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12 and 8 String Basses


Hobbayne

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I'd be demo-ing a 12 before buying

Playing without a pick on an 8 is difficult enough but striking upwards to hit the bass gauge and then 2 other strings - hmmm you would need to be a pick player with gorilla grip just to play slower stuff.   Anything with Rn'R might send you to see the Karpal Tunnel doctor before you ever earn enough money to re-string it!

I have owned several 8's over the years and currently have a Schecter Riot8. It is a  34" scale with 18v active electronics. I believe is the best sounding and most playable 8 I have owned.

Hag 32" were the pioneers but the world has moved on. Thier re-release scheduled for last year does not seem to have eventuated as yet???

I can thoroughly recommend checking out a Schecter for price and playability

Edited by Thaibass
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2 minutes ago, Thaibass said:

I'd be demo-ing a 12 before buying

Playing without a pick on an 8 is difficult enough but striking upwards to hit the bass gauge and then 2 other strings - hmmm you would need to be a pick player with gorilla grip just to play slower stuff.   Anything with Rn'R might send you to see the Karpal Tunnel doctor before you ever earn enough money to re-string it!

I have owned several 8's over the years and currently have a Schecter Riot8. It is a  34" scale with 18v active electronics. I believe is the best sounding and most playable 8 I have owned.

Hag 32" were the pioneers but the world has moved on. Thier re-release scheduled for last year does not seem to have eventuated as yet???

I can thoroughly recommend checking out a Schecter for price and playability

Not necessarily. Most people play downstrokes only on a 12. In actuality I play fingerstyle on mine. As for string sets, D'Addario make a set which cost about £30. Not bad really.

As for Hagstrom, their 8 string is pants. It's a 4 saddle bridge and doesn't stay in tune above about the 7th fret. Yes, I've played one. 

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21 minutes ago, Jus Lukin said:

 

Indeed. Usually a pair, but any number of strings grouped to be played together is a course. Usually a unison or octave, but can be tuned to any other interval too. All very cool, although I don't have any myself. Actually, that's not true, I have a mandolin stashed away somewhere but not a bass!

A coarse tuning could be a four string tuned at C, U, N... well, you get the picture! ;)

 

*EDIT* Damn, FCAF would have been the smarter swear-tuning to come up with...

That's okay.  I have made a note to delay laughing at the quip by roughly the time it took you to change your mind...

Heeheehee.  Are zithers tuned in courses too?  I got a headache before I could get it around the different tunings.  It says you can have one to fifty strings on a zither.

image.png.1a8b15b71ee18286adc7083b279cb556.png

Try fingering that bugger with a couple of shorts down you.

 

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8 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Was it any good? 

Yeah, actually. It's not bad. I didn't like it the first time I played one, but after a second sitting I realised my view was based on cosmetic things I didn't like. Structurally it's fine. Things I don't like about it are quite possibly not an issue to anyone else, but here goes.

It has a satin neck. The pickups aren't great. It has that horrible Spector Tonepump circuit. I like master volume and blend not dual volumes. All of this stuff can be changed, but it takes the bass past the £1k territory to do it. The neck profile is good. Probably marginally slimmer than the esp. It's not heavy either.

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1 hour ago, Wolverinebass said:

Yeah, actually. It's not bad. I didn't like it the first time I played one, but after a second sitting I realised my view was based on cosmetic things I didn't like. Structurally it's fine. Things I don't like about it are quite possibly not an issue to anyone else, but here goes.

It has a satin neck. The pickups aren't great. It has that horrible Spector Tonepump circuit. I like master volume and blend not dual volumes. All of this stuff can be changed, but it takes the bass past the £1k territory to do it. The neck profile is good. Probably marginally slimmer than the esp. It's not heavy either.

That all makes sense. This is, after all, a 'budget' Spector and not one of their Euro and similar criticisms of the Warwick Rockbass range (pups are meh and pots very underpowered). Decent pups, for me anyway, are a key part of any bass - so the things you've identified as minuses would put me off too.

Any thoughts on the Schecter Stiletto 8? That is already nearly £1k but sometimes (certainly not always!) it's a case of 'you pays your money'...

I know I probably worry about neck warping due to string tension perhaps more than others (I guess having seen it on a Fender 5er that's passed through my hands and on other folks high end basses on this forum), but it seems to me that the neck through design that Schecter are providing not only looks great but should provide additional strength and resistance against warping? I'm presuming that the total string tension on an 8 (and indeed 12) is going to be higher than on a 4 or 5 string bass, so this should also be a factor to consider in the mix?

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2 hours ago, Wolverinebass said:

It has a satin neck. The pickups aren't great. It has that horrible Spector Tonepump circuit. I like master volume and blend not dual volumes. All of this stuff can be changed, but it takes the bass past the £1k territory to do it. The neck profile is good. Probably marginally slimmer than the esp. It's not heavy either.

Hmm, that sounds pretty good to me. I don’t mind satin, the looks, well, not great but I have a Gibson eb5! I don’t like vol / vol but a 2 band artec preamp is £21 and I am a fan of those. Pickups, that sounds like the real downside but maybe not so bad.

 

maybe I might go for one of those

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Adding chorus to an 8 string bass will not give you a 12 string bass sound.
It will sound like a 'confused' 8-string bass, with the output signal rather messed up.

I have a Dean Rhapsody 8-string bass and can attest that it is one of the best basses for all over intonation of its type.

Ian Edmundson

My two Hamer 12er's are also excellent for intonation (both are different scales).
The sound is 'bigger than the 8-string, especially if you do not tune totally precisely.
They are both active. They sound pretty thunderous through my Hartke rig.

17155838_1594078957273138_7093356726870092853_n.jpg

crop%2Bstage_right.jpg

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1 hour ago, 12stringbassist said:

I have a Dean Rhapsody 8-string bass and can attest that it is one of the best basses for all over intonation of its type.

 

There was a Dean Rhapsody 12 on ebay that went yesterday (I suspected someone on here was bidding on it). But I really don't get on with the looks of it. The Hamers look nice but too much for me, so the spector is still winning should I decide to get one of those.

Just that 8 seems a bit of a compromise :D

 

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On 1/18/2018 at 14:45, Woodinblack said:

There was a Dean Rhapsody 12 on ebay that went yesterday (I suspected someone on here was bidding on it). But I really don't get on with the looks of it. The Hamers look nice but too much for me, so the spector is still winning should I decide to get one of those.

Just that 8 seems a bit of a compromise :D

 

My mate has a Dean R12. Looks aside (and I didn't mind it), it was really VERY playable.

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47 minutes ago, 12stringbassist said:

My mate has a Dean R12. Looks aside (and I didn't mind it), it was really VERY playable.

Funnily enough, I played a Dean Rhapsody 12 and hated it. Didn't like the neck and the pre-amp and pickups are a bit lifeless. Didn't like the 8 string version either. I preferred the Dean Edge though I'd be swapping the pickups and circuit out right away.

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3 hours ago, Wolverinebass said:

Funnily enough, I played a Dean Rhapsody 12 and hated it. Didn't like the neck and the pre-amp and pickups are a bit lifeless. Didn't like the 8 string version either. I preferred the Dean Edge though I'd be swapping the pickups and circuit out right away.

So in order of preference, what are / have been your favourite 8 string basses? I find myself disconcertingly tempted to get one later this year (when I've managed to move on some existing kit)!

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