Warning: Wall of text inbound.
Hey fellow SSO members. One day while trying to decide which 9 string I was going to purchase, I saw this pop up and immediately pulled the trigger. Ive been hungry to try 24+ frets on a guitar. After 3 weeks of playing and testing, Ive collected my thoughts and time for N(U)GD.
First Pics:
Specs taken from Gary Kramer Website:
CONSTRUCTION
5 point deep bolt on
7 string with 36 frets
25.5 scale
NECK
5pc Maple/Walnut lamination
12 bound Maple fingerboard
Triple parabolic Black position dots
1-24 Medium jumbo, 24-36 Vintage tall frets
Matching color headstock
BODY
Mahogany
Delta wing shape with contoured surfaces
Detachable aluminum leg rest unit
Glossy paint job with black satin neck
HARDWARE
Recessed Double locking tremolo
48mm wide locking nut
Black
ELECTRONICS
Direct mounted Gary Kramer bridge pickup
Volume and Tone (push/pull)
Full and split humbucking modes
Impressions:
The body is extremely comfortable. The reverse upper horn (dont know how else to describe it) makes playing a breeze. It tends to anchor across my chest which makes the overall playing experience very easy.
Having the high strap lock allows the neck to remain a higher while still feeling balanced. With other guitars I find I need to fiddle to get the balance and height where I want it. The aluminum fin is great; it rests on either leg and doesnt allow the body to wiggle at all. Another plus.
The guitar shows very little sign of wear. The parts and hardware look good with the faded pickup logo being the notable exception at first glance.
This was a guitar of many first. The maple neck is really glossy. Acoustically and clean tone it sound almost fretless. There are no dead spots on the board. The neck finish itself is satin (first satin) and its so smooth. I cant believe how much better it feels than a gloss neck. The neck profile is a slight D shape, borderline flat D but not quite. Although I was unsure at first, Im starting to greatly prefer the feel of a maple neck, more so than Ebony fretboard guitars. While ebony has amazing attack, sustain, and that slick icy feeling, the maple seems to pull my fretting note into the board itself. It seems to hold onto notes as I fret elsewhere without conflicting with my progressions. I really love the constancy of it and am already GASing for a non-gloss finished maple board.
Bridge: This is also my first Floyd Rose, so it took a long time to get new strings set up on the guitar. I unscrewed the screws from the back plate for the spring system but the plate itself would not detach. I had use a vacuum cleaner to suck the board out from the body and have declined putting it back in favor of easy access to the spring system. I have issues with the tuning stability for the Floyd but thats not the only issue with it (see below). The floating bridge definitely has a different tension feel to the strings compared to hard tail, hard to describe, but now I can see why people like Floyds other than the obvious trem attributes.
The 36 Frets:
Having 24+ frets is extremely liberating with higher octave melodies. The body shape allows easy access of the 24-27 frets (more later on). Sometimes you take a step back and say, wow Im right at or on beyond the 24th fret! The upper octave sounds absolutely beautiful. These high notes are great when they actually work. Before I move onto that, having frets that you cant always play means that you find creative ways to resolve tonics down to the 24th octave.
Issues/Ideas for Improvement:
Start with the fret access. Its very difficult to play in the upper octave. Not only are is there not much space between the frets but the frets are so close together that its very difficult to play anything close together fretwise or on top of one other. While 27 isnt too unreasonable,
Once you start getting higher it becomes really dicey weather the note can actually be fretted. I came up with this claw like method for stacking fingers (and my nail) in a line for notes in that register, but it doesnt transition well to normal playing.
The easiest way I found to play the notes is the karate chop it with the side of your fingers shown here:
When I close my eyes I try to feel the frets, I find that the best note I can hit is the 33rd fret. The ones beyond are 50/50 from even from trying to fret them on a standstill. While you can easily slide from lower down to the 36th, I feel that it doesnt really warrant having those extra frets. This would align with Adams experience on his 11 string since the 30.2 scale length basically makes the 36th the 33rd of the 25.5. You can also hear the difficulty of playing these frets from fellow SSO member troyguitar
This will also serve somewhat of a sound clip since he reaches the highest note on my R36 and even beyond that with the high G4 string.
While the specs say they are vintage frets. I actually dont know how wide the frets are. Although the picture is bad, you can see that the vintage frets are slightly lower in height to the jumbos.
Im wondering if they had used the extremely narrow Jescar frets it would have helped. You can play all frets definitely. I found that if I was doing a sweep and wanted to use the high fret I had to focus on the 34th or 35th fret long before I got the first string and then it was an 80% chance I could fret the note if I wanted.
