Press Release 11-22-05

Augusta, GA - Today, a lonely six-stringed electric guitar, in standard tuning -- and without his usual cluster of overwhelming effects pedals -- stood on a soapbox in the middle of the public green. His determination and vigor was apparent in the words he had to share with members of the press that had lined up to hear from this prestigious figured of modern americana:

"Now, more than ever, it seems my kind are not wanted," spoke the Gibson SG to the crowd of fifty, "Even as I speak before you members of the press, there are Universes and 5-string basses congregating against us. No one cares, no one remembers. I think back to better days when musicians didn't need to hide behind a veil of drop-tunings and layered delays, reverbs, and flanges. My only hope is we can survive and maybe make a better life for ourselves in the hands of true musicians."

When asked why he decided to speak today on this issue, and not at the beginning of the Ross Robinson fueled Nu-Metal era in the late 90's, the SG said "Well, we thought it would die off. Now that 'metalcore' bands are using the 7-string, and even death metal bands...and sometimes even indie-rock bands....what have we got left?"

Gibson Guitar Co. could not be reached for further comment on the issue.

UPDATE:

In the wake of recent events a LINE6 guitar amplifier has come forth to add fuel to the fire:

"Life's a bitch, then you die. All I hear is the old and outdated CRY CRY CRY."

"People recognize my ease of use. What held musicians back was creativity and effort, but now my kind will abolish that and make way for the future. Why spend the time arranging notes and phrasings to make a good song? Why not just plug in one of my pre-sets and drop that low-E to a D so you can use one finger? Who cares if the same thing can be achieved through skill? This is the 21st century ol'-timer"

Again, Gibson Guitar Co -- and also the Standard-Tuned Gibson SG -- could not be reached for a rebuttal.

ha

lame.

soloman said:


I bet you have an effects line or a 7-string

indeed i have a 7 string

if miss jackson(RR1) was there she would have kicked them all in the nuts and said you are all gay guitars and set mr gibson on fire

dyingmuse said:


Quote the SG:

sorry ms. jackson, I am for real

lol

i am sorry but miss jackson just called and she is the goddess of guitars, so what she says goes!

lol

\m/

You know what songs need these days?

More mosh parts. Right?

mosh parts? never heard of it.

shit we actually have a mosh part now lol

people love it, maybe you are right, but, the thing is i love 3 hour synth interludes! it is said that i could drive to florida and back between synth breaks in our songs lol


now what does mr. roland keyboard have to say regarding these issues lol?

bands need more keytar.

soloman said:


dude they are so sick

picture like really fast guitars and then BAM half-time drums!!!!

It's wicked sweet for dancing and like spin kicks and shit.

ha ha ha! spin kicks are the best!

the_taste_of_cigarettes said:



interesting.

Statement from my Line 6:

"My owner is nice enough to down tune his entire guitar to C# and stick with standard tuning. No drop D played through me, no sir. And I almost never feel nauseous due to overuse of breakdowns and gay mosh parts. Thank you. Oh, and Gibsons are useless."

largefreakatzero said:


I think unless you use like 6 or more effects per song, you void the Line6 warranty

Josh from shred the past uses a Gibson SG and we tune to E standard. That being said, I wouldn't call Tony Iommi any less of a guitar player for tuning down. Especially for only having two good fingers. People have been using alternate tunings since the advent of guitar playing itself. In fact, standard tuning was derived because it was deemed the easiest way to find chords, etc.
But i know what you're saying...no one knows how to play, and even fewer have good taste...i mean, look at me.

diamond_dave said:


pff you can't go back in time and say those people should live by today's standards.

For instance Led Zeppelin didn't use a lot of distortion but that doesn't mean that people today can't or shouldn't. Times change.

Tony did cool stuff with Drop D, but now adays it's a cop out.

Uh, Black Sabbath never used drop d tuning.

