Ngd: M8m

[xenophobe]

This may have ruined 6 stringers for me.

Absolutely amazing. If you haven't picked one of these up in person, you can't understand.

Sorry for the one crappy picture. I didn't feel like making any adjustments.

I actually had a double NGD. The other is an amazing non-US market REAL (not watered down) custom ESP. It's not worth posting compared to this.



And, no, I'm not a Meshuggah fan. I wouldn't know one of their songs if I heard it.


Oh, here's a little info about where it was made:

The M8M's are made at the Sugi Custom Shop. It is where all of the high end JEMs or any guitar that Ibanez sells for over $5000. There are 5 luthiers that work at this custom shop. Each guitar is built to order and one luthier is responsible for building one guitar start to finish. They only work on one order at a time. A luthier will start making one guitar and will not start another until the current one is finished. So a luthier will not start working on a new guitar until the current one is actually completed.

I wish Jackson would implement something like this. The work ethic reflects in the overall quality, playability and perfection of this instrument. If you know what a very high end instrument feels like, that's exactly what you experience with this guitar.

Yes, it looks plain and unassuming. That's one of the things that makes this so brilliant.

[Trem]

1 pic but it's a good one.

..And hey, no harm in checking out some Meshuggah to hear what it's capable of. They've been a "bandwagon" thing for awhile now for a reason.

[Hellbat]

I'm not a big Meshugga fan but Bleed is one of the heaviest songs/riffs I've ever heard.

[Trem]

This is probably my favorite from them. Can only listen to them so much, i haven't really in the last 10 years, but now and again.

[straycat]

Cookie monster stuff just won't die will it?
Never heard of that band and I see why.
Cool looking guitar Xeno might be fun to try and play one.

[Trem]

Well they been around for 20 + years, practically defined a genre of their own,
are copied by every 20 something that says "Djent",
and that's one of their signature guitars... so doubt they plan on dyin..

[xenophobe]

Oh, I've heard Meshuggah, and I don't dislike it. I do like some of it, but I've never bought an album, gone to a show or ever tried to play any of their material. Actually I do think I've been to a show, but I didn't really pay much attention, I just don't particularly like them .

As for the guitar... I'm completely against artist signature guitars, personally.

This thing is an exception. It's pricey, handmade and very limited market. It also may be quite rare and collectible in the future, maybe not. So far, it's estimated that a little over 30 have been made. Demand is low and it could be discontinued at any time. Even if it isn't, it'll always be a niche market guitar. I also got it for under $4k. And these guitars have only started shipping in the last 3 or 4 months... so it's a brand new guitar. I figure that production will end someday and demand will continue to grow as 8 string guitars become more popular.

I didn't realize that I would love it as much as I did. But my friend suggested it to me and linked me to ebay where I just put in a low offer for the heck of it. The guy didn't want to deal with packing it up (I can really relate, I hate packing over-sized cases) and I offered him more cash than his highest offer would be minus paypal+ebay. I'm local so I offered greenbacks.

I've played mostly bass in bands, but I never realized all the technical death metal playing I did would ever have use playing guitar. But when I started playing the 8, it was weird at first, but within 15 minutes I was in love.

Not even owning it for a day... All I have to say is DAMN.

This thing is badass and with so many years of playing technical fast finger bass, the low strings just came to life. I can't believe how I can shred the whole neck. Even the higher registers are more useful on this guitar than any normal scale 6 string that I own.

I've also transitioned to the extra strings as well. I'm still messing up at the high G/B string transition, but I'm figuring that out relatively easy. Much easier than I had imagined. It's fucking amazing to play low power chords and rip scales. I'm actually learning that I sub-conciously know more theory than I realized as I'm starting to compensate without even thinking about it.


This is one bad ass, high end custom guitar. It doesn't have a flashy finish, it doesn't have fancy controls... it's like a stripped down hot rod. The neck is super thin, it sounds great and the build quality is just unbelievable. It's totally a sleeper. But I like one-hum hardtails that don't have fretboard inlays.

It has a locking nut and hardtail bridge with fine tuners. Tuning stability is amazing. This thing is definitely tour-worthy. I owe my friend Zach for pushing me to get one. I definitely owe Brian for giving me a great deal.

The logo and side dot markers are sterling silver. This guitar certainly earns it.

[surfreak]

Xeno, that's one fantastic guitar, pretty much the ultimate (or the only?) Ibanez...

I'm looking at one of those as well, but can't really trust opinions and reviews from Ib-fanboys on the various forum sites. So here I'm asking you, does the longer scale make it difficult to play? Also, how heavy is it? Some said it is really lightweight, sub-7lbs...

[Devotee]

Congrats on the NGD, that is one BEAST of a guitar. More pics needed!

Even though i'm not exactly a massive Meshuggah fan either (although "Obzen" is a killer album); i would love one of these too. I think they did a great job designing a 'signature' guitar that is very accessible due to its neutrality; i.e.: it doesn't have a stupid signature on the headstock, nor does it have the Meshuggah logo inlaid at the 12th fret... I think the M8M is pretty much as badass as a guitar can get; completely stripped down to the bare bones, no neck pickup, no binding, no inlays, no poly finish. Just plain nasty.

