Tony MacAlpine: talks 7and 8 string guitars with guitar muse

How did the new 8 string affect the compositional process of the CD?

There’s a sonic fullness…the instrument is so full itself that I’m able to double harmonies and double concepts of sound with other instruments like lower keys and especially with the bass. Being able to strengthen the bottom end in a way that isn’t a bass – but a guitar sound was very important to the outcome of this record. It’s a very guitar sounding record and that’s what I truly wanted. I really wanted to have that effect and being able to duplicate that with an 8 string was important.

You’re using 7 and 8 string Ibanez guitars on the recording. Are these the RG models?

These guitars are my Ibanez Prestige models they were custom made in the Southern California shop.

It looks like the models you have use a Floyd style bridge and EMG’s but I’ve read that DiMarzio was winding some pickups for you.

What happened was the pickups weren’t finished … they didn’t have a die cast for the 8 string poles so they didn’t really have anything available. So when the guitar was made, the EMGs were put in and that’s what I recorded the CD with. They’re active pickups and they sound very nice.

Can you talk a little about the specific unique elements to the 7 and 8 string guitars and will these be available as a signature model?

I have cut gains on the volume so that I can really achieve cleaner sounds with an overdriven amp. Those are push-pull pots. It’s something I worked on with Carvin but took it a little further with Ibanez. It’s something that’s very important for me because I do a lot of things that would normally sound very distorted but it’s actually a cleaner sound and that’s from the push-pull gains. more