Lastly, because the distance between the fretted note and the bridge is rapidly reduced as you move higher, it runs into the fretless guitar problem of sustain. The sustain is non-existent except for lab controlled nail fretting. The heavier wound strings sustain longer but the inharmonicity is awful. You can get a sense of the sustain from Troys video. If you listen close, you can tell the non-bended notes are on the cusp of going completely silent. The 34-36 fret that he plays give a better sense of the sustain. Im going to try and grow my nails on my left hand and see if that helps but I found last time that longer nails interfere with fretting mechanics.
One of the other issues with the high access is the bolt on neck. While the cutaway is fantastic, the bolt on neck interferes with the thumb placement as you move upward.
From the back:
The relaxed stretch on the front from that thumb position.
I still find it uncomfortable that the hand has to twist sideways to hit the higher register. When I commission for a custom extended fret guitar in the future. Im going to try and make it similar to the neck through of a BTB bass but even deeper towards the bridge:
Fretboard Radius: Im not a fan of the 12 radius. Initially I got the low string and high string to the action I wanted but the middle 5 were unplayable and stuck to the frets on the low end (fret 1-12). This has been an issue with some of my other guitars and from now on Im going to try and pursue flatter radius boards or at the very least a bridge that will allow me to adjust the action for individual strings. I believe the flattest board for a Floyd is 16 although someone else will need to confirm it. I have raised the action, but would greatly prefer uber low action.
The Floyd:
One of the most frustrating aspects of the guitar is the Floyd. My initially reaction when I started playing was to put my pick between the fretboard and the pickup. Unfortunately, that leaves my hand sitting on the adjustment tuners.
In this position, muting with the picking hand is impossible. If I move downward, then another issue emerges. The pick is now over the fretboard.
With low action, it took a while to get my picking to the point where I wasnt striking the fret underneath. Im still concerned that Im wearing the fret down while I pick (not monitoring it 100% all the time) and would feel more comfortable if I had more space underneath the strings. This is something I took for granted on all other guitars until I played this one.
Pickups: The pickup works well. I havent really tried tone dialing because that the least of my concerns with the guitar. One issue is that I barely get any string harmonics when I play. Im wondering of the single pickup is too far back to receive the harmonic frequencies. If someone with greater pickup knowledge than myself would clarify that would be great.
Another issue is the Floyds floating system. When I mute, I tend to anchor my right hand force as if Im going into the body of the guitar. However, I noticed that Im pushing the bridge downward when playing so all my notes are out of tune. This constant pushing the bridge downward then rebalancing results in me having to retune the guitar about every 30 minutes. Im going to keep practicing. Its just very strange now that I cant just add weight to my hand if I want to mute.
Even though I have no experience with the bridge, the kahler seems a much better design for a guitar like this; individual action, hardtail type end, mostly flat, non-floating.
For those of you obsessive prototyping type people like myself. I included English measurement pictures of the bridge and pickup if you wanted an extended fret guitar (EFG) and wanted to decide pickup layout.
And from the edge of the pickup (pickups are around 1.5 wide).
Here are some numbers for thought.
Scale Length to 36th Fret in inches (excludes the extra wood at end of fretboard/neck):
25.5: 3.2
26.5: 3.32
27: 3.37
28: 3.5
30: 3.75
Moving Forward:
I really love the extended range on the guitar. When I go back to 24 fret guitars it feels akin to losing a string in a way, although not as severe. One surefire way to get playable high notes is to keep adding high strings. However, since we are limited to .007 and O4P, it more or less means loosing an inch for about every semitone to be safe.
23.5 A4
22.5 Bb4
20.5 C#5
19 D5
That greatly decreases the playability of a guitar if you want to keep a 25.5or 24.75 bass end. Ive thought about ordering this guy for just shredding. I would be able to reach about C#7 or D7 on the highest fret.
I think I want a guitar with 31 frets(very playable) and an extra high string. I tune a half step down. With the perfect fifth above the 24th note, you have access to the scales and tonics, especially the amazing V-I cadence. With the high G#4 the 31st fret would be Eb7, higher than the mini guitar and easier access to the equivalent R36s 36th fret. With the extra space, I could squeeze in two humbuckers or a more reasonable single coil humbucker configuration. Although I would lose 5 notes of the G#4, I feel the general wildcard of those upper level frets is not worth it. Even though, I stated above that 33rd fret is still good to play, if I was going over the Perfect 5th I might as well go all the way to 36 because I couldnt stand the incompleteness of the design.
Final thoughts:
Its a great guitar for what does and is currently my main 7. The neck is thin and those extra frets are great. The guitar itself has been a good learning process and I look to improve upon the things that worked for me and the things that dont.
Lastly: I dont mean to come off as a persnickety guitar aristocrat. Its just frustrating sometimes when things you see have potential seemed to be bogged down by some design issues.
All-in-all. Very happy to own and play this guitar.
