Blazer
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2009
- Messages
- 187
- Reaction score
- 42
Call it a commodity, call it a poser's ornament or call it a serious instrument: a double neck guitar will always get one noticed. I owned two self made ones.
Both of them were double six string necks and yet couldn't be more different from each other.
For the first one I went for a kind of BC Rich look, I used two old Strat necks and some random pickups I had lying around. This guitar was a failure with the body being so wide that I could never get comfortable playing it, I must say though that it did sound good. The idea was to have the lower neck tuned in an open tuning and the upper neck tuned normally. I have since taken it apart and the body now hangs on the wall of my apartment as an art piece.
For my second attempt, I decided to play it safe and traced the outline of my strat to make a body shape, I also calculated how far the necks should be from each other for me to make it a comfortable playable instrument. (On the other the necks were too far apart) The upper neck is a half scale neck tuned A to A and the lower neck is tuned normally. It was my intention to use this guitar on my Band's CD release party but it wasn't finished in time. I did take it to several rehearsals and my fellow bandmates remarked on how good it sounds. So far I haven't used it on performances and I still have to write a tune where I can utelize the high, almost mandolin, sound from the upper neck.
I'm currently making plans to use the template I made for the second one to make myself a 12 string - 6 string double neck in black. I already started work on building the necks.
On last year's Vintage guitar fair in Veenendaal I almost bought a seventies Shergold double neck which was a bass and twelve string guitar combination, at 500 bucks it was affordable and it make my heart as a Genesis fan beat faster, the deal breaker however was the sheer weight of that guitar, it was like strapping on a grand piano.
Both of them were double six string necks and yet couldn't be more different from each other.
For the first one I went for a kind of BC Rich look, I used two old Strat necks and some random pickups I had lying around. This guitar was a failure with the body being so wide that I could never get comfortable playing it, I must say though that it did sound good. The idea was to have the lower neck tuned in an open tuning and the upper neck tuned normally. I have since taken it apart and the body now hangs on the wall of my apartment as an art piece.
For my second attempt, I decided to play it safe and traced the outline of my strat to make a body shape, I also calculated how far the necks should be from each other for me to make it a comfortable playable instrument. (On the other the necks were too far apart) The upper neck is a half scale neck tuned A to A and the lower neck is tuned normally. It was my intention to use this guitar on my Band's CD release party but it wasn't finished in time. I did take it to several rehearsals and my fellow bandmates remarked on how good it sounds. So far I haven't used it on performances and I still have to write a tune where I can utelize the high, almost mandolin, sound from the upper neck.
I'm currently making plans to use the template I made for the second one to make myself a 12 string - 6 string double neck in black. I already started work on building the necks.
On last year's Vintage guitar fair in Veenendaal I almost bought a seventies Shergold double neck which was a bass and twelve string guitar combination, at 500 bucks it was affordable and it make my heart as a Genesis fan beat faster, the deal breaker however was the sheer weight of that guitar, it was like strapping on a grand piano.
