I stumbled upon luthier Jaden Rose (of the United Kingdom guitar company Jaden Rose Guitars) as I was online searching for the finest and most innovative builders out there for making my new guitar arsenal. I needed a couple of 8 string guitars for future writing of the second CD. I found a video  of an incredible artist named Fred “The Shred” Brum online playing a Jaden Rose prototype 8 string spider and I was simply in awe of its tone (and of course Fred’s playing). I feel an 8 string is certainly going to play a large role in the next wave of intense music, but the way it’s built dictates the necessary use.

Jaden has come up with a build design that gets rid of the mud and gives sheer trajectory for clarity of all notes across the board. So we started on our path of obtaining the wood I needed that’s a bit more personal to how I play, as well as some very serious inventions along the way. I suggested attaching the neck with ferule inserts and connected him with my friends at Graphtech for my nut material, my Jescar stainless frets and of course some Snakewood.

I came up with another idea for modifying the Hipshot bridge as well. I contacted my endorsers at Graphtech and Hipshot to acquire some raw Tusq type material in bulk and we are machining a special back piece that adds significant tone transmission increase. This piece will be made out of the Graphtech material. A first.

The neck wood was acquired and found by me (this took weeks). It will be a beautiful quarter sawn piece of figured /extremely curly claro walnut. The density of this piece falls right into place as to the needs I have for instant attack, quick release and mid range punch of all 8 strings. I found a piece large enough to make 2 or 3 necks for future use.

The body wood will be a close 50%/50% split of Black dirty Limba back and stupid thick Red Heart Quilted / Curly Maple. It took me a very long time to find this top, and another for a second creation we are doing as well of another kind. Quite easy to find thin normal tops like a Les Paul would use, but I wanted the body to be an almost split and that meant over a 1″ thick piece to start the carve.

You can follow the build on Jaden Rose Guitar’s site under “diary” .

 

Here is my new friend Fred “The Shred” playing a spider:

Here is the top quilted maple and the claro figured walnut neck wood
I found for the eight (various other pics as well) :