Hey fellow SSO members. One day while trying to decide which 9 string I was going to purchase, I saw this pop up and immediately pulled the trigger. Ive been hungry to try 24+ frets on a guitar. After 3 weeks of playing and testing, Ive collected my thoughts and time for N(U)GD.
First Pics:
Specs taken from Gary Kramer Website:
CONSTRUCTION
5 point deep bolt on
7 string with 36 frets
25.5 scale
NECK
5pc Maple/Walnut lamination
12 bound Maple fingerboard
Triple parabolic Black position dots
1-24 Medium jumbo, 24-36 Vintage tall frets
Matching color headstock
BODY
Mahogany
Delta wing shape with contoured surfaces
Detachable aluminum leg rest unit
Glossy paint job with black satin neck
HARDWARE
Recessed Double locking tremolo
48mm wide locking nut
Black
ELECTRONICS
Direct mounted Gary Kramer bridge pickup
Volume and Tone (push/pull)
Full and split humbucking modes
Impressions:
The body is extremely comfortable. The reverse upper horn (dont know how else to describe it) makes playing a breeze. It tends to anchor across my chest which makes the overall playing experience very easy.
Having the high strap lock allows the neck to remain a higher while still feeling balanced. With other guitars I find I need to fiddle to get the balance and height where I want it. The aluminum fin is great; it rests on either leg and doesnt allow the body to wiggle at all. Another plus.
The guitar shows very little sign of wear. The parts and hardware look good with the faded pickup logo being the notable exception at first glance.
This was a guitar of many first. The maple neck is really glossy. Acoustically and clean tone it sound almost fretless. There are no dead spots on the board. The neck finish itself is satin (first satin) and its so smooth. I cant believe how much better it feels than a gloss neck. The neck profile is a slight D shape, borderline flat D but not quite. Although I was unsure at first, Im starting to greatly prefer the feel of a maple neck, more so than Ebony fretboard guitars. While ebony has amazing attack, sustain, and that slick icy feeling, the maple seems to pull my fretting note into the board itself. It seems to hold onto notes as I fret elsewhere without conflicting with my progressions. I really love the constancy of it and am already GASing for a non-gloss finished maple board.
Bridge: This is also my first Floyd Rose, so it took a long time to get new strings set up on the guitar. I unscrewed the screws from the back plate for the spring system but the plate itself would not detach. I had use a vacuum cleaner to suck the board out from the body and have declined putting it back in favor of easy access to the spring system. I have issues with the tuning stability for the Floyd but thats not the only issue with it (see below). The floating bridge definitely has a different tension feel to the strings compared to hard tail, hard to describe, but now I can see why people like Floyds other than the obvious trem attributes.
The 36 Frets:
Having 24+ frets is extremely liberating with higher octave melodies. The body shape allows easy access of the 24-27 frets (more later on). Sometimes you take a step back and say, wow Im right at or on beyond the 24th fret! The upper octave sounds absolutely beautiful. These high notes are great when they actually work. Before I move onto that, having frets that you cant always play means that you find creative ways to resolve tonics down to the 24th octave.
Issues/Ideas for Improvement:
Start with the fret access. Its very difficult to play in the upper octave. Not only are is there not much space between the frets but the frets are so close together that its very difficult to play anything close together fretwise or on top of one other. While 27 isnt too unreasonable,
Once you start getting higher it becomes really dicey weather the note can actually be fretted. I came up with this claw like method for stacking fingers (and my nail) in a line for notes in that register, but it doesnt transition well to normal playing.
The easiest way I found to play the notes is the karate chop it with the side of your fingers shown here:
When I close my eyes I try to feel the frets, I find that the best note I can hit is the 33rd fret. The ones beyond are 50/50 from even from trying to fret them on a standstill. While you can easily slide from lower down to the 36th, I feel that it doesnt really warrant having those extra frets. This would align with Adams experience on his 11 string since the 30.2 scale length basically makes the 36th the 33rd of the 25.5. You can also hear the difficulty of playing these frets from fellow SSO member troyguitar
This will also serve somewhat of a sound clip since he reaches the highest note on my R36 and even beyond that with the high G4 string.
While the specs say they are vintage frets. I actually dont know how wide the frets are. Although the picture is bad, you can see that the vintage frets are slightly lower in height to the jumbos.
Im wondering if they had used the extremely narrow Jescar frets it would have helped. You can play all frets definitely. I found that if I was doing a sweep and wanted to use the high fret I had to focus on the 34th or 35th fret long before I got the first string and then it was an 80% chance I could fret the note if I wanted.
