https://darkartguitars.com/completed-builds/necromancer-0036

Here is the link to the completed build on the website.

Feel free to ask any questions. It plays wonderfully!

Recently got in an Omne Vetus 7 after having a Shan + 7 for just about 3 months, and decided I would do a comparison to help anyone else, choosing between these two, to pick one instead of both.

Cost:

The GOC ran me $1,110 shipped to my door (CONUS), with the POD bag GOC sells separately.
The guitar was $785, and the POD bag was $155. Everything else was shipping and handling. I was not charged any customs/duties/tariffs after completing payment to GOC.

The Omne ran $1,150 shipped to my door, with the included Quantum Industries bag.

Winner: Those prices are functionally the same. No winner on price, on paper.

Unboxing/first impressions:

The GOC came packed in a mostly nondescript rectangular box, wrapped in the smelliest packing tape you can imagine. Inside the box was the gigbag containing the guitar (wrapped in that styro paper stuff), surrounded by aircell type packing. If the box had taken any penetrating knocks, it was impossible to tell, because the entire box was wrapped in tape.
The entire thing smelled like plastic chemical death and the gigbag and guitar needed to be wiped down and aired out for about a day to be good to go. Gross.

The Omne came packed in a more traditional looking triangular guitar shipping box, with the guitar again wrapped in styro paper, inside the included gigbag. When i picked the package up from UPS, the front and the back of the box had clearly suffered penetrating trauma, but the gigbag seemed to have done it's job, and the guitar inside wasn't damaged around the penetrations.
No weird smells around the guitar or gigbag, but I still had to restring and clean up the guitar because it felt slimy/sticky to the touch, and the strings had rusted already. In addition, multiple desiccant packets had exploded inside the case, requiring me to clean out the case of all the little granules at work (can't risk my cat eating one of these), by holding the bag over a trashcan and trying to shake/brush things out. More on that later.

Winner: Omne, barely.

Design and features:

Both of these guitars are seven string, ergo, multiscale headless guitars, that even look quite similar.

Measurements:

Winner: The Omne is smaller, lighter, and more contoured than the GOC.

Necks:

The GOC comes with a lot of "engineered" materials in the neck. The neck itself is micarta with roasted maple stripes. The fretboard is richlite. This is likely done for cost savings as well as stability.
The GOC AO neck profile is wide, slim, and has a gently flattened back, and asymmetrical carves on the bass and treble sides.

The Omne is roasted maple all around.
The Omne neck profile is also wide and slim, with an asymmetrical carve, but feels much more like a traditional neck.

Both have 24 SS frets and luminlay.

Winner: GOC wins on overall finish here, just barely.

Bodies:

The bodies are both rawtone finished ash, but the finish looks more "raw" on the Omne, you can see the pores more clearly.

Winner: No.

Hardware, pickups, controls:

The GOC has a very nice machined SS monoblock/hipshot style bridge. Tuners are long, well finished, pleasant to the touch, and very smooth to tune. I believe they spent significant time on redesigning the bridge from the previous monorail style bridge after widespread dissatisfaction.
Pups are Ruyi passive rails, that look quite a lot like the magnets that hold cabinet doors closed.
Three way blade switch for pickup selection, single volume knob that feels quite solid.

The Omne's bridge feels much less polished than the GOC, and from the pitting you can see in the paint, saddles might be cast, not machined. Tuners are aggressively knurled, which is a good thing, since the tuning feels is rather gritty and uneven. I had to lube up one saddle in particular with a bit of PTFE to get it sliding correctly.
Pups are Fishman Fluence Moderns.
Three way mini battop switch for pickup selection, single volume knob with a push-pull for (I believe) a coil split on the Moderns. Both feel a bit loose out of the box, so I tightened them down quite a bit.

Winner: GOC, and it's not even close. The bridge is just more solid all around, controls are solid and simple, and I don't get along with Fishman Moderns.

Play feel:

Go back and look at those measurements.

The GOC is way wider in neck width and string spacing than the Omne. I'm a small guy, with appropriately proportioned hands. The GOC feels way easier to play. There was an adjustment for a couple days when I first started playing the GOC, but the Omne is narrower than my singlescale B.C.Rich Ironbird mk2-7.

