17-string (!) bass - ZZ Top

[SFIV1967]

ZZ Top bassist Elwood Francis playing a massive 17-string bass!

"Francis explained the oversized instrument was a late night impulse purchase...“I was doing night internet searching [and] turned up a picture of this crazy 17-string bass,” Francis told UCR. “I sent a picture to Billy and we laughed about it and made some jokes about actually trying to use it.” In “one of those ‘hold my beer’ moments,” Gibbons showed up with the bass “a few weeks later” after Francis “had forgotten about it.” And the rest was history."





Ralf

 

[SFIV1967]

The original idea is from Jared Dines.

Behold, the Mountain Dew Meme Guitar, a fully-functional 20-string djent machine themed on the popular energy drink, Mountain Dew.

The guitar – built by Chinese company 10S Custom Guitars – requires the player to use a lap steel playing style due to its monstrous neck radius, as Dines demonstrates in the reveal video below.



Ralf

 

[GGJaguar]

They should nickname it the "Back Breaker".

 

[Bernie]

Pfouit, that's not much...Last month at the luthiers' exposure I attended, there was a luthier girl that presented an instrument holding 117 (or I don't remember exactly, but between 110 and 120 strings for sure)....She played it and I attended part of the little concert that was given with two partners, one who played an other instrument she had invented, and a clarinet player. Pretty music...

 

[walrus]

But Elwood seems to only use the top 4 strings! LOL!

walrus

 

[mushroom]

ZZ Top bassist Elwood Francis playing a massive 17-string bass!

"Francis explained the oversized instrument was a late night impulse purchase...“I was doing night internet searching [and] turned up a picture of this crazy 17-string bass,” Francis told UCR. “I sent a picture to Billy and we laughed about it and made some jokes about actually trying to use it.” In “one of those ‘hold my beer’ moments,” Gibbons showed up with the bass “a few weeks later” after Francis “had forgotten about it.” And the rest was history."





Ralf

That’s got way too many knobs.

 

[James Hart]

I'm good with 7... I like standard Fender string spacing at the bridge.

This is my main instrument for the last 18+ years

 

[mushroom]

That’s quite the top horn there!

 

[James Hart]

That’s quite the top horn there!

balances perfectly, offsets the neck weight

 

[mushroom]

Cool

 

[chazmo]

Ralf, I love it! That's just silly.