Lastly, because the distance between the fretted note and the bridge is rapidly reduced as you move higher, it runs into the fretless guitar problem of sustain. The sustain is non-existent except for lab controlled nail fretting. The heavier wound strings sustain longer but the inharmonicity is awful. You can get a sense of the sustain from Troys video. If you listen close, you can tell the non-bended notes are on the cusp of going completely silent. The 34-36 fret that he plays give a better sense of the sustain. Im going to try and grow my nails on my left hand and see if that helps but I found last time that longer nails interfere with fretting mechanics.
One of the other issues with the high access is the bolt on neck. While the cutaway is fantastic, the bolt on neck interferes with the thumb placement as you move upward.
From the back:
The relaxed stretch on the front from that thumb position.
I still find it uncomfortable that the hand has to twist sideways to hit the higher register. When I commission for a custom extended fret guitar in the future. Im going to try and make it similar to the neck through of a BTB bass but even deeper towards the bridge:
Fretboard Radius: Im not a fan of the 12 radius. Initially I got the low string and high string to the action I wanted but the middle 5 were unplayable and stuck to the frets on the low end (fret 1-12). This has been an issue with some of my other guitars and from now on Im going to try and pursue flatter radius boards or at the very least a bridge that will allow me to adjust the action for individual strings. I believe the flattest board for a Floyd is 16 although someone else will need to confirm it. I have raised the action, but would greatly prefer uber low action.
The Floyd:
One of the most frustrating aspects of the guitar is the Floyd. My initially reaction when I started playing was to put my pick between the fretboard and the pickup. Unfortunately, that leaves my hand sitting on the adjustment tuners.
In this position, muting with the picking hand is impossible. If I move downward, then another issue emerges. The pick is now over the fretboard.
With low action, it took a while to get my picking to the point where I wasnt striking the fret underneath. Im still concerned that Im wearing the fret down while I pick (not monitoring it 100% all the time) and would feel more comfortable if I had more space underneath the strings. This is something I took for granted on all other guitars until I played this one.
Pickups: The pickup works well. I havent really tried tone dialing because that the least of my concerns with the guitar. One issue is that I barely get any string harmonics when I play. Im wondering of the single pickup is too far back to receive the harmonic frequencies. If someone with greater pickup knowledge than myself would clarify that would be great.
Another issue is the Floyds floating system. When I mute, I tend to anchor my right hand force as if Im going into the body of the guitar. However, I noticed that Im pushing the bridge downward when playing so all my notes are out of tune. This constant pushing the bridge downward then rebalancing results in me having to retune the guitar about every 30 minutes. Im going to keep practicing. Its just very strange now that I cant just add weight to my hand if I want to mute.
Even though I have no experience with the bridge, the kahler seems a much better design for a guitar like this; individual action, hardtail type end, mostly flat, non-floating.
For those of you obsessive prototyping type people like myself. I included English measurement pictures of the bridge and pickup if you wanted an extended fret guitar (EFG) and wanted to decide pickup layout.
And from the edge of the pickup (pickups are around 1.5 wide).
Here are some numbers for thought.
Scale Length to 36th Fret in inches (excludes the extra wood at end of fretboard/neck):
25.5: 3.2
26.5: 3.32
27: 3.37
28: 3.5
30: 3.75
Moving Forward:
I really love the extended range on the guitar. When I go back to 24 fret guitars it feels akin to losing a string in a way, although not as severe. One surefire way to get playable high notes is to keep adding high strings. However, since we are limited to .007 and O4P, it more or less means loosing an inch for about every semitone to be safe.
23.5 A4
22.5 Bb4
20.5 C#5
19 D5
That greatly decreases the playability of a guitar if you want to keep a 25.5or 24.75 bass end. Ive thought about ordering this guy for just shredding. I would be able to reach about C#7 or D7 on the highest fret.
I think I want a guitar with 31 frets(very playable) and an extra high string. I tune a half step down. With the perfect fifth above the 24th note, you have access to the scales and tonics, especially the amazing V-I cadence. With the high G#4 the 31st fret would be Eb7, higher than the mini guitar and easier access to the equivalent R36s 36th fret. With the extra space, I could squeeze in two humbuckers or a more reasonable single coil humbucker configuration. Although I would lose 5 notes of the G#4, I feel the general wildcard of those upper level frets is not worth it. Even though, I stated above that 33rd fret is still good to play, if I was going over the Perfect 5th I might as well go all the way to 36 because I couldnt stand the incompleteness of the design.
Final thoughts:
Its a great guitar for what does and is currently my main 7. The neck is thin and those extra frets are great. The guitar itself has been a good learning process and I look to improve upon the things that worked for me and the things that dont.
Lastly: I dont mean to come off as a persnickety guitar aristocrat. Its just frustrating sometimes when things you see have potential seemed to be bogged down by some design issues.
All-in-all. Very happy to own and play this guitar.
I've been after one of these for ages in yellow.
