Guitar Oddities

1) A guitar built by a dutch luthier "tyrell" - saw it at the frankfurt music fair last year - 52 (or 56 - not sure anymore) frets - but only 2 octaves per string - this guitar had like 5 frets per fulltone making it possible to play all sorts of exotic and regular scales and different types of tuning temperations.

2) hmm.. AFAIK thats the PRS "Dragon" with 50.000 USD

3) Basically i´ve tried two types of fretless guitars.
Acoustic fretless guitars are very cool. some companies like Godin make those. they play very well and sound great. they use a normal wooden fretboard. And electric fretless guitars like the one Ron Thal uses - they are made by "Vigier" and are called "Surfretter" - they have a metal-fretboard because on a wooden one the thinner strings would fail to have a good sustain. they also play very well. but basically you have to get used to playing fretless since you have to have a good feeling for the right notes.

4) i guess for standard guitars that would be 8 strings with the exception of the "Phalanx" from warr-guitars with 14 strings

5) Bigsby built the first electric guitar in 1928. in 1931 he put it on the market, but noone wanted it. in 1948 leo fender built his Telecaster and that was when the electric guitar made its breakthrough.

wasn't Eric Claptons strat sold for over 200,000$

Ive seen an acoustic guitar for sale for 50,000$ (US Dollars) and an eletric for 80,000$ (US Dollars) at guitar center in atlanta..

1. No idea...

2. I think it was one of Jimi Hendrix's old strats.... It was in the Guiness Book of World records...

3. I've never tried fretless, but would love to...

4. Ummm I don't really no about the guitars with many strings, but I have seen a 12 string bass...

5. Already said....

4. i have seen 12 string basses, but they where similar to 12 string guitars, however they have four lots of three strings instead of six lots of two.but i have seen a nine string bass.

^Found pic to go with my above post.

Whats the advantage of a fretless guitar?

Also, what are the the disadvantages of a fretless guitar?

I know that Jimi Hendrix's strat that was given to Frank Zappa was on the auction block with a price tag of a cool million...
I think 80k is the highest price that I know of for a production guitar though, not an artist's

well - what is the advantage of a frettet guitar?

they sound different. you can play different things. you can create endless smooth slides, etc.

I've seen an 18 string bass before !

Let me guess, it was by Warrior.

Another question: When I saw Vai at G3, his backup guitarist (can't remember if it was Tony MacAlpine, but that's not the point) was playing some sort of electric guitar-sitar hybrid instrument on 'For The Love of God'. It is shaped just like a guitar, but it's definitely a sitar. Anyone know anything about this (if it's custom, where it can be bought, price range, etc)?

Something like this, but not this (although this is pretty interesting too...anyone know anything about it?):

Or how about this? Same luthier as the sitar/guitar. It's a 14-string electric guitar. WOWOWOW.

this is the 14 string phalanx series of Warr

Originally posted by finger_cruncher
Something like this, but not this (although this is pretty interesting too...anyone know anything about it?):

i know that one - has been in a guitarmagazine over here. those additional strings crossing the regular ones and the strings of the fretboards are but drones to add more richess and a spectacular sound to the guitar - they are nor seperately plucked.

These things aren't doing my guitar ego any good.I'm already stumped enough by an instrument with six strings.How about if it had all those I'm seeing?God!

Barre chords would start getting really interesting, I'm sure.

Those fretboards are massively wide. It must be tough to play them. I guess you might have to use the right hand to play the low notes perhaps?
Personally i'd love to have a semiacoustic with a built in harp that could be played with the right hand and a nice low action so notes could be played single handedly with the left.
All these extra strings are a fine idea but if you want more range its probably cheaper to get an octaver or whammy pedal.