Why are 7-strings going out of style?

[Blackstrat86]

I dont have a 7 string yet...But Petrucci Turned me onto 7 strings big time...those low little runs he does ohh my, I just love it...

I dont follow the trends with instruments, As long as companys still make the ones i like, rather they are trendy or what, ill be happy...I personaly hate how most people see strats as "boring ordinary guitars". I mean not many people say "ohh wow look at that strat!!!" most people are like "OMG LOOK AT THAT LES PAUL SLASH PLAYS THAT ONE!!! WHOPE IM A TRENDY WH*RE" heh...7 strings rule!! Im planin on gettin a RG7320 soo heh

[Two hands31]

I just love the fact that a 7-string's kinda like a baritone guitar crossed with a "standard" guitar, so it's like two instruments in one. I use the high-e string all the time, and the low B/A (depending how I have it tuned) just as often. My bassist hates me tho So I'm using much larger chords now to take advantage of more than just the muddy *chug chug chug* sounds.

[DoctorCrunch]

The trick is using open voicings, which are easier to finger anyway (IMO). When you have that much low end, you can't cluster notes too closely; it'll sound like crap.

[Skarekrough]

I think there's been a big backlash against 7 strings and decrease in popularity for a few reasons.

-They were very much identified with nu-metal which is now experiencing alot of slag and backlash. Any genre that gets hat big that quick will experience such a thing and it's unfortunate that the relationship became synonymous.

-The market is flooded with cheap 7's that aren't neccesarily all that great. In the post-grunge market the non Fender/Gibson brands finally got alot more of the spotlight and they ran with the ball. They cranked out alot of 7's and, unfortunately, a good chunk of them were just garbage. Those that are decent are lumped in and can be had cheaply.

-The trend moved away from 7's to more classic looking instruments; you can thank PRS for giving anyone who may every get any airplay a few axes for this; their current status is a testament to their skills in marketing.

The bad part of this all is the general ignorant comments that get thrown around.

The good part is that for low dough a kid can get a killer 7 string and get to work. As well, experienced players are more inclined to pick up one and give it a try.

Just becuase they're not selling doesn't make it a bad time for 7's. Indeed I think this is very much the calm before the storm!

[DoctorCrunch]

Originally Posted by Skarekrough

Just becuase they're not selling doesn't make it a bad time for 7's. Indeed I think this is very much the calm before the storm!

warning: a rant side-stepping the discussion at hand

I couldn't agree more. In fact, I think that technically accomplished musicians will be hitting the airwaves within 12-18 months. Maybe I'm sounding too optimistic: you can't underestimate the music industry's ability to beat a dead horse (the horse being nu-metal and the post-grunge tripe, such as Creed). But I think another backlash is overdue; it's been 12 years since Nirvana exploded, and 7 or 8 years since Korn made it big.

(BTW, Nirvana was good. With all due respect, I don't care what all the shread-heads think. Many prog-rockers could stand a lesson in attitude from Kurt Cobain.)

[wheresthebeef]

I think people aren't buying 7-strings because(like said above somewhere) they are trying to rebel against the change, or just find the 7th string tedious. It makes the neck wider, ... it could be anything.

[jemsite]

Originally Posted by DoctorCrunch

What's the deal? You don't see them much anymore, and they're not selling, apparently. Why do you gus think this is happening?

Like any "emerging new product", 7-strings were given a "marketing push" in hopes of attracting new sales and perhaps a new audience and increased sales for manufacturers. Sales did not match the investment/marketing, and hence product was pulled or scaled back. Very simple retail phenomena. After a certain point of disappointing ROI (return on investment) you pull the plug.

They never sold great.

Ever.

Originally Posted by DoctorCrunch

I love having the extra range, and I would think plenty of people would feel the same way. Is fashion dominating this trend? I hope not, because that's just silly.

Maybe the vast majority of guitar buyers just prefer 6-strings... no more... no less. Fashion and trends have little to do with this marketplace fact... glen

[DoctorCrunch]

Originally Posted by jemsite

Like any "emerging new product", 7-strings were given a "marketing push" in hopes of attracting new sales and perhaps a new audience and increased sales for manufacturers. Sales did not match the investment/marketing, and hence product was pulled or scaled back. Very simple retail phenomena. After a certain point of disappointing ROI (return on investment) you pull the plug.