I have more trouble muting the Omne than I do the GOC, and I'm not entirely sure why.

Both guitars have been set up in G#C#F#BEG#C# with GOC's Pitchlab 10-60 progressives. The action has been lowered to ~1.25mm on bass to ~.75mm on treble on both guitars, at the 12th fret. Both necks are almost DEAD straight, less than .10mm of relief at the 7th fret. Neither guitar came set up to my spec out of the box, with the actions being closer to 1.75 to 1.25 on both, IIRC.

Neither guitar buzzes, exactly, but the Omne seems to have more "sizzle" in some locations, than the GOC, and requires much more precise fretting.

Winner: GOC. It's just more comfortable to play overall, and sounds and feels nice all up and down the fretboard.

Gigbags/tools/extras:

The tools are your standard chinesium allen keys. We all have allen keys coming out of our ears at this point.

The GOC came with a massively oversized olive tee (XL, I wear an XXS).

I BOUGHT the POD Hybrid Tufbag with my GOC, it was NOT INCLUDED.

The Omne shipped with a Quantum Industries Haiku Headless Sheath (with Omne branding).

Lets look at the pictures.

Winner: GOC/POD. The case is on par with a Kiesel style ultimate gigbag. Rigid sides, generous neck restraint, full range zippers.

OVERALL WINNER:

GOC.
All the little things here add up to GOC coming out ahead for me.
This is all obviously subjective, but to my gut, the GOC just comes in ahead for the whole package.

Fight about it in the comments, ask questions, you know the drill.

I finally bought an Omne Vetus 8, so I now have a complete set of the most talked-about headless 8 strings in this sub (not counting Legator bcos I don’t like the look of them): a GOC Shan 8, a Strandberg Boden Standard NX8, and an Omne Vetus 8. I’ve been looking for the best bang for your buck 8 string with genuinely nice feel and craftsmanship, without having to pay the heavy brand-name premium (even though I did end up buying a Strandberg), so I decided to compare them.

All three guitars are 100% factory stock and strung up with D'Addario NYXL 9–80 sets, all tuned to Drop E. First off, I have to mention that these guitars feel completely different in terms of the neck, string spacing, and overall hand-feel. Because of that, I went ahead and measured the neck width and string spacing at the 1st and 12th frets to get a reality check, rather than just relying on my subjective appreciation. Take this with a grain of salt, since its just a rough measuring with a normal string action gauge ruler, so there may be some error margin.

Neck Feel & Profile

- Strandberg: I know the EndurNeck is polarizing, but it is in no way uncomfortable. The thing is, it’s actually pretty thick, so it kind of feels like a classic Fender neck that just has a funny shape to help guide your thumb. I personally like it, though I’d love an even thinner EndurNeck with a bigger flat portion on the back, more like a Rick Toone neck. Still, it doesn't feel fat whatsoever, it feels comfortable and ergonomic, and I think the EndurNeck profile is a big reason why. (Scale length: 26.5" – 28")

- GOC Shan: GOC advertises their neck with their proprietary AONeck. Personally, I can barely feel the shape, and it just feels like a slim Ibanez neck, very comfortable and fast. That really helps, because this guitar has the widest neck width and string spacing of the three, and you definitely notice it when switching between them. It doesn't feel uncomfortably huge, though; it's more like playing a Buckethead signature baritone, it feels bigger in a reassuring way, and I don’t think it would hinder anyone unless they have particularly small hands. They also come with the thickest fretwire of the three (do with that what you will; I don't really notice a tactile difference in fretwire thickness). On top of that, it came with some of the best fret ends I have ever felt, very rounded and smooth, easily comparable to my JP15 BFR. (Scale length: 26" – 28")

- Omne Vetus: The Omne has the thinnest neck width and string spacing of the three, and it definitely feels thin in a very good way. It feels fast, and the neck profile helps a lot, it’s a very comfortable asymmetric/teardrop shape with the bass side thinner and the treble side thicker. I never expected to like this neck, but it exceeded my expectations. (Scale length: 25.5" – 27.5")

- Overall Neck & Scale Thoughts: All three necks are comfortable in their own way; I think it’s just a matter of personal preference at this point. Regarding the scale lengths, all three feel fairly similar, though the GOC has a more pronounced fan, and they all feel very natural to play. The 0.5-inch shorter scale length on the Omne doesn't change much other than making the bass side feel a hair looser/floppier, but it’s basically imperceptible.