(or is my sarcasm detector broken today?)

the_taste_of_cigarettes said:

i didnt say that at all. it seemed like you were saying that what people are doing now with tunings and whatnot has never been done. and that it's always bad.



and uh, yeah, Sabbath never used drop tunings. They did go as low as C# though.

i don't think drop D is necessarily a cop-out just because people are doing it now. i don't prefer it, but there always have been and always will be people who use it to do creative things.
bottom line: some people in every era are/were good and are creative, and some people suck/ed and don't/didn't care.
the difference is, you don't hear as many people from the past that were lame, because they didn't stand the test of time.

Wait I thought Tony was the pioneer of Drop D?

or is that just an urban legend?

he was just the pioneer of downtuning....not dropped tuning

actually, classical guitarists have been dropping down since classical music was popular and shit

diamond_dave said:

creative things like one handed breakdown mosh parts?

who cares about tuning, but still, only Les Pauls and SG's are real.

the_taste_of_cigarettes said:

Shit, voided.

largefreakatzero said:


hey speaking of um, Life At Zero (actually I don't think we were but whatever)....

what's up with you guys lately?? I want to see you live. Are you gigging? You're workin on that disc, right? Who's releasing it again?

Me forget.

the_taste_of_cigarettes said:

Yeah we are finishing up this 8 song shit-show if Mike will ever complete the vocals. Release on Nice to Eat You Records out of Czech Republic.

No shows scheduled right now -- on hiatus, just practicing and recording. Hopefully we'll set something up soon...

Ironically, standard tuning isn't standard. It was just the commonly agreed upon tuning set used among musicians who were playing in ensembles that contained instruments that were not fine-tuneable, like pianos, brass, etc...

Ironically, also, is the fact that the 7 string guitar pre-dates rock and roll itself by a few hundred years.

Yet more ironic still, I STILL play in standard tuning to this day, and rarely use effects past distortion.

two more things:

1) I did actually get your point, and I somewhat agree with it.
2) A seven string is still usually a standard tuning. If you look at it, a guitar really is a 5 stringed instrument with the first string repeated an octave higher. Standard tuning would imply e,a,d,g,b tuned in fourths. By adding the sixth string it grants more range, and more available inversions and voicings. If you add strings, the pattern of fourths would continue. b,e,a,d,g , repeat.

the_taste_of_cigarettes said:

have you listened to that newer iron maiden cd? two guitars in standard one in drop d. are you really gonna try to tell me Smith isn't as good as Gers and Murry?

Move The Rabbit is pretty brutal.... We tune Standard..... check us out
www.myspace.com/movetherabbit

BTW we have a different drummer so everything you hear is different now.. So please no comments on drumming

Whoa whoa whoa. What metalcore bands other than Unearth use 7-strings? Basically all of the bands I can think of off the top of my head that actually use 7-strings as opposed to tuning down are real metal (Nevermore, Jag
Panzer, Dragonforce [At least I'm pretty confident they use 'em on the new album], Helloween [Recently], Morbid Angel)

Although I've recently put my main 7-string in standard from Eb. (Although I'm leaving my Wolfgang in C# for when I feel Sabbathy. And the Ibanez stays in Eb no matter what.)

ArrowHead nli said:


whoa who invited the nerd?

someone oughta stab his face!

the_taste_of_cigarettes said:

hah, no definitely not that.
c'mon nick, you know you're just jealous because you hurt your hand...if you could play all your songs with one hand you wouldn't have had to take a break!

diamond_dave said:


WAAAAH

probably ;)

Dave you know me all too well!

the_taste_of_cigarettes said:

some of the coolest riffs in my band are in drop D (well drop Db to be fair since we tune to Eb) and they're not slow breakdown parts at all. Drop D definitely helps to be creative because by tuning that one string differently, the scale shapes you're used to playing give you different tonalities you might not have thought of before.

If you're only gonna write your riffs on one open string, it's gonna sound boring no matter what that string is tuned to.

(p.s. I'm not saying you're guilty of this Nick, just saying in general)

that's what i was getting at, but you said it much better than i.