As far as I know, Last Sacrament used some 8 string guitars on their release. No chuggy shit, though. Death metal with some pretty ridiculous soloing. Ron Sword is a great guitarist. I think this beast was on the album too. http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/484637_10151120515327580_1142775339_n.jpg

NINE strings and a Novax fanned frets fingerboard? Ouch. It's the music that counts though...

Oh and, Portal rule...

Necromantia are a black metal band that use eight-string basses, they've been around for a long time.

As far as I know, Last Sacrament used some 8 string guitars on their release. No chuggy shit, though. Death metal with some pretty ridiculous soloing. Ron Sword is a great guitarist. I think this beast was on the album too. http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/484637_10151120515327580_1142775339_n.jpg

never heard/seen an eight stringer; is that the low E and A doubled? I do know that Matt Pike (High on Fire) plays nine-string guitars, with the lowest three doubled. I dig that sound, for traditional heavy metal (or whatever you would classify High on Fire as) anyway. Not sure about these other genres, don't really listen to much of that stuff.

Q:I wanted to quickly talk about the guitars. You started using 8 strings on After and continued using them on this album. I was wondering why you chose 8-strings in the first place?

A:Basically because I’ve been playing guitar for about 25 years now. In a way… Do you play the guitar?

Q:Yeah, I do.

A:Then you know, when you’ve been playing a lot, writing a lot of music, you end up with your fingers doing almost those same things with muscle memory, so when you try and create something new just by looking at your fingers it feels like they’re doing the same thing over and over again. So for me, even on my second record, I did some songs with different tunings to break the patterns of my chord voicings and finger movements. I was skipping the technical parts and just looking at my fingers and feeling that I was repeating myself but just going into different territories with different tunings and skipping the analytical part, going straight to listening.

It’s the same thing since I’ve been using seven strings. With eight strings you have to re-think things even further because you can’t do things like you can with seven strings, such as power chords. With a seven string in regular tuning you can still get away with the same type of chords with fifths in a low range. With eight strings that’s just not possible. You have to treat that textured low range as a bass part, really. Then you tune it to an F#. You have to use voicings that will open it, chords with open strings that get a whole different way of relating to it. Again, it’s a similar thing to using a new tuning. You kind of skip the analytical part and just start listening. You’re forced to do things in a different way, and with the 8 string you can even make it function as the bass part and let the bass do more higher lead lines. It’s variety. On a lot of the songs on this new album, I went back to the 7 string because Ibanez gave me some of their new hybrid baritone. They have a new series called RGD, which has a longer scale. I’ve been using a lot of seven strings with Drop A tuning.

Q:A 27” scale, right? 8-strings are normally thought of as belonging to only a few specific metal subgenres right now…

A:Oh yeah. I had an interview the other day where they asked me about djent. Is that how you say it? I just read about that in Guitar World, and I think I’ve heard some bands that are categorized by it. I believe Meshuggah are kind of the Godfathers of this? I can’t say I really know much more about the genre then, but having heard Meshuggah, I think the philosophy of how they approach that type of music is different from mine. Even though I use 8 strings and down-tuned 7 strings, I don’t think it sounds very much like their music.

Q:You’re very unique, because a lot of the 8-string artists only play djent or variations of deathcore, and you don’t at all. I was wondering if you had ever run into any opposition or elitism for using the 8-strings outside of their typical subgenres.

A:No, not really. If so, I haven’t really paid attention, but people probably haven’t noticed that much because I don’t exaggerate using only that range of instruments. The only time I actually gave that some thought was when it I got my first 7 string in 1999. And that very much inspired my writing of the whole last Emperor album. I decided then that even if I had this extra range, I wouldn’t just use the bottom range as the only type of writing. I’ll just treat it as an extra. I can do my guitar parts like I did before but can implement that part too and not force everything to be the same but just an extra string lower. That’s been my approach all along.

I’ve never been very good at writing single classic guitar riffs that you can do on one guitar. I’ve always had the counterpoint thing, only because I grew up on Maiden and Priest, always hearing clean guitars. What I find interesting with writing on guitar is trying to create that variety and tension between the low range and a second, much higher guitar and also implementing more interesting chord voices in the upper register. And of course pushing the limits of it on type chords and 2nd notes. I have some sample songs from the new album in unison with two dozen trombones.

never heard/seen an eight stringer; is that the low E and A doubled? I do know that Matt Pike (High on Fire) plays nine-string guitars, with the lowest three doubled. I dig that sound, for traditional heavy metal (or whatever you would classify High on Fire as) anyway. Not sure about these other genres, don't really listen to much of that stuff.

7's add a B string making the tuning B,E,A,D,G,B,E. 8 strings add one more on that making the highest string F#, although not effecting the rest.
http://www.rondomusic.com/interceptor93 ... flame.html
THIS is the nine string I want, I plan on tuning it like a normal 8 and adding a treble A on bottom ala Rusty Cooley (cept with 9 string instead of 8).

Matt Pike's nine-stringer has absolutely nothing to do with the type of guitars that OP is talking about.

Extended range guitars like that are difficult to work with - you know why a lot of them have fanned frets? Adding range theoretically sounds like fun, but setup on a fixed scale length when you're adding over an octave over a standard guitar setup generally causes problems with either the high or low end (or both).

Everyone lusts after something, but skateboards with strings are very difficult to play and there are always more possibilities with a six string.

If you're thinking about something like that, get a cheap, downtune-friendly guitar like a BC Rich Warlock (you can probably find one used for $100-120) and put together a set of heavy strings for downtuning and alternate tunings - try AEADAC and CGDAEG, maybe something with an octave on the bottom and/or top - you'll be able to expand what you're doing as much as you'd think three extra strings would give you.