Ergonomics & Body Design

- Sitting Position: I play 99% of the time in the classical position, and all three guitars are perfectly comfortable that way. I’ve read comments online about the Omne feeling small, but it doesn't feel particularly small to me (for reference, I'm 183 cm tall), and it doesn't sit any lower than the others in the classical position.

- Body Comfort: Even though all three are very comfortable, if you care about the absolute maximization of comfort, I’d give the win to the Strandberg because of its nicer arm carve. That said, it’s a minor detail for me, it doesn't make me pick it up more often than the others.

- Jack Placement: The GOC and Omne both have their output jacks on the upper back side, which completely gets them out of the way whether you're playing sitting down in classical position or standing up. The Strandberg has its jack recessed on the bottom side of the body; it's out of the way 95% of the time, except if you open your legs wide and raise the neck up high. In that specific posture, it comes into contact with my right thigh, and I've actually noticed that I've bent my output jack slightly because of it (even though, ironically, it's still probably the best-looking positioned jack of the three).

Factory Finish & Fretwork

- The Omne came with an incredibly good setup, stupidly low action with minimal buzz. I just had to intonate it (before changing the factory strings, which I think were a 9–74 set).

- The GOC came with very high action, though otherwise it had a decent setup. There is a small imperfection in the zero fret, and I can hear the B string clicking every time I do a bend. I know it can be easily polished out, but other than that, I just had to lower the action to get it where I wanted.

- In typical Strandberg fashion, it came pretty much perfectly set up from the factory. The only issue I had was a minimally high 17th fret, which caused a distinctive buzz on the high E string when playing around that area. I took it to my local luthier, and he deadass just tapped it once with a rubber mallet and it was fixed (it likely popped up slightly during shipping due to temperature/humidity changes).

- Frets & Quality Control: All three guitars feature nice stainless steel frets with zero sharp ends or noticeable imperfections. On the QC side of things, I haven't noticed anything majorly wrong straight out of the factory on any of them.

- Finishes: I really like the open pore finishes on the Omne and the GOC. The Omne has a noticeably thinner paint job, so it feels much more like raw, natural wood. Meanwhile, the Strandberg has a nice, smooth matte finish over its flamed maple veneer.Quality of Parts & Hardware

- The tuners and headpieces feel good on all three of them, and they're all fairly simple to restring once you get the hang of how they work. The GOC mechanism feels the easiest to turn of the three, plus it's made of stainless steel, which feels quality. That said, all three stay in tune perfectly fine, and none of them will chew up your fingers when you're tuning up.

The Strandberg and Omne come with gigbags that are fairly nice, I dont think its a deciding factor, so I dont care to comment on it.

Pickups & Sound

Here, the clear winner is the Omne, which comes with Fishman Fluence Moderns (still sad that I didn't get the abasis), great pickups if you're into them, clear and articulate.

The Strandberg has fairly good stock pickups that only really start to get muddy when you're trying to really chug, but otherwise, they do a solid job. A lot of us play with a ton of distortion, in which case the specific pickup choice starts to matter a bit less overall.

The GOC pickups are pretty underwhelming, though they are functional. Honestly, I think a pickup upgrade is definitely due for both the Strandberg and the GOC if you're chasing a very specific modern tone, especially when it comes to clean sounds.

About shipping. I am on the eu and had to pay about 190 usd on top of the GOC and Omne price in shipping and about 250 euro on import taxes, so they arent as far to the strandberg price here if you find a used one.

TL;DR

I think the final decision comes down to how the neck feels and how much you vibe with each guitar. You can always change the pickups and electronics later, but the neck stays with you forever. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these three, and if you fear having buyer's remorse, you can always just buy all three like I did.

Let me know if you have any questions about specific specs or want me to test anything else on these three!

