As I mentioned earlier I used to play a Warwick thumb six string bass. I used to play in a venue that held about 1200 people used an ADA pre amp an electro music 800 watt power amp This would power a Trace Elliot 4x10 and 1x15. I could not go through the house pa so I had to produce all of the sound from my backline. I really liked the low B string , it gave an extra dimension to the music especially as the band was just keyboards ,drums bass and vocals. I have a 4 string Steinberger XL fretless bass and at th time a double bass which I really like the sound of, so it dawned on me that the sound I was hearing in my head was a strat and a fretless bass together.
I love the benefit of the extra top string so I started to piece together the next stage. A 7 string guitar and a 7 string bass on one neck. So I contacted Andy and Hugh Manson and they were very enthusiastic. They sent me a drawing of the basic layout of the instrument. I named the instrument a basstar as it is half bass and half guitar and also it was as polite a word as I could use to descibe what it might be like to play and sing however the instrument is a dream to play but the name has stuck!? As you can see from the picture it looks a bit of a monster .I took delivery of the guitar in march 2000. Since then it has been like having a new baby, there is a lot of crying (done by me!) and a lot of late nights/early mornings.
The tuning of the guitar is based upon the ten string tuning. From high to low it is (deep breath!)e,b,g,d,a,e,b,,g(4th string on a bass)d,a,e,b,a.The string gauges are 011 ,13 ,17,26,36,46,56,65,80,100,110,120,130,135! There are 3 different string lengths. the first 11 are guitar range, the 12th and 13th are baritone and the 14th string is bass scale.
The change from the different string lengths is not as tricky as it seems with the fretless side of the neck being lined I bring my right hand over the top of the neck. I have not had the courage to ask Andy or Hugh to make a capo or a locking tremolo yet! The bridge pick up is a Seymour Duncan little 59 and the middle and neck pick ups are Di Marzio FS1.I also have a Mike Christain piezo bridge transducers on the first 7 guitar strings. I do not view the piezo bridge as a substitute for an acoustic or an acoustic simulator but I feel that they have very special tones of their own right. The 3 dials in a v shape are guitar volume ,tone and a blender, for the piezo. The other 2 controls are bass volume and a stacked tone and sweep system. There are separate jacks for the guitar and bass. The guitar top is made from figured sycamore, the body and neck are walnut and maple and the bass fingerboard is ebony. The guitar fingerboard is brazillian rosewood as is the front and back of the head. The machine heads are Gotoh. Each segment of the neck has its own truss rod. I must admit that in my first few weeks with the guitar when practising scales I think a calendar would have been more use than my metronome.
These guitars have certainly made me think on a much wider plane. my solo repertoire ranges from my own songs to Gershwin to Motown to Nirvana and beyond. I have always enjoyed the combination of solo bass and vocal.with guitar and this is another step closer to my ultimate instrument, I do not think I will ever rest until as Scriabin said you can climb inside the sound of the instrument. With regard to amplification I currently use Turbosound Speaker (2 1x18 and 2 1x12)with an Allen and Heath PA 20 mixer and i proccess the sound through a DBX driverack PA. I have found that generally i do not have the eq flat and just add a small amount of reverb I have found that developing these instruments with Andy and Hugh Manson has been very inspirational and I would definitely recommend trying experimenting with the boundaries of instruments. If you hear a sound in your head why not follow it.