They never sold great.

Ever.

What can I say - I got a C in Intro to Marketing I suppose I fell for the hype, myself, because I really thought they were popular! I'm glad to know how others feel about the phenomenon, though, and I'm proud to say that I'm weird enough to love my 7.

PS - Sorry about the BS above, guys. I didn't mean to sound so jerky. Really, "shread-head" sounded bad there. I didn't mean it negatively. Sorry. Regardless, this was the wrong forum.

[Skarekrough]

Originally Posted by jemsite

Like any "emerging new product", 7-strings were given a "marketing push" in hopes of attracting new sales and perhaps a new audience and increased sales for manufacturers. Sales did not match the investment/marketing, and hence product was pulled or scaled back. Very simple retail phenomena. After a certain point of disappointing ROI (return on investment) you pull the plug.

They never sold great.

Ever.

Very interesting take considering how many used 7 strings are resident in guitar shops everywhere. Matter of fact there was a time when a guitar shop employee joked with me that they were going to do a promotion that any purchase over $500 would get them to toss in a 7 string, and that was back about a year and a half ago.

I do believe they sold well for a good while. However I think the issue was that it wasn't a bottomless market and the general trends moved away from 7 strings; two huge factors that led us to where we are today.

[The Dark Wolf]

Here's another way of looking at it, that will perhaps take into account skarekrough's observation that there are (relatively) quite a few older/used 7-strings out there, but Glen's analysis that they never sold well ('well' being the operative, and perhaps slightly objective term.)

Consider, that when 7's were hitting the market, after the nu-metal rise (been around longer, but this is when we see a concerted push, with lots of new 7 introductions) many people still considered them as a monolithic group. By this I mean, there was still some brand identification, still some model preference, etc., but many considered the individual 7's to be just another 7. For instance, young Johnny says, "I want a Les Paul!" Billy says, "I want a Strat!" Jim Bob says, "I want a 7-string!" Certain guitars carry their own image, that is even deeper than the name. Like Les Paul... even tho Gibson, the name 'Les Paul' carries a certain weight. Perhaps when you consider ALL 7-string total sales based against Strat sales only, or Les Paul sales only, etc.,, then maybe they wouldn't appear so dismal. But, seeing as each company wanted to get a certain ROI, as Glen so eleoquently put it, there just wasn't a big enough market share. Perhaps for the future of 7-strings, it would have been better to just have one or two companies producing them, so that they individually would have had a better market share of total 7's sold. Which, ironically, is the situation pretty much now, with Ibanez probably being the largest mass-produced 7-string manufacturer. It's only too band this wasn't the case say 4 or 5 years ago, when the 7 concept took hold. Then maybe there'd be 5 or 6 new 7 models introduced this year, instead of 1 (?)

[Skarekrough]

Originally Posted by Wordwolf

Here's another way of looking at it, that will perhaps take into account skarekrough's observation that there are (relatively) quite a few older/used 7-strings out there, but Glen's analysis that they never sold well ('well' being the operative, and perhaps slightly objective term.)

Consider, that when 7's were hitting the market, after the nu-metal rise (been around longer, but this is when we see a concerted push, with lots of new 7 introductions) many people still considered them as a monolithic group. By this I mean, there was still some brand identification, still some model preference, etc., but many considered the individual 7's to be just another 7. For instance, young Johnny says, "I want a Les Paul!" Billy says, "I want a Strat!" Jim Bob says, "I want a 7-string!" Certain guitars carry their own image, that is even deeper than the name. Like Les Paul... even tho Gibson, the name 'Les Paul' carries a certain weight. Perhaps when you consider ALL 7-string total sales based against Strat sales only, or Les Paul sales only, etc.,, then maybe they wouldn't appear so dismal. But, seeing as each company wanted to get a certain ROI, as Glen so eleoquently put it, there just wasn't a big enough market share. Perhaps for the future of 7-strings, it would have been better to just have one or two companies producing them, so that they individually would have had a better market share of total 7's sold. Which, ironically, is the situation pretty much now, with Ibanez probably being the largest mass-produced 7-string manufacturer. It's only too band this wasn't the case say 4 or 5 years ago, when the 7 concept took hold. Then maybe there'd be 5 or 6 new 7 models introduced this year, instead of 1 (?)

