Be honest...

I have to have a 7 to pull off the music I play. The extended range is fantastic. Since I got a 7 about 4 or 5 years ago, the main thing my 6-string guitars do is collect dust.

I play every day, sometimes 2-3 hours a day, and the first guitar I always go to is my Ibanez 7. Every time....even over the 6-string guitar I built myself.

 

I don't even touch my 6's anymore-that's why I'm selling them off. It's nice to be able to keep standard tuning and still be able to transcrbie songs in lower tunings.
For example. I can put in Train of Though, play As I am-even though it's played on a six string tuned two steps down --
( Transcribing 6 string drop tunings and making them work on a 7 is one of my favorite things to do. It's always possible as long as it's no lower than the B, you just have to move quicker sometimes)
--and still be able to trasitition into This dying soul perfectly.
I like six string standard tuning and really had a hard time dealing with playing along with my favorite bands who use something else. I tried keeping a buch of 6's around. When I got the 7 it just seemed more natural to me both on a comfort and music composition level.
Not only this, but I discovered that normal chords can be made to sound so much fuller by using that extra string.
I wish I would have tried 7's sooner!

 

Well as much as I love my 7 (soon to be 7's) I still respect and play my 6's...and I don't think I will ever let them go...reason being is my approach to guitar playing is probably different than most of yours...I for one play for myself, having nothing to prove but to unwind, express myself and let the music flow through my, sometimes detached from my body, fingertips! Although I also enjoy screwing with my 7, I also try and take it more seriously, learning scales, chords and writing different tunes with it...I love the extended range of my 7, and I also love the wider neck...it's sort of like an excercise, cause when I pick up a 6 after playing the 7, I seem to move more effortlessly. I don't want to judge but, I think ridding oneself of a six, in favour of playing the seven exclusively,may be a bit premature...there are days I crave the tonal destruction of my seven, while other days I seek a more subtle tone, found in my sixes. As guitar players we are fortunate to play one of the most versatile instruments around, and now we have the ability to EXTEND this versatility. If i can sum up my feelings for a 7 string, I would say that it is really two guitars in one. Why buy a baritone and a regular tuned guitar when a seven is both those guitars in one!...people who have this huge misconception about the obstacles involved in playing a 7, haven't really tried playing one, cause when I played a 7 for the first time, I felt right at home...

 

ive come into needeing my 7 more and more. i bet i could most of my riffing on a six but its not as cool . all in all though ive come more into using different chordings and leads that really lets the range speak for itself. either way you technicly only get 4 more notes either up or down with a standard tuned 7 but the ability to go from a rumbling low b to a screeching high e all the way up to the 24th fret is wicked cool. but now its alot more to do with comfort... my guitar just feels right to me... i love a good les paul or strat as much as the next guy but i just plain love my RG7.

 

Within the last 2 years, I've gone back and forth between 6s and 7s. Before that, I only played 7s. Although I loved the feel of my baritone 6s, I recently moved back to 7s. My music is just easier to play on a 7.

I can do all of my music on a 6, but there's a lot more radical position changes I have to do in order to get all the chords & arpeggios. On the 7, I don't have to make all these radical leaps. I just simply move the chords to the next higher set of strings. For example, instead of playing a 6-note chord in the 12th fret position on a 6, I move it to the 7th fret on the next higher 6 strings of a 7-string guitar. This equals full sounding chords & arpeggios with a lot less hand travel. Jumping from an open chord to a 12+ fret chord (or higher) sucks. The less the hand has to travel, the better.

 

I dunno, I play my 6 string guitars about 80% of the time, and the 7 about 20%. I'm probably in the minority, but I think E-Eb-D can sound meaner than B or Bb.. I'm planning on going out and buying a set of 8's and a single 52, and tune the 7 string UP to D or Db. I think it would be more to my taste.

The lack of binding on my 7, while having it on both my 6's has an effect I bet.. Shoulda got a newer UV, but it was too expensive...

 

i only have a seven string to play fear factory and meshuggah tunes, that's it. if I don't know those bands, i would've never thought of it.

 

up until maybe 2 years ago, Id say I definitely could have gotten away with a detuned or baritone, but it eventually hit me thats it not just the fact that you get a few extra low notes. Theres so much more to experiment with.

As far as its use, my 7 is just a novelty, being that I sing and do not play guitar in my band (I tried to convince em to go for 7s, but they get scared). Whenever I write something I really like on my 7, sadly a lot of time it just cant be translated correctly to a 6, so it gets put on the back burner A LOT.

 

thats what I meant, its just really late and I didnt feel like explaining

 

Do I NEED a seven? No. I'm sure I could play a six for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy.

But what fn would that be?

The added low end is one of the perks of seven strings, true, but that's nothing you can't get by detuning. A seven allows you to jump between low riffing and standard-register soloing on the fly, which is a perk, but not essential- you can just write around that. And likewise, while the seven lets you go down an extra fourth in any position, you can compensate for that with position shifts. Same for riffing- if you're willing to jump around, I'm sure you could arrange anything on on a 7 for a 6 (well, almost). And after a year or so of playing 6's exclusively, I probably wouldn't miss it.

