Aberrations and abnormalities

[Piing]

That's how I see the deviations from the classic shapes. What about you? Love them?

 

[Achilles]

 

[laxu]

The classics got a lot of the aesthetics right. Or maybe we are just so used to seeing them that they seem right.

To me the Strandbergs, Kiesel Vader, that Abasi all look cool.

This Klein though? Ugh. It's probably extremely practical and comfortable but it's so, so ugly.

Similarly most of the Kiesel headless models just don't look good.

 

[HotRats]

That's how I see the deviations from the classic shapes. What about you? Love them?View attachment 11449
View attachment 11448

 

[mbenigni]

I think headless designs can look really cool, but I am slowly coming to realize that they have some functional… deviations is a good word; it’s a matter of preference and familiarity whether you’d call them deficiencies. This mainly comes down to string tension and stability at the nut. I love the Kiesel Holdsworth I’ve been playing - comfortable, snappy and articulate - but string bends and whammy stuff feel oddly stiff, range is compromised, and I can hear/feel the ball end creaking around in the nut while I’m fighting that tension. I think I’d prefer a design with no ball end at that end of the string (i.e.properly locked) but even then, absence of the headstock string length is going to have an effect.

Also, tuning at the bridge - at least on this particular guitar - is a bit of a PITA.

 

[laxu]

I think headless designs can look really cool, but I am slowly coming to realize that they have some functional… deviations is a good word; it’s a matter of preference and familiarity whether you’d call them deficiencies. This mainly comes down to string tension and stability at the nut. I love the Kiesel Holdsworth I’ve been playing - comfortable, snappy and articulate - but string bends and whammy stuff feel oddly stiff, range is compromised, and I can hear/feel the ball end creaking around in the nut while I’m fighting that tension. I think I’d prefer a design with no ball end at that end of the string (i.e.properly locked) but even then, absence of the headstock string length is going to have an effect.

Also, tuning at the bridge - at least on this particular guitar - is a bit of a PITA.

Tuning at the bridge is certainly a bit of a pain.

I think the other issues might be specific to the Kiesel Holdsworth as I don't notice anything like that on the Skervesen Shoggie 8-string I have or the shit quality Strandberg Boden OS 8 LE I had briefly. The ABM saddles on the Skervesen have the ball ends at the bridge end and the other end just gets clamped and cut off.

 

[mbenigni]

I think the other issues might be specific to the Kiesel Holdsworth as I don't notice anything like that on the Skervesen Shoggie 8-string I have or the shit quality Strandberg Boden OS 8 LE I had briefly. The ABM saddles on the Skervesen have the ball ends at the bridge end and the other end just gets clamped and cut off.

I suspect you're right about that. I've played several other headless guitars (going all the way back to the OG Steinberger GL back in the '80s, and it's never caught my attention the way it does on this guitar.

 

[marsonic]

I've played a couple headless guitars, and I think I've come to the conclusion that they're not for me.

I can't really put my finger on why. But, if Jim Lill and the like are to be believed, all guitars sound the same, so I might as well play what excites me. Which...isn't them.

 

[yeky83]

Headless guitars usually look either metalz or hideous.

But in my eyes, the Strandberg shape is somehow modern instead of metalz, and classy instead of hideous.
Yeah, it still looks ridiculous to guitarists cus it's headless. But forget about that for a second, and if you just consider the design aesthetics, the outline is very balanced.

In comparison...
Larada - looks like two halves of different guitar bodies with entirely different vibes indiscriminately smashed into one.
Vadar - has pointy little arms (metalz) and round butt bottoms (not metalz at all), again a mismatch.
Klein - looks like some aquatic shape--a rudder and a shark fin that combines into a deformed starfish of a body.
Holdsworth - little fat ukulele of a body, might as well be a Steinberger.
Skervesen - METALZ! Anorexic skinny carve lines, spooky skeletal Halloween-y.
GOC - they went for modern + metalz, but just got funny unbalanced body shapes.

 

[TSJMajesty]

I'd love to try a Kaizen.

 

[laxu]

Headless guitars usually look either metalz or hideous.

But in my eyes, the Strandberg shape is somehow modern instead of metalz, and classy instead of hideous.
Yeah, it still looks ridiculous to guitarists cus it's headless. But forget about that for a second, and if you just consider the design aesthetics, the outline is very balanced.

In comparison...
Larada - looks like two halves of different guitar bodies with entirely different vibes indiscriminately smashed into one.
Vadar - has pointy little arms (metalz) and round butt bottoms (not metalz at all), again a mismatch.
Klein - looks like some aquatic shape--a rudder and a shark fin that combines into a deformed starfish of a body.
Holdsworth - little fat ukulele of a body, might as well be a Steinberger.
Skervesen - METALZ! Anorexic skinny carve lines, spooky skeletal Halloween-y.
GOC - they went for modern + metalz, but just got funny unbalanced body shapes.

The Strandberg shape is nice but that's about where it ends. The original bolt on heel sucks big time, the bridge design is awful with imprecise and cumbersome action adjustment.

The Skervesen Shoggie shape is very close to Strandberg, a bit more angular and sleeker especially if the top has binding contours so it looks slimmer.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

there’s something that just screams “uncool” to me about headless guitars and the more out there shapes. I think the classic shapes have sort of become entwined with a period when music was rebellious and cool, and the association with those modern shapes (to me) is “playing guitar on my own through a focusrite interface, reaper and programmed drums”.

They’re sort of one those things that might be practical, comfortable, modern, sensible but they’re like, ANTI cool to me.

 

[marsonic]

comfortable

You know...I think that's a hive mind thing too, at least to a degree. No one ever told me that Les Pauls were hard to play sitting until after I'd bought one...and I never felt it. I still don't.

SGs having neck dive (because they were designed with a vibrola in mind) or Vs not sitting in your lap except in classical position...those are definitely things that happen. It's not all BS. But, I think some of it is.

The strandberg twisted-feeling neck is one of the most unergonomic, uncomfortable things I've felt on a guitar.

If I saw one, I'd play a headless V. I wouldn't buy it, but I'd play it and take a picture because it would probably look really funny.

 

[yeky83]

The Strandberg shape is nice but that's about where it ends. The original bolt on heel sucks big time, the bridge design is awful with imprecise and cumbersome action adjustment.

Heel is good now on the NX lineup, but the saddle design is not great, I agree.

The Skervesen Shoggie shape is very close to Strandberg.

 

[Jarick]

I think those Strandbergs look really neat and I want to try one. Some of the headless guitars that have regular scale look weird now to me.