Guitar ergonomics and extended range

General Music Discussion
#1

I’ve seen a few discussions here on what guitars are most ergonomic - I’m curious to what extent extended range guitars are more or less ergonomic.

My daily rotation right now includes and Ibanez Prestige Fujigen 7 string, a Kiesel seven string multi scale and a JEM. I’ve been finding that I have the most endurance when playing demanding lead work on the JEM - so my first question is given the similarity between the JEM and Presitge, is there anything inherently less ergonomic with a thin neck seven string or about a greater neck width in general? I suspect the flat wide neck is reducing my ability to get a power grip rather than a pinch grip in the normal playing range. Adjusting my grip so my thumb is out to the side instead of behind my index/middle finger helps this some.

I think my Kiesel is more comfortable if playing a long time and my left hand tends to tense up less - but I have two factors to consider - it’s neck is thicker and being multi scale my hand posturing is different. Not sure which one contributes more, I’ve read that both could so curious to hear anyone else’s experience with that.

Now - if extended range guitars are actually just less comfortable in some inherent way - what’s the best way to offset that? I was thinking one obvious choice would be get something like a Strandberg endure neck which as I understand it allows your hand to assume a more power grip position easier due to the thick ridge rotating down the neck.

Curious about how folks here feel about any advantages with the endureneck - also wondering if anyone knows of a non-headless manufacturer that makes a similarly engineered neck - I’m just not a big fan of the look of the Strandberg - or if there’s any newer companies that are working on more ergonomic guitar neck designs I haven’t considere.

To be clear none of my guitars are uncomfortable- I’m just at the point that I want to see if I can optimize even more wrt the feel of the guitar.

#2

I dig the endurneck, really not much to get used to and feels nice. I personally have always been about thicker necks, as I found I could more comfortably rest / use my thumb (could be because I have larger hands). The endurneck has continued with the feel of a thick neck, and I haven’t felt any kind of left hand fatigue while playing on it.

I would say the best bet is to try it in person; if you can, you could order from somewhere online with a good return policy to try one out.

1 Like
#3

Yeah, I’ve defaulted to thin necks because the first really nice guitar of mine had a wizard neck. But as someone with a much larger than average hand size I think the way the wizard necks flatten out in the middle is a drawback on extended range necks.

I’ve noticed really top notch players that favor the Wizard neck profile in the extended ranges tend to have smaller hands with Steve Vai being an exception - although he really mostly sticks to using a JEM anyway.

I’m not sold on the price Strandberg commands especially for their Indonesian built models so I’ll likely end up scouting around for another used Kiesel 7 with a non-glossy neck and trem system and see if it suits me more than my Prestige.