So why do I play a 7? Cause they're fuckin' cool and I don't WANT to have to jump around unless I want to. That and I like the wider neck. There's some downsides (jimi style chording is virtually impossible) so I doubt I'll ever sell my last 6 for a 7 (although it could happen, I suppose, I know better than to say never), frankly, I just LIKE playing 7's more than 6's.

The fact it's still seen as a fairly exotic instrument is pretty cool, too. Lots of people play guitar. Almost no one plays seven-string guitar. So, you'll be talking up some girl at a party and mention you're a seven-string guitarist, and she'll go "wow..."

Ok, ok, that's not the ONLY reason I play them, but it sure helps...

Actually, come to think of it, the reason I first bought my 7620 was the symmetry of it appealed to me- it always bothered me on some level that the guitar didn't have a "center" string.

-D

 

I've actually had a six string (tuned standard), a six string (tuned B-B), and a seven string all at the same time before. The baritone was cool for some stuff, mostly if all I wanted to do was heavy riffs in the lower register.

My problem with it wasn't that I found soloing any different but I missed the high E string to get those shimmery chord voicings. I'm way influenced by bands like Dream Theater, Queensryche, & Fates Warning.

Almost every song I play or write has low tuned riffs AND complex clean arpeggios and chords using the high E has part of the tone. I could still do it with the baritone but it was a lot harder fingering those chords than necessary.

So for me, I sold all my other guitars except a lone six string Ibanez that I take on gigs for emergency string breakage use. I even tune that one in drop D just to justify it.

I found that I needed both the high E string and the lower tunings. It wasn't like I needed them at the same time but during the same song.

 

Don't think I could go without my seven string now at all. I do a lot of stuff that involes all 7 strings (not just solo's, I do stuff where I have a chord over 5 strings, and a changing bassline on the bottom 2 strings). I am also a huge fan of droning notes while playing chords, so having the Low B droning while playing some chords with the rest of the 6 strings. I still play 6's, I have 5 other 6 strings (two acoustics, 3 electrics) but the fact is if I didn't have a 7 string, much of my repertoire would dissapear (you try doing a chord in 7th position while using your thumb on first fret for the bassline), or would have to be changed to compensate for different voicings, and im my opinion, worse voicings.

I also am in a band where the bassist sings, I'm getting an 8 string so as I can free him up to work the crowd more and do bass lines at the same time as playing guitar, it just makes more sense than have all of us trying to work the crowd up while being occupied elsewhere, have him work the crowd up and the rest of the band can help rather than it falling on the shoulders of all of us all at once. Fact is most people care more about the vocals than the rest of the band, so we need him to be more of a focal point of the band.

 

+1

When I first started playing music as a kid, I began on piano. It wasn't until I got a 7-string guitar, that the full range of guitar opened up to me like I was sitting at a piano again.

7-string electric guitars are the instrument that feels the most natural to me.

 

Yep, I've got that big & tall thing happening too! I'm 6'5" & around 270 lbs.

 

Man you guys would make a great tag team

 

6'0", currently about 165-170. You guys could kick my ass, but at least I wouldn't have to look up very much to talk trash before the fight...

-D

 

i REQUIRE 7 strings. Actually i can get by fine on a 6, but i'll take a seven any day, just for the ease of use for extra changes, extra shapes, and extra notes. And the ability to play Carcass songs w/o downtuning.

 

well, i typed up some stuff earlier, but for some reason i got a "cannot find page" when i posted... so i'll try again lol... i'm only 5'9" not a real big dude, but the 7's neck radius is perfect for my hands, i absolutely love it... but my 7 lacks some, even with the dimarzio blaze custom in the bridge... mines a RG7421 with a scallop from 12-24... it sounds good, but not low endy good, it actually lacks in low end, which is very odd considering the blaze custom only really lacks in mid's.... on the other hand, my alder bodied, neck thru, jackson RR5, with a duncan Seth Lover Bridge pup in the neck Position, and a Dimarzio X2N in the bridge position, has much more punch and much more low end,a nd i only tune it to D, but it actually sounds heavier than when i'm playing on the low B(sometimes A) on my 7... its a much beefier guitar, and i absolutely love playing it, not to mention its classy looks(cream with black pinstriping, and a bridge pup to match, as well as the neck pup being like the origional PAF with a nickel cover...) the rhoads is also the most perfectly balanced guitar i've ever played(with a strap standing up of course), and its very comfortable for me to play sitting down... on the RG7421 i had to reposition the strap button to basically where my armpit sits when i'm sitting down so that the 7 would sit at the right angle naturally while i was playing it standing... it really seems top heavy... in short i guess if my 7 had more low end(oh how i wish dimarzio made an X2N for a 7), and was balanced better, i'd probly play it more, but my RR5 has my attention for the time being...