What is a Megatar?

Since 1999 The Megatar has been a key player in the growing trend in musical instruments known as tapping or touchstyle instruments.  With the vast range of 12 strings on 25 frets, The Megatar is like a monster bass and a sweet sounding guitar on one sleek neck.  You make it sing by touching the strings to the frets using familiar tapping, hammer-on and pull-off guitar techniques mixed up with slapping, percussive ideas and more. Create incredible harmonies, experience rich, sonorous chords, find a new melody and back yourself up on bass or even explore traditional jazz, blues, rock, reggae, classical styles.  The musical universe has a lot of uncharted territory waiting to be explored, The Megatar will take you there.


Features

The Megatar combines innovation with tried and true “best practices” of electric guitar design to produce an instrument with a feature set that is the definition of how to achieve purity of tone and easy playability.

The solid neck-through design is essential for stability, tone, and sustain. Custom neck options take the function and beauty up another notch.

The neck is not only sexy, but also stiff enough for a nice low action.  Dual adjustable truss rods and optional carbon fiber stringers keep it so.

A 14-degree tiltback headstock and zero-fret design are the formula for consistent action, sustain and resonance.

The custom solid brass bridge plate, is piezo ready and has the extra length needed for the extended intonation range of a 12-string instrument.  Through-the-body string anchoring completes the intimate string to body connection.  This bridge design also allows for the installation of state-of-the-art Midi and Piezo pickups from Graph Tech, opening up a whole universe of synth sounds in addition to the native sound of the instrument.  This tried and true bridge system is also familiar to any qualified guitar tech, for dependability in the field.

Direct mount humbuckers keep things solid up front, and the minimal, hornless body allows unrestricted access to the fretboard, keeps weight down, and contributes to better balance in the ergonomically correct vertical playing position. 

Traditionally hand-worked jumbo frets contribute to the lively feel and maximize sustain. 

The optimized body shape fine tunes the mass, while the rear route control cavities are concentrated into the body wings to preserve the integrity of the resonant core of the instrument.

The 12 strings are divided into two string sets with some space in between for no crosstalk.  In our standard tuning, known as 'bass bottom tuning' or 'straight 4ths', the bass strings are tuned in fourths just like a six-string bass (BEADGC), while the melody strings are also in fourths similar to a standard guitar but slightly lower (C#F#BEAD).  The two string sets overlap just enough to keep your hands from running into each other, and with 25 frets, there is plenty of room to work.

With this tuning, you have identical home-position notes at fret 2 (double dots) on the bass side and at fret 12 (double dots) on the melody side.  With the same notes under both hands, straight 4ths, and the strings arranged like a standard guitar or bass, understanding the geometry of the fretboard and unlocking the secrets of it's harmonic patterns is surprisingly easy.  

Other popular tunings include Chapman Stick style tuning in Inverted-Fifths, bi-melody, dropped, and mirrored tunings.  Plus all of these in an uncrossed string arrangement if desired. Normally free