Gonna be totally pragmatic and kind boring here but.....

If I had to choose one, I might go for a dark stained bamboo in baritone melody with a stickup.

Reasons:

1. Original DNA of stickup sound.
2. Lighter so I could wear it into old age with less back or shoulder problems.
3. Sacrificing the 1st string in classic tuning wouldn't a huge problem overall, sort of...

I know that having only one stick seems unrealistic to some people. But for many who don’t one one at all and can only afford one the very important question is “which one do I get”?

For me, I guess, would be a 10-string railboard. In black, gold glitter inlays, open gold and black tuners and classic tuning. Why? Because is the closest to my Polycarb, plus it has all adjustable hardware in case I want to change tunings or gauges, and I admire the railboard as a piece of design and engineering.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dude, you have two Polycarbs, that's not fair...!



I'd like to see that!

2007 10-string Paduak with black hipshots, white linear inlays and an ACTV-2.

I have a padauk stick coming, cant wait. with dots although, pasv4,. I may have to get an actv2 just to have, but for now, PASV4 is my pickup. I am glad I have the stickup on one of my Sticks, and like the tone, all pickups have their place. but I prefer pasv4 for now.

batteries, kept me away from actv2. I will have to try it, now,. it is time.
Railboard has phantom which is great, if the actv 2 was phantom powered that would be great. RoknRol.

Putting the r block railboard pickup on a wood stick, that would be an idea. Hmmm

I own 2 Sticks - Ironwood #1212 ('85) and 12 string Grand bamboo #5657 ('09). The Grand was ordered with the PASV-4 pickup. I love it. But I still LOVE the original Stickup sound on the Ironwood. Now at some point I heard Kevin Keith and I fell in love with the ACTV-2 sound. So I got one of those (interchangable with 2 new screwholes) At some point I will purchase a Stickup for the Grand. No, it doesn't fit precisely but I can get over the spaces around the p.u. - people are looking at my hands, not my p.u. My point is if you get a Stick with one of the Blocks you can put any pickup in...so that's my answer. But I would NEVER get rid of the Ironwood because it's ORIGINAL. (Emmett did install a trussrod-a must-have). And 12 strings over 10 because if I ever wanted 10 strings it could be done - flaps&bridge replacement, making it a 10-Grand (the Stickup wouldn't fit that configuration). But I wouldn't because I like 6 strings in 5ths bass. For anyone who cares a flying whoop.

I have owned four tapping instruments, over time... a 12 String Grand with PASV-4, a 10 String Grand with ACTV-2, a 12 String Grand with Stickup, and a 12 String Warr TGSS with custom humbuckers and two Audere preamps.

Today I own the 12 String Grand with PASV-4 and the Warr.

12 String Grand is great because I tune with a high 4th on the bass side which gives some nice chord voicing, and on the melody side you simply get an extended range without changing hand positions, which comes in handy when arranging a song. The PASV4 is very flexible in the tones you can get and to my ears gets close enough to the tonal areas of the Stickup and ACTV2 that it's "kind of" coving all of the bases.

The Warr (tuned the same as the 12 String Grand) is just a beautiful joy to play and hear, but that's another topic. I will say that owning it and the 12 String Grand is kind of like owning both a truly great Les Paul and a truly great Strat to draw a guitar analogy.

Peace!
Karma

I'm starting to feel tempted by the idea of a Grand Stick... The overall range will not change, as classic tuning gives adds a lower string on the melody and a higher one on the bass. The range of each side does change and more chord and scale possibilities open up. Hopefully one will pop up and I will give it a try. Like someone already said, everything you can do on a SB8 you can do on a 10-string and also on a Grand, but not the other way around.

Walt, well - not necessarily... because an 8 string instrument can be tuned much more differently than a 10 or 12... which can really open up different styles of playing - but with the case of more people seemly interested in tunings in 4ths rather than 5ths, then I suppose that the 12 would make sense.

I wanted an older 12 in the worst way, but then 1 year after Grace tried to steer me in the direction of the SB-8 [...she told me it's FUN !!] all of a sudden it made complete sense to me.

I'm standing by my NS Stick as the one instrument I cannot live without, because it does everything, and then some....