Guitarists! Is it possible to get an 8-string sound with 6-string guitars?

NekujaK said:

Are there processing techniques or plugins that can get me close to that 7/8-string sound?

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Some of the newer Neural DSP plugins have the transpose feature. Up to -12/+12 semitones.

Speaking personally about my own gear, dropping the tuning down by a whole step is not too big of a deal and can give a reliable sound without too much fuss. Pushing closer to low C gets a little "fwappy" from my experience, and that loses a bit of that metal edge to my ear.
Swapping to heavier gauge strings tuned down can get complicated in that the thicker strings either may not fit the nut/saddle slots the same, but also may carve away parts of the nut/bridge (depending on what they are made of). Especially if (as you mentioned) this is for one recording, this may be more of pain than it's worth. If you want to dedicate one instrument for low tuning, this could be a viable option.
To split the difference, there might be some room detuning the guitar by a whole step, and then pitch-shifting it down.

With heavier gauge strings you can get the low E all the way down to A. I think below that is pushing it unless you use the beforementioned Neural DSP amp sims to transpose.

If you don't have a baritone, Digitech Whammy, or want to re-string your guitar.

Check to see which guitar will have the longest scale length of the three you have. If they're longer than 25.5, it should be good enough. Shorter than that, just depends on how far you want to tune low.

Use a pitch shift effect in your DAW.

Neural DSP plugs have transpose. Gojira has the whammy/tune down effect.

Might want to consider doubling with your 8 string VI.

How low do you want to go? F standard and below is going to get floppy on a standard scale guitar. You can try thicker strings, but you’ll probably have to adjust the bridge saddles and truss rod to get there right action and intonation.

I've used a digitech whammy pedal to get lower sounds because I prefer half step normally and use a floyd rose so I hate tuning down. Eventually I want to get one of the Digitech rack units that has the whammy built into it. The problem with the pedal is especially live you can accidentally step on it and completely wreck your tuning so a rack unit is better in that regard. I also had to put the tuner after the whammy pedal.

I also use Reatune for MODO bass so that's an option. I'm not sure how well it works for guitar.

Even tuning low E down to C can give you this juicy chugga feel already, especially with HBs, even 10-52 strings can be used for that, might be little loose on feel but still perfectly playable IMO. I'd use one of your PRS with HBs for that mmmmm, I kinda got sucked in orchestral samples stuff, but now my hands itch for some metal chugga-chugga haha I used to have PRS Tremonti and it was PERFECT for that, its bridge stock HB was amazing for riffing as well as old PRS Singlecuts (before SC495 was introduced).

Lots of great input here, and things for me to try.
Many thanks!

NekujaK said:

If I wanted to get that deep 7 or 8-string metal chugga-chugga sound, is there a way to get there with these guitars? I'm not talking about amp/cab settings, just the raw tone coming out of the guitar.

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That's really not very specific. A 7-String on standard tuning would have the lowest note on B, but a modern baritone 8-string with pitch shifter could be around a full octave lower, give or take a couple semitones. Drop-E is pretty popular as a base tuning and then pitch shifted down as needed (try the pitch shifter in Guitar Pro if you own it already). Some also automate their pitch shifters to change the tuning multiple times throughout a song.

What you theoretically could try is record the riffs faster and then slow down the recording to the pitch that you want. If I understood correctly Buster Odeholm has started to do pitch shifting that way, but he's making edits around every note to keep the tempo the same as he played?! He used to use the whammy pedal for this, but I guess slowing down the recording would technically be cleaner and create less artifacts. But it would still sound different than actually tuning the guitar lower...

MartinH. said:

That's really not very specific. A 7-String on standard tuning would have the lowest note on B, but a modern baritone 8-string with pitch shifter could be around a full octave lower, give or take a couple semitones. Drop-E is pretty popular as a base tuning and then pitch shifted down as needed (try the pitch shifter in Guitar Pro if you own it already). Some also automate their pitch shifters to change the tuning multiple times throughout a song.

What you theoretically could try is record the riffs faster and then slow down the recording to the pitch that you want. If I understood correctly Buster Odeholm has started to do pitch shifting that way, but he's making edits around every note to keep the tempo the same as he played?! He used to use the whammy pedal for this, but I guess slowing down the recording would technically be cleaner and create less artifacts. But it would still sound different than actually tuning the guitar lower...

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The last time I played "heavy metal" on stage or in a recording studio, Van Halen hadn't even released their first album yet

So much has changed about metal guitar since then, I'm just trying to catch up a little bit. All this talk of pitch shifting, whammy pedals, and speed shifting is a whole new world of guitar to me. I think I need to watch some YouTube tutorials...

NekujaK said:

I think I need to watch some YouTube tutorials...

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Here are two to get you started, but to be honest this is the extreme end of the downtuned spectrum. You might be better off with something for regular Drop-A to Drop-C tunings if you don't want to make Thall/Deathcore/Djent. And don't forget to dial in a fitting bass tone too, that's very important to get the guitars to sound right.

If I was limited to a standard scale length 6 string guitar without changing string gauge, I'd probably tune to drop C (or C# or D if you can't deal with the floppy strings) and focus on bass tone and mixing to make it sound heavy, or use a pitch shifter to get down to drop A.

