My band did a show with an orchestra (videos)

Poparad said:
It's quite a step up, to say the least! It weights about half as much, and the tone is much more open and resonant. The neck profile is also a lot more comfortable to play (not quite so flat - more V shaped and less extreme U shaped).
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It seems to me that multi-scale on an extended range instrument should be the rule (and it seems to be moving more in that direction). Do you get much crosstalk between you and the bass? Seems like it could be great fun to take advantage of the instrument's full range with a bassist and a second guitarist.
 
Poparad said:
Yes, and amazingly she has the same vocal range, too, so I don't need to rearrange any of the music! I like working with female singers for two reasons: 1) I know a lot more of them, so it's easier for me to find ones to work with and 2) Because I write harmonically complex music, having the vocal line one octave higher affords me a lot more headroom for the accompaniment. Many of the notes in the vocal parts sound great up higher as extensions of the chords, but one octave lower they would be rubbing in 2nds with other chord tones. It's really become an essential part of how I write the music.
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That's very cool. Can't wait to hear more.
 
Dogsinotpalc said:
It seems to me that multi-scale on an extended range instrument should be the rule (and it seems to be moving more in that direction). Do you get much crosstalk between you and the bass? Seems like it could be great fun to take advantage of the instrument's full range with a bassist and a second guitarist.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the mutliscale makes the tone sound so much better on the top and bottom strings. Especially the top strings, actually. On the Agile, they were so pinched off and tinny sounding due to the long scale. The bass side has more of the Strat snappiness to it that I didn't get with the Agile, either.

I kind of view the 9-string like a piano. There's a lot of overlap in the piano with the bass, too, so I take a lot of cues from piano trios with how to effectively use the low end without interfering with the bass. Sometimes I'll double the part to reinforce it with a different timbre, and sometimes I'll play something complimentary, but carefully written so as to not hit any muddy intervals for too long. Another fun trick is to be the bass player, but then write very non-bass like lines for the bass (like the beginning of "Erasure" where he's doing a pitch shift up 2 octaves with heavy delay/reverb). You get the low end harmonically, without it feeling as full and punchy as when the bass is playing down there. Makes for a nice arrangement trick so when you finally do have the bass part be a real bass part, it adds so much fatness.
 
This is seriously some bad ass stuff. For whatever reason it reminds ded me of the movie Whiplash.
 
To arrange a concert like this, with so many musicians at the same place at the same time, seems just....impossible. Everything's top notch. Incredible.
 
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