The Origin of the 8-String Bass

The eight-string bass guitar was invented by electrical engineer and musician, who had played with Al Kooper's early band, The Aristo-Cats, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was inspired by the 12-String Guitar, which led to the creation of the prototype being built from a modified 4-sting bass.

The bass was strung with paired, octaved strings, similar to those of a regular 12-string guitar.
Standard tuning for this 8 string bass was as follows from the top string down:
high e, low E,
high a, low A
high d, low D
high g, low G

In 1967, Eric and business partner Steve Wittels brought it to Sid Hack of Univox, the company that imported Hagström guitars. Hack liked the idea, and ordered a trial run of 500 units.

The trial was a success, thus leading to the production of 2,249 more H8s from 1967 to 1969.

Many well-known guitar manufacturers offer eight-string basses, including Dean Guitars, ESP Guitars, Hamer Guitars, Schecter Guitars, Washburn Guitars, Rickenbacker and Hagström, of course.

Eight-string basses are generally fretted; however, fretless basses do show up from time to time.

Chris Squire of Yes often tuned his Ranney 8-string bass eE-aA-aD-dG, so that notes played on the upper two courses sound as open fifths.

Warmoth Guitars also offers an eight-string "conversion" intended to make a standard bass body into an eight-strung instrument.

Usually, the 8-string bass is played with a pick to give a better attack and increase the 'ringing' of the higher-register strings, but a pick is not essential. Some players use fingers, as well as slap and pop techniques with the 8-string bass, such as Victor Wooten.

Other bassists who have utilized the eight-string bass include Abraham Laboriel, fellow Pedulla player, Mark Egan, Nick Lowe, Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam, Paulo Pinto or Paulo Jr of Sepultura, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, John Entwistle of The Who, Mike Rutherford of Genesis, Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Lemmy of Motörhead, and Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick.

If you’re thinking that I forgot to mention Doug Pinnick of King’s X, he actually played a 12-string Hamer Bass but stick around for another minute or two because I’ll mention King’s X again.

Last but not least, Jimi Hendrix also played 8-string bass on tracks from his Electric Ladyland album, namely "Crosstown Traffic" and "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)".

Going back to Lemmy for a moment - I did my research on all of the musicians referenced in this video but I couldn’t find any evidence of Lemmy playing much of anything else other than a Rickenbacker. However, it is well documented that Lemmy was a roadie for Jimi Hendrix.

While Hendrix told Lemmy he’d never be a good guitar player, we can guess that he believed in him enough to give him that H8 he used in the Electric Ladyland sessions, right?? I actually kept digging and I found Motörhead’s top of the pops performance of “Bomber”. There’s only one problem: the one Jimi Hendrix and Noel Redding used was red. The one Lemmy is holding on top of the pops is Sunburst. If anyone has any information on this subject, please leave it in the comments below.

The Background Music In This Video: "Local Elevator" by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

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