Your Strat and Tele most likely don’t have humbuckers so the only guitar you own that’ll be able to do that sound properly is your PRS, but the PRS is also at a disadvantage cause it has a shorter scale length than the other two guitars. If you don’t feel like changing your strings to accommodate a lower tuning then you’ll either have to buy a Digitech Whammy to do it or use a Neural DSP plugin to do it, currently only a few of their plugins have the feature but all plugins are currently being updated to have it. For low tunings the best plugins are the Fortin Nameless, Omega Granophyre, and the Gojira. You’ll also need an overdrive in front of the amp to get that sound but all the plugins have one built in so that’s not a concern

NekujaK said:

The last time I played "heavy metal" on stage or in a recording studio, Van Halen hadn't even released their first album yet

So much has changed about metal guitar since then, I'm just trying to catch up a little bit. All this talk of pitch shifting, whammy pedals, and speed shifting is a whole new world of guitar to me. I think I need to watch some YouTube tutorials...

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I mean that’s a bit much. The hallmarks of modern metal are down tuned guitars, multi-stage distortion with a gate to get a super tight sound (boost/OD pedals running extremely hot into a lightly driven high gain amp).

If you’re doing djent, deathcore, doom (both doom metal or Mick Gordon DOOM metal) or some metalcore styles, you might go insane on the down tuning and pitch shifting, but that’s still more the exception rather than the rule.

What Panda said. A kind reminder of what is metal, lest we forget!

As others have mentioned, a combination of heavy gauge strings, down tuning, and some maybe sort of octave/pitch shifter pedal can sort of get you there on the hardware side of things. But it's not going to be terribly convincing unless you do some additional clever disguising in the mix.

But honestly, the best results I've heard has been with Neural DSP's transpose feature on some of their amp sims (Rabea, Plini X, Petrucci, Gojira X, and possibly some of the others). Nolly doesn't have it, but I think they are slowly updating most if not all of their amp sim offerings with this and some other features they've developed for their newer products.

Neural isn't the only one to offer this. Mixwave's Spiritbox has this feature as well, and to be fair, I think they've implemented it as well as Neural. One of these amp sims would be the route I'd go if I wanted to achieve a convincing eight string sound with a six string guitar.

As to which of these I'd recommend purchasing? I think it comes down to which of the other features appeal to you and/or align with the style that you gravitate toward. I would suggest that the Neural Gojira or the Mixwave Spiritbox are going to capture the closest thing to an eight string guitar within that super heavy doom sounding metal that I typically associate with eight string guitars. Do look at the Mixwave. Neural is a more well known company in this space, but Mixwave in my opinion is not a lesser choice just because they've not yet achieved the same marketing footprint.

All of the amp sims I've mentioned above have free trial periods as well.

KEM said:

you’ll either have to buy a Digitech Whammy to do it or use a Neural DSP plugin to do it

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Before anyone buys a Digitech Whammy for pitching down a 6 string guitar I would seriously consider just buying a cheap 8 string guitar instead. At Thomann the price difference is negligable (169 Euro for the cheapest 8 string and 149 Euro for the cheapest digitech pitch shifter - the whammy DT is 288,- even). I've once bought a digitech drop pedal and returned it, because in my humble opinion it offers no improvement over the pitch shifter in guitar rig. I never tried the NDSP ones but I expect them to be at least as good as GR.

MartinH. said:

Before anyone buys a Digitech Whammy for pitching down a 6 string guitar I would seriously consider just buying a cheap 8 string guitar instead. At Thomann the price difference is negligable (169 Euro for the cheapest 8 string and 149 Euro for the cheapest digitech pitch shifter - the whammy DT is 288,- even). I've once bought a digitech drop pedal and returned it, because in my humble opinion it offers no improvement over the pitch shifter in guitar rig. I never tried the NDSP ones but I expect them to be at least as good as GR.

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I was going to give the same advice, you can get an Ibanez RG8 used for very cheap, the stock pickups are going to be terrible, but besides that it’s a good option

is there an echo in here??? Not to jump on the bandwagon, but purchasing either a baritone guitar or a 7 or 8 string is going to give you the result you are looking for. Any other route might, but might not.

Last year I purchased a Supro baritone guitar for not a lot of money. These are really well made guitars. Dan Armstrong also makes reasonably priced guitars, although for the money I think the Supro is a little better made. Both sound great.

Having purchased the Supro I decided I "needed" an acoustic bari. I have a really nice rosewood dreadnaught designed by a guy who was known for his classical guitars. Thus the fingerboard is wider than normal, and the scale is longer. I was able to come up with a set of strings that let me tune down to C without a lot of "fwappiness". At C# there is none. And both sound pretty cool.Next up for me, when I find a reason, is an acoustic baritone guitar, or a six string bass.

Which leads, of course, to the "need" for a 12 string that can tune down to C so I can sound exactly like Leo Kottke - well, minus the talent of course.

Just a tale of caution - get that Supro!

I own the Neural Fortin Cali Suite - but it has no pitch shift (yet). And I've had my eyes on a Solar 7-string for quite some time now, but can't quite justify the purchase at the moment.

As far as old metal vs new metal goes... back in my younger days when I played in a metal band, it was pretty much just adrenalized blues-based riffing. There was no chugging or speed picking or downtuning. Tone was basically overdrive plus a Marshall amp, and you didn't necessarily even need humbuckers.

Fast forward to now, and I gotta say, not only is the harmonic structure of metal music different (thank you EVH for initiating the climb out of the blues rut), the singing is different, rhythm guitar is played completely differently, and in many cases, the instruments are different; i.e., 7 and 8-string guitars. The only thing that's pretty much the same is solo shredding. There are playing techniques that modern metal players need to have that weren't even a consideration back in my day. So yeah, it all seems very new and different to me.

My favorite modern guitar tones and playing is probably Rammstein - I love everything about their guitar sound and playing, and I can achieve that with my current gear. But I want to see if I can pull off some heavier stuff too...