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NGD: ET Guitars Australia - Custom 7 String

7K views 20 replies 15 participants last post by  wilch 
#1 ·
Hey guys,

Bear with me, sorry if this is a bit of a long story. But this is my very first 7 string guitar. Also my first custom...many firsts with this guitar.

Here goes. Near the start of the year I came across Keith Merrow's Youtube channel, and then Ola Englund's. For some reason I had never heard people play guitar this way before. I've been playing guitar for 25 years, but had never heard any songs played in drop Bb on a 7, ever. Yep, I probably was living in a little bubble.

It wasn't until I had heard riffs and songs by these guys that I just had to get a 7 string. I wanted to learn their songs. I normally play Dream Theater/Vai/Metallica/Led Zep'esque style music (and write accordingly). The stuff I was hearing from Merrow was like a new candy that I'd never tasted before.

Anyway, it was at this stage that I started looking for a 7. I had 3 Ibanez's already, so I started looking there. But I'm a fixed bridge kinda guy (now) that hates boring colours and rosewood. So I found nothing there. Then I remembered a local luthier who I had ordered stuff from before. Only custom parts, but never a full guitar. I was shocked to see that he was producing actual guitars. Two caught my eye. The Katana, and the Tomahawk FX7.

Being on a budget I shot Ernie an email, and was surprised that he remembered me! It would've been 4 years ago that I last made contact with him. Immediately we got to talking, and before long I had ordered a custom guitar. My first.



A custom 7 string built by Ernie Taylor based on the ET Guitars FX7, but modified to my tastes.

Specs:
- Mahogany Body
- Maple neck - wenge strip
- Dual Carbon Fibre Rods alongside the truss rod
- Quilted Maple fretboard
- Tree-of-life Inlay (red/black, custom colours)
- Dunlop 6105 Stainless Steel Frets
- Hipshot Fixed Bridge 0.125" base for 7 string
- Nut - Graphtech Black Tusq
- Hipshot Griplock Tuners
- Bridge Pickup - Bare Knuckle Aftermath 7 (Zebra)
- Neck Pickup - Bare Knuckle Nailbomb 7 (Reverse Zebra)
- 3 way switch, with coil split via push/pull volume pot
- Angled jack

There were a few things that lead me to my choice in style. The first being familiarity with RG guitars. The second being a desire for a quilted maple fretboard (never owned one before). The third being a want for a fancy inlay. The fourth, most important, I didn't really want to wait. Painted and quilted finishes add to the wait time. I wanted my 7 now. That said, I still had to wait, LOL!

I also originally ordered an extended scale 27" neck. But then I chickened out. I still want to play some Dream Theater stuff on this, and that 27" makes me think I probably might not be able to make some of the stretches in the acoustic parts. So this one is a 25.5" scale. Maybe I'll go extended next time.





Now that I have this guitar, and I met the man himself, I plan on putting together another design, and having him build that. Ernie ROCKS :hbang:. I'm in love with this guitar.



 
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#2 ·
How's it play? So nicely. I'm still in that honey moon phase. But boy was I shocked with the neck profile! The transition from an Ibanez JEM neck (like those found on an FP) to this is little to nothing. It feels like a 6. It actually feels thinner than a Universe neck too. The fret work is sooo nice. So slippery. I'm so happy right now!













One thing I do want to try is flipping the pickups (spinning them around). The guitar sounds so bright atm. Does anyone know if this will help lessen the brightness?

Anyway, I'm going to go back to playing. I've had about 5 hours sleep since getting home and plugging the guitar in. I even learnt Pillars Of Creation! haha. Vids later. Thanks for looking!
 
#3 ·
Don't know why when I first saw the picture it looked like a 6 string :) Not sure why but I did notice from the photos that the neck fits really tight to the body.

Has a little too unfinished vibe to it for my taste but still nice guitar.

The brightness might be because there's no tone knob. I never played a guitar with no tone knob but remember reading even if knob not rolled it still takes some highs. But you can easily add an eq and shave off the top frequency's (graphic eq pedal).
 
#12 ·
Thanks all :)

Ernie exceeded my expectations with this build. So happy with it.

Lone, I went with Bare Knuckle pickups.
- Bridge Pickup - Bare Knuckle Aftermath 7 (Zebra)
- Neck Pickup - Bare Knuckle Nailbomb 7 (Reverse Zebra)

The brightness thing might've been a combination of me being overwhelmed by it being a NGD, SS frets that I've never used before, Maple board that none of my other guitars have, pickups that I bought without hearing first, the guitar being strug with ErnieBall Slinky's (I've been using D'addario's for the past 25 years), and the addition of that seventh string just was maybe a little too much for my brain to process.

I recorded an A/B test with my rg421 that has Evolutions in it, and it seems that this 7 string isn't that much brighter. It's just that the notes have a shimmer to the tail end of them. But it's very aggressive sounding.

Here's a "song" (collection of riffs) I wrote and recorded with the guitar:

 
#16 ·
Thanks man. Yeah, not everyone likes the vines. But I really really do. I've only seen one post on various forums where someone's disliked the vines so much they had to mention how much they believe it destroys the look of the guitar. lol.

Had others saying it's the first time they've ever liked the tree-of-life inlay too.

Different strokes I guess.

But for me, I looove it. :)

Originally all the leaves were going to be black. But 2 weeks after I confirmed the build, I made the change. I wanted red. Something with depth.

Man, that looks like a really quality build!!

With that hipshot bridge being really low profile, maybe just lowering the p-ups a little might be just the tweak for easing back a touch of brightness.
Thanks man :)

I did try lowering the pups, it helped a bit. But last night I decided to flip them. It definitely sounds different. I grew to like the way the zebra looked the other way though.

Here's an obligatory Always With You, Always With Me video of the guitar with the pups reversed.

 
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