BEYOND THE SIXTH STRING
Ibanez Introduced the industry’s first mass-produced seven-string solidbody electric guitar - the Universe UV7, designed in collaboration with Steve Vai - in 1990. Although guitarists overwhelmingly applauded this new innovation that expanded the instrument’s range, Ibanez surprisingly discontinued their Universe model seven-string guitars in 1994 after an unusually short period of production. This caused a few music industry observers to prematurely conclude that the seven-string guitar was just a passing fad with little more than novelty appeal.
The timing of the discontinuation was unfortunate, however, as seven-string guitars were just starting to catch on with an increasing amount of players around the same time. During the mid-’90s an impressively diverse variety of bands and guitarists embraced and popularised the heavier sound of the seven-string guitar, including Cannibal Corpse, Deftones, Dream Theater, Fear Factory, Korn, Meshuggah, Morbid Angel, Nevermore, Uli Jon Roth, Voivod and many others.
Guitarists who favoured the extended range of a seven-string guitar grew to significant ranks over the next few years, and Ibanez soon reversed course and started building seven-string models again in 1997. Other major manufacturers also introduced seven-string models during this time, although it took almost another decade before several companies started to offer more than just a handful of seven-string models in their product lineups.
The market for seven-string guitars has changed radically over the past 15 years, as have the designs of many of the instruments. Today guitarists can choose from several hundred different models, and a handful of manufacturers each even offer a larger variety of models than what the entire industry provided at the dawn of the new millennium.
About the same time as the seven-string surge took place around a decade or so ago, a handful of companies started to offer the first mass-produced eight-string models, providing yet another tempting alternative instrument for guitarists interested in exploring a wider sonic range than that of a standard six-string guitar.
Over time, the design of the seven-string guitar has expanded to include instruments with extended scale lengths and alternate tunings, which has made the decision process more confusing for newcomers as well as experienced guitarists shopping for their first seven- or eight-string guitar.
