YouTuber Steve Terreberry has taken delivery of what he's calling the most metal guitar ever, a 20 string monster that takes the Djent battle straight to Jared Dines, who had an 18 string beast presented to him by Ormesby Guitars at NAMM 2018.
Djent is a style of playing that's rich in palm-muted, syncopated riffs at the low end interspersed with sweeping speed solos. Swedish metal band Meshuggah is widely considered to have originated the technique, though the origin of the term itself is less clear. Players often make use of extended range guitars which are home to seven, eight or nine strings. And then came the Djent 2018.
After being let down by a New Hampshire instrument maker in 2017, Australia's Perry Ormesby built Jared Dines an 18 string guitar, which was unleashed at NAMM 2018. Now there's a new contender for the Djent monster guitar crown: the Spring BH Steve T Djent 20 guitar – or Djentar – from China's 10S Guitars.
Not a great deal is known about this 50 lb beast as of writing, but Stevie T has revealed that its rosewood topped maple neck fights against the strings with the help of three truss rods with six carbon fiber supports. The black walnut body topped with maple is home to 4Seasons custom pickups created specifically for the Djentar, and there are no volume or tone knobs to contend with, just an on/off killswitch.
You can see Stevie T putting the guitar through its paces in the video below. Jared Dines has already proposed a clash of the Djent titans, which will no doubt be posted to YouTube soon.
Update 22 March, 2019: 10S Guitars has now provided us with a few more details about this impressive build.
The Djentar's black walnut body is topped by spalted maple and given a chameleon burst finish. It has a nine piece, 25.5-35 inch multi-scale flame maple and rosewood neck topped by an eye-catching three piece wave fingerboard made of the same woods, with Luminlay dots along the top side. 10S hand-made a brass nut for the guitar, and installed a Sung il locking mechanism with Wilkinson tuners dotted around the edge of the massive head.
The 4Seasons pickups shape up as a 12 string neck pickup and an eight bridge pickup, and the strings are D'Addario EXL120-8 with Ernie Ball bass strings to the top.
Sources: Steve Terreberry, 10S Guitars
Jeez, I can't begin to say how I would have done it different (double necks), but the presentation is good (even though the cheapest axe can sound freakin' insane if the player is good), and Steve T ain't bad. His sense of cheap humor does the trick to take the seriousness out of this behemoth, and he may even have to invest in a back brace, or a stand that holds this thing right where he wants it, or have extensions put on his fingers...Or all of the above ; )