In all seriousness that Schecter is such a comfortable instrument to play that I'm probably being a bit too optimistic about which material it should be used on! I've definitely tried it on a few pieces where it is just the completely wrong sound for the music. Surprisingly, one that made the cut recently is a large-scale (~30 minute) piece by composer Tim Mukherjee that's scored for four 'cellos, 2 guitars, bass, and percussion. In my overly-hopeful desire to play this bass more I brought it to an early rehearsal thinking Tim would hear it and say "What the hell is that thing!?!?! Play normal bass!" but he really likes it...perhaps even more than I do! For now I'm playing the whole piece on this 8-string.
It definitely lends itself to pieces where the bass lines are as important as their low note foundation-providing content. I.e., I use it where the part's horizontal component is critical to hear. It also lends itself nicely to music where the bass part combines with other instruments to create ensemble "chords" (vertical simultaneities) because the octave strings tend to produce close-position voicings with the other instruments. The Mukherjee piece even includes one brief passage where I need to play a note that's not on any normal electric bass (too high), and while I suspect his intention was that the bassist achieve that via artificial harmonics, I've been playing it by just striking the 8va string (rather than the double course). Clever monkey!
Ironically, the one place where I almost never play 8-string bass is in a classic power rock trio, which is where most bassists seem to imagine it would be well-suited!
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