Emerald X20-7

[tbeltrans]

Recently, I purchased an Emerald X20-7 from fellow forumite David Eastwood. Since I mentioned his name, you know the sale went well. He lives not too far from me and came over to visit and deliver the guitar in Minnesota sub-zero winter weather. He has been over once before in the past and we once again had a good time visiting and playing.

Of special mention here and the specific reason I am posting this, is that if there is an answer to the question "why carbon fiber", I think that a 7 string guitar provides an ideal example aside from the obvious regarding freedom from environmental damage concerns such as cracking wood from dry humidity conditions or excessive heat.

A 7 string wood guitar can get a bit heavy and clunky due to the extra wood to handle the extra string tension and width of the fretboard to accommodate that 7th string.

Each of the 7 string guitars I have had the opportunity to play, whether archtop or flat top, have had what I consider too narrow a string spacing to be comfortable for purely fingerstyle playing.

The Emerald, has a comfortable string spacing that is perfect for fingerstyle playing. As David said, it is proportional to Emerald's typical 1 3/4" nut and 2 1/4" spacing at the saddle, so not ultra wide, but comfortable to play. The extra spacing at the saddle makes quite a difference in overall feel. Note that Taylor and McPherson, while using a 1 3/4" nut, use a slightly narrower 2 3/16" saddle string spacing. The 1/16" difference in saddle string spacing is surprisingly noticeable.

The guitar is surprisingly light (much lighter than my 6 string McPherson Sable), and with the X20 body size and Emerald sculpting, makes for a very comfortable guitar to play.

This particular guitar does not have the wood embedded in the top as many of Emerald's guitars do these days. It is a very nice amber and you can just see the carbon weave showing through. The workmanship on this instrument is impeccable. I can't find a flaw anywhere on this instrument.

The seventh string is typically tuned to either A an octave below the 5th string A or B a whole step above that. Since I play in a chord melody style, I tune it to the A, which has been typical practice for jazz guitarists since George Van Eps, a pioneer of the 7 string for jazz guitar. As I understand it, metal guitarists typically tune the seventh string to B.

I am finding that tuned to A, the seventh string has been rather easy to adjust to. For chords whose lowest note is played on the 5th string A, I have the choice to play it on the seventh string, leaving the 5th string available for other activities and giving a more fullness to the chord.

The Emerald 7 string has fan frets, which means that the scale at the seventh string is a full 27", which at the first string, it is the more typical 25 1/2". This resolves intonation issues that often occur with other 7 string guitars as well as addressing the potential for the seventh string becoming floppy when tuned to A or lower. I never notice the fan frets when playing, even from the first time I picked up the guitar, so clearly they will not at all be confusing to the player.

When looking for strings for a 7 string acoustic, there are few choices. Mostly, you will find 7 string sets for electric guitar and some nylon sets for 7 string classical guitar. From what I have read, Russians invented the 7 string well before George Van Eps came along, so the 7 string classical does make sense.

Aside from a set made by Pyramid (https://www.juststrings.com/pyr-331-100.html), it seems a more typical approach is to simply use a standard 6 string set and then purchase the seventh string separately. This is easy enough to do, so it doesn't pose a problem and is certainly cost effective too.

A couple of tips for learning to manage a 7 string guitar:

1. I do a note finding exercise every day as a part of my warm-up. I learned this from Ted Greene's "Cord Chemistry" book. Pick a note at random by just plopping a finger down on the fretboard. Find that note all over the fretboard, starting with the lowest occurrence of that note on the lowest (seventh string in this case) string and then go along each string in turn finding that note until you reach the highest occurrence on the first string and then retrace your steps back down to the lowest occurrence where you started. Over time, you will come to see all the notes as clearly as one can on a piano keyboard.

2. For the first week or two, simply play the top 6 strings as you would any 6 string guitar. That seventh string shifts all the other strings over by one and this can be initially very disorienting. It only takes a couple of days at most to start becoming comfortable with this new layout. Once this happens, you can start incorporating the seventh string in your playing.

3. During these first weeks, set aside your 6 string an only play the 7 string so that it becomes your "new normal" long enough to become comfortable with it.

One other tip that works well for me is that I tune the entire guitar down a whole step so that the seventh string is tuned to G a whole step below A, and the first string is tuned to D, a whole step below E. This makes the guitar that much easier to play for my 70 year old fingers. With its fan fret design, this tuning poses no problem for the Emerald. When tuned down a whole step, this guitar just blooms with a nice rich sound. If need, I can capo at the 2nd fret, though since I am playing solo I don't need to match tuning with other musicians anyway.

These tips are what I have found to work for me. If you are playing solo guitar, the 7 string really helps fill out the sound and proves to be very satisfying.

If anyone around these parts is considering a 7 sting guitar, consider the Emerald X20-7 because carbon fiber makes for an ergonomically comfortable instrument in ways that wood simply can't. Emerald hit a home run in this design and implementation.

This guitar came with a really decent quality Hiscox case, though being carbon fiber, I leave it out on a stand all the time, ready to play.

Here is the Emerald link:

https://emeraldguitars.com/models/x20-7/

Tony

[David Eastwood]

I'm delighted that it's ended up in a good home

Much as I loved the way it sounded, played and looked, I never really got to grips with the 7th string. Having heard Tony play before, I can't wait to hear what he's doing with it!