How does the Lundgren pickup sound? Apparently it's not very hot but very articulate.

Cookie monster stuff just won't die will it?
Never heard of that band and I see why.
Cool looking guitar Xeno might be fun to try and play one.

[Anders]

That's awesome Mike!

Too many strings for me, but glad to hear that some people actually do something cool with these things!

Meshuggah is a weird love/hate story for me (and for a lot of other people as well I think). Destroy Erase Improve (released 1995 IIRC, right..?) is so good that it's ridiculous. REALLY ridiculously good. F'n insanely good. Yeah... it's that good!

However, that's pretty much the only record I care for. Sure, Chaosphere is good as well, but everything after that just went downhill IMO.

[xenophobe]

Anders, this thing is a beast. And the main problem with going low is normal scale lengths and drop tunings. More than half of my memorized material is in standard E#, drop C# so there's not a lot of stuff I can play on it. I've just been noodling around and playing my small amount of standard tuning stuff on it, but the extra bass stuff is incredible. If I never played bass the way I did, I probably wouldn't like this thing so much.

Xeno, that's one fantastic guitar, pretty much the ultimate (or the only?) Ibanez...

I'm looking at one of those as well, but can't really trust opinions and reviews from Ib-fanboys on the various forum sites. So here I'm asking you, does the longer scale make it difficult to play? Also, how heavy is it? Some said it is really lightweight, sub-7lbs...

Yeah, I've always liked some of the higher end Ibanez Prestige models, but never enough to actually buy one.

The longer scale makes it very difficult to play, from a guitar player's perspective. My custom bass is very similar though, it's a long scale and I have years of playing experience with it, even though I haven't really played it in at least 7 years.

Mine is 8.6 pounds according to my inaccurate bathroom scale. It's on the heavier side of bolt on guitars, but not by much. I've felt 6 stringers that were heavier.

Congrats on the NGD, that is one BEAST of a guitar. More pics needed!

Even though i'm not exactly a massive Meshuggah fan either (although "Obzen" is a killer album); i would love one of these too. I think they did a great job designing a 'signature' guitar that is very accessible due to its neutrality; i.e.: it doesn't have a stupid signature on the headstock, nor does it have the Meshuggah logo inlaid at the 12th fret... I think the M8M is pretty much as badass as a guitar can get; completely stripped down to the bare bones, no neck pickup, no binding, no inlays, no poly finish. Just plain nasty.

How does the Lundgren pickup sound? Apparently it's not very hot but very articulate.

Yeah, if it had any of that crap... a signature, or a stupid inlay or a stupid graphic, I wouldn't have ever purchased it. But anyone who pays attention knows I love fretboards without inlays, I don't mind matte finishes, and I like one-hums and I like hardtails too. So I don't like it for the fact that it's a sig guitar, but the build quality is out of this world. It's specs are great. And you're right, it's a sleeper. It's like that stripped down car converted for the race track. It is pure awesome. So I made an exception because it is an incredible custom piece that one luthier sat there and created. Fret ends are amazing. They're rounded, no sign of crafting/filing/etc... The whole guitar feels like it was chizeled from a slab of stone, but without the weight.

Interestingly enough, the pickup sounds great. It's very balanced across the whole frequency range. If you have a high gain setup, it just sounds great. Either in my Line 6 Spider 15 at home or through my Orange Dark Terror + MX 10 band, it's awesome.

Of course, you don't get the same 6 string articulation or crunch with a really hot pickup... but doing power chords and palm mutes it sounds so solid... because of the string length/tension and hardtail... those same power chords dropped to a low B or low G string are really fucking impressive.

I posted it on my facebook and said something really personal... I guess I'll repeat it here. I've had a lot of amazing moments with guitars, but I haven't had this type of personal moment of splendor since my mother passed away in my arms in 2006. All those years of playing technical fast-fingered death metal on bass has been the perfect lead-in to this guitar. I'm absolutely blown away with how well designed, how simple it all looks, and how much refinement and thought went into this design.

Jackson needs to secretly buy one of these and reverse engineer the technology. If they made a custom that could somehow match the quality, design and playability of this guitar, I don't care what price it was, I would buy it.

[emperor_black]

Great looking guitar man! BTW, I tried to PM you and your inbox is full.

[coloradoman25]

fuck me 7 strings is a stretch for my dumb ass, let alone 8. Cool axe bud! Keep your eyes peeled that neck should be there soon i would think.

[xenophobe]

Great looking guitar man! BTW, I tried to PM you and your inbox is full.

Thanks! Oh, sorry, I cleared out the messages!

fuck me 7 strings is a stretch for my dumb ass, let alone 8. Cool axe bud! Keep your eyes peeled that neck should be there soon i would think.

Yeah, soon I would think. I paid for it on the 12th. Just to note, I bought a guitar from Japan and paid on the 17th. It arrived yesterday. I'm still waiting for your neck. :P

[coloradoman25]

LOL Im slower than dog shit in winter or something to that effect lol I cant control thus postal service...Its a wonder they survive. I shipped a guitar the same day I shipped your neck the first fuckin time. That guitar still isnt there. And its not a sold guitar its a loaner to a friend...never good when a dimas rhoads in a fuggin anvil case goes missing...at least i can be fairly certain she is safe wherever she is lol