I think you do have a point...to a point.

One of the things I actually didn't do was specify what 7 strings the guitar shop had a glut of. Specifically, they were Ibanez 7 strings, both 7420's and 7620's. Both took over an unreasonable amount of rack space and I have to admit that it's usually a used Ibanez 7 that I see in most guitar shops...usually at least one.

But I do agree that the market was not as bottomless financially as Glen mentioned and that if something isn't doing wel financially then they're going to cut production. I believe the market saturated and the advent of a very good used market (think about the super-strat craze in the 80's and how it would have been different if eBay had been around) made it so that used ones passed hands pretty quickly thus making it even shallower after saturation had hit.

What would be best would be to have a few companies making a good handfull of 7 strings. It pained me to see ESP leave; they were one of the few companies that I believe was just starting to "get it right". Schecters cancellation of the C7+ also was painful; that was an instrument that had legs and was tonally much different than the glut that was being offered.

In my eyes Ibanez has the super-strat 7 string pretty well sewn up; between the Prestige 7's and the lower-end offerings it's hard to really find a super-strat 7 string that doesn't meet most folks needs. However, it's other styles that I feel are being left out. A good 7 string Les Paul equivilant just isn't really being manufactured; Schecter and Epi had their hand in it but have since left. ESP was just about there but walked away; a few more years of development of the H-207 with some different wood variations I think would have been a great addition to the world of 7's.

I think what will happen is that you will see manufacturers get back into it after a good chunk of time; enough to get all the Ibanez 7's off the shelf and eBay. They'll exercise some restraint and make mid-to-higher end 7's and the possiblity of some semblance of a normal market will start to happen and, with this, some real evolution of the instrument.

[Z0rn]

I was just reading all of your posts about the popularity of the 7 string, the one post in perticular caught my attention. The one about how 7 strings aren't being used anymore because the main stream players realized that they didn't need the 7 string, just the low tuning. It's so true, I remember reading interviews with a few 7 string guys who went back to 6 strings. Wed Borland (Limp Bizkit), admitted straight out that he could do all the things he was doing before on a down tuned 6 string and didn't need it anymore plain and simple. Me personally, I could never go back. There's just way to much I can do with a 7. I feel Limited If I go back to a 6 string.

[germX]

those who stapped a 7 & then reverted to 6 were a confused lot. the 7 string's waning popularity is simply good news to the rest of us who have a genuine use for it. i'm really glad that the 7 is now a less popular option to down-tuned players. no offence to these people but they are better off with a baritone 6. it seems that time has sieved the genuine 7 string manipulators. the 7 is simply not a staple for pop culture.

the downside is of course we won't get to grab a 7 dirt cheap in time to come.

[Two hands31]

Originally Posted by Z0rn

Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit), admitted straight out that he could do all the things he was doing before on a down tuned 6 string and didn't need it anymore plain and simple.

...and then he wrote "My Way", which requires a 7-string in drop-A to sound right on one guitar.

He never said he didn't need it, he just said he didn't like them, and felt he wasn't talented enough to take full advantage of them.

[metalguy]

I remember being in 8th grade(late eighties) and seeing a Universe after Passion and Warfare came out.You had to have a security escort just to get close to it.And forget about trying it out!!!But they seemed to feign interest cause they were just way to expensive.I honestly forgot about them until Korn came out.Then it was a huge demand again but you could not find them anywhere.Ibanez re-issued the Universe(black with all green hardware), once again way too expensive!!That was like 1996.I finally got an RG in 1998 and it was $1100 with the case.Now you cn get em for ****in peanuts, which i found out when i tried to sell mine on ebay(sorry, i was hurtin 4 $)I still have it and still love it.I think most people on the hunt for a guitar either shop for price or practicality, I.E gibson, fender or Ibanez.Les Pauls are awesome but $$$$!!I have a studio Paul and it rules.Kids these days want Drop-d.Thats all they know.Throw in an extra string and its pandemonium.Like extra homework.I think Ibanez should continue to market the 7 but offer a mahogany body we can afford.A custom shop would be cool!As cheap as it is for manufacturers to produce guitars(dont be fooled!!) you would think guitarists could catch a break.Plus i think the market is flooded with crap guitars