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Olson Guitarworks 17 String

Man, this thread has had some twists and turns I didn't see coming! :wideyed:

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WOW. All of this is just amazing. I mean, of course I feel for the poor guy, but damn.
My mind kept coming back to the pickups... they just looked so... slap-dash, especially on an instrument that SHOULD have been so expensive. It looked exactly like those Tennessee's or whatever name they're going by these days. Not like a separation of strings, like with a Lambe or Warr, but just enough off the shelf six-string unmarked buckers to technically cover all the strings.
 
Otoh, if that monster is $400, maybe i can get a left handed mini-les paul for my almost 5yo at a reasonable price. For some strange reason the kid loves Les Pauls and Teles. I've tried my best to impart fatherly wisdom about strap button location.
 
As far as i know the detective work started 2 days ago when someone came across this on Aliexpress:
Aliexpress.com : Buy New brand 15string electric guitar with maple neck from Reliable electric guitar suppliers on musooparts

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This is their 'standard' 15 string version with a much more acceptable compact headstock. It's interesting (and encouraging for an ERB enthusiast) that this is not actually a joke guitar, even though 15 in all-fourths is impossible and this is likely to be tuned in minor thirds. I would like to see more respected guitar manufacturers producing reasonably affordable ERBs and full range tap instruments, just with more practical tunings and better design

So it only took 3 days for someone to recognise the true source of the 17 string, a careless scam attempt. It's also unpleasant for Olson to reveal the guitar before Jared made the video, he was going to get huge publicity anyway from the video.
 
Just saw this a few minutes ago.

Saw this, thought it was cool, though one or two of the really low strings seemed to be floppier than a pancake. Seems to be that these guys want to have as many strings as possible. In about a year's time, we'll probably see a 100 string guitar/bass. Might as well all it a harp. When will it end!!! Those truss rods must be invincible.
 
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Update from Jared Dines!
Olson guitar works is apparently a fraud. Jared's new video "I got scammed BAD..."

Before this was outed to be a scam, I saw loads of articles with the Olson guy in multiple guitar news website, as well as some other outlets. Only saw the picture, at the time I didn't know it was for Jared Dines. Such a shame he got scammed. But now Jared has outed him, he probably won't see any business any more, since most guitar players who like this sort of stuff, have probably see this, and if not, will probably see it on forums like this referring to the video.

Olson should have seen it coming, if you scam a YouTuber with a high amount of subscribers, who are more likely to become potential customers, then scamming him would just make him known to be a scammer by everyone, hence what's happened now. :rollno:

Hopefully Jared Dines can get his money back, but also, I hope he gets the guitar he wants from a legitimate guitar builder.
 
Just saw this a few minutes ago.


To me, this shows EXACTLY why you DON'T need those strings:

- the vast majority of the playing was on the middle strings alone,
- when he went up high, it sounded like :poop:, and had nothing to do with the line (or sound musical), other than to show he COULD go up that high,
- the low notes sounded even worse, and were even less musical.
 
To me, this shows EXACTLY why you DON'T need those strings:

- the vast majority of the playing was on the middle strings alone,
- when he went up high, it sounded like :poop:, and had nothing to do with the line (or sound musical), other than to show he COULD go up that high,
- the low notes sounded even worse, and were even less musical.
Criticising an ERB because in a single piece of music all the strings are not used is ridiculous, an ERB player uses all the strings, just not in every piece of music. Think of a piano, very many pieces of music do not use the higher or lower notes. In fact 4 string bassists will often only use 2 strings in a piece of music, but they don't get criticised for it (in fact they boast about it and it's 'cool').

You are criticising his playing, that has no relation to the usability of ERBs.

That mess is the worst possible example of an ERB and has no relation to a well designed practical ERB like Triad's 13 string and many others.
The lowest 3 strings are a ridiculous disaster, as is obvious. They are barely able to vibrate. They are all roughly the same gauge so are increasingly under-tensioned. A 15 string in fourths is almost impossible to string up due to how excessivley low the lowest strings are.

Assuming that is tuned F A# D# G# C# F# BEADGCF Bb Eb the lowest 3 are below 13Hz so the 2nd harmonic (the important one) will be dipping below 20Hz, making them somewhat musically useless.
The current reasonably practical limit is a 13 string in fourths with extreme fanned frets.