 1985 where nobody really knew how to record highly-distorted guitar sounds. The goal was, "make it sound like it does live", and that was not an easy task. In the end, the guys working in the studio simply guessed at what would sound correct. Sometimes it worked while other times it didn't.

For the recordings where the guessing on how to record highly-distorted guitars did work, more often than not the following is true:

1. All the bass is cut right out of the guitars.
2. All guitars are played at least twice.
3. All solos are also usually played twice.

Why is the bass cut out?

Simple answer. To hear drums and bass more.

What's the deal with the doubling up of guitars?

For whatever reason, playing the same thing twice on two separate tracks magically fixes a lot of guitar sound problems. What once was "thin" now sounds "thicker", what once was "flat" is now "more round", and so on.

I can't really explain in words what happens when you double up guitars. What I can say is that a lot of the famous rock songs you know double up the guitars often, and I do suggest trying it for yourself.

The best example I can give of how good the doubling up of guitars can be is to purposely record two tracks of a guitar riff direct. And by direct I mean direct-to-mixer. No amp, no effects. Just the guitar. You'll be amazed at how much better things sound when you have two guitars playing the same thing.

If you want to try that experiment, remember to purposely cut out the bass so things don't get too "thumpy". And yes, that is one of the reasons guys working the mixing board cut bass out of doubled-up guitars.

Do I personally double up guitars and cut the bass on them?

Depends on the song, but most of the time, yes I do. Since I know there will be bass and drums added in later on, I leave those frequencies "open" for those instruments to fill that sonic space up.

And as far as the doubling up of guitars is concerned, I've known that recording trick for years.

What's the true test of whether a recording is good or not?

Hint: It's not studio monitors.

Long ago back in the 1950s, this thing called a radio started appearing in cars. In the United States, the first radios in cars were AM band only with only one speaker.

The audio quality of AM radio was awful. No bass, almost no treble and mostly midrange is all you heard come out of that oval-shaped car speaker. And since there was one speaker, the sound was obviously monophonic and not stereophonic.

Most table top radios of the era were basically the same way and not much better than what was in the cars. Just a box, two dials (one to tune, one for volume) and one small speaker.

The only people who heard truly good audio were those that had high-fidelity stereo systems at home, and that setup was a record player, separate amplifier, two speakers and usually some means of equalization, even if it was only two-band. However, being that those systems were expensive, most just settled for table top radios and whatever radio was in the car.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it gives insight into how music was produced back then.

Many record producers specifically made a rule that recorded music must sound good on a monophonic crappy AM radio. And that meant no stereo separation, drums that had little to no treble, bass guitar that had a ridiculous amount of midrange in it and booming vocals to cut through it all.

Should you use the same 1950's method to record your music?

Yes and no.

While true there are still devices out there that use monophonic means of audio (smartphones, some laptops, some tablets, etc.), that doesn't mean you should test your audio mono-only. Although I will admit it is the "safest" way to do it.

Instead of using a crappy monophonic means of testing audio, you should use a crappy stereophonic means of testing audio.

For example, listening to your recording through a pair of JLab Buds.

I know what you're thinking. "Those are the worst things to test a recording with, because they're voiced in a way that does not represent the true sound."

Right. That's exactly the point. The ear buds above are voiced in a way that probably adds in unwanted bass as well as other unwanted frequencies. It's crappy speakers like the above that most people use to listen to music with, so if your recording sounds good using proper studio headphones and the crappy buds shown above, you can be pretty sure your recording will sound good everywhere.

Why ear buds?

When I see people listening to music today, they're using ear buds. Whether the audio is being fed from a tiny little iPod Shuffle, smartphone, laptop or whatever-it-is, the buds are what people use for the speakers to get the music to the ears.

True, I'm old-school and like listening to music using external speakers because I never liked ear buds that much. But I recognize that buds are the speakers of choice for most people.

When your audio passes the monitor test and then the crappy-ear-bud test, you're in good shape.