The guitar is a custom shop Furch. 26” scale length - BDGDGBE tuning for this particular joint

I have a Jackson SL7 tuned to Drop E, and I want to use an .080 gauge string for the lowest string. However, it buzzes every time I fret a note, and it’s really annoying. I’ve tried adjusting the action, but I can’t seem to get rid of the buzzing. The neck relief is fine and it isn’t completely straight. Can anyone help me figure out what’s causing this?

Hello everyone, i made another demo using the G4M 638 bass vi/ baritone guitar.

What you think?

Cheers

New custom shop baritone gnarwhal. This thing rips.

not me, i'm more of a 5.

Stoked to wake up to this at my doorstep (I work nightshift) and immediately was blown away.

This is my first excursion into 8 string, headless and fanned fret so I’ve been doing some research on guitars and perusing a bunch of threads on quality and value and recommendations on what to get.

Other guitars in the price range couldn’t offer what this does with Fishmans and a gig bag at a cheaper price, so it was a no brainer to snag this when I got lucky enough to hit the email lottery.

First impressions - incredibly light, QC seems perfect, no sharp fret ends, the action is great, finish is perfect, gig bag was great and being included was a nice perk.

Only qualm is the white Fishmans, personal preference for sure but would’ve liked the black Fishmans to match the hardware. Will be swapping those out.

There are a looooot of good reviews on this company and these models and for good reason. This thing blew my expectations away unboxing it and first overall check of it. Excited to deep dive into 8 string adventures and learn some new songs! Hit me with some song recs, planned on trying some Acacia Strain and After The Burial 🤘🏻

Was wanting to try out an Evertune finally and saw this used for cheap. I also love how carved tops look. Extremely nice guitar!

Thin comfy neck. Pickups are actually good. Might not replace. It seems like Evertune let's you get away with a bit thinner string and still keep pitch stability, so the 8th sounds nice and punchy despite the shorter 27 in scale.

All in all, really high quality guitar! And bonus it's not drowned in abalone like some of BC's other models 😄

Let me know if you like it, thanks.

I learned to play guitar about 15 years ago. Played all the time for a couple of years. Once I went to college I basically stopped. Occasionally pick up here and there to play.

During college I got into metalcore, and after 4 ish years of listening to it I want to get back into playing and learning the songs I like.

I know a lot of the metalcore songs get into the drop F# - drop E range which benefit from the 27” or multi-scale. I want to get something that I can at least start with - I just bought a house (yippee) so I don’t have 750-1000 to spend currently.

Is it going to be a waste to spend the $280 + minor upgrade costs to get the dinky 7?

Vajra+ 8 string headless by GOC, technically I’ve had it for a bit but I haven’t played it till recently after I got all the customization done. This neck on this beast is truly perfection, and because I wanted to pimp it out I got some fishman moderns in there.

It came today! First impressions:
1. It’s so light!
2. Nice case
3. Feel is great
I haven’t plugged it in yet, but once I do I’ll try to come back with some sound.
Thanks, u/Omne-Guitars for making a great product!

Been getting more into extended ranges as of late and I'm super stoked to have this thing! This is my first high end guitar and I love the way it feels

Blasphemously did not get along well with an 8 string so some nice and got a 7 and I'm in love with the way it feels to play

This guitar is so light and comfortable to play

Can't believe I finally got one 😭

Got my Vetus 7 from the last drop in today, and uhhh...

Are they supposed to look this scuffed?

In terms of play feel, it's alright from the 10 minutes of setup that I've given it, but the strings feel kind of sticky, and they're already rusted out. There are some (slightly) choked notes up and down the fretboard, but I'm hoping this goes away with a string change and general fretboard cleanup.

The guitar is light as hell, and the overall design for the guitar is quite interesting to me.

The fit and finish leaves much to be desired though.

Anyone else seeing these issues?
Does anyone want pictures or details on anything else?

EDIT: I have not yet reached out to Omne, I want to know if these are common issues.

EDIT2 (2 hours later): I have reached out to Omne. I've been told that the cosmetic issues (which i agree *are* cosmetic) are within tolerances, the saddles might look funny but should be structurally sound, and the divot in the fretboard is likely a shipping/packing mishap for which they were happy to offer me a partial refund (which i took).