For a while now I've been wishing that I had an instrument that would let me play in both bass registers or guitar registers, as the "band" I play in lacks a bassist. I've also been listening to a little bit too much music in the so-called djent genre, and my 7-string just isn't enough to get those really low notes.
So here are the specs so far:
- 8-strings
- Bass scale 750mm, treble scale 650mm (~29.5" -> 25.6")
- Carved flamed maple top
- Flamed maple neck & fretboard
- Walnut back
- Bridge humbucker, single coil in the neck - both will need to be home made
- Custom bridge
For styling, I've long appreciated the Iceman style. Its been a bit unusual without being too silly over the top. So I used that as a starting point and then tried to make it a bit less 70s-cheesy. I rounded off its shape some in an attempt to make it a bit more classic, and went with a reverse 8-a-side headstock in an attempt to continue the flow of the angled frets over to the headstock. Overall I like the way the angle of the body and the angle of the headstock continue the visual cue of the angles of the frets, and the headstock is reminiscent of a Gibson hockey stick headstock but with a little swoosh to tie it together more with the swoosh in the lower cutaway of the body.
I would like to make this my first attempt at a carved top. I will also need to machine my own bridge for this, but I might take the saddles from a couple of cheap ebay bridges. We'll see. The budget will be VERY tight, so I'll have to do some creative scrounging to pull this off.
The design so far:
This is super-ambitious, and I'll have to make a lot of my own parts, but it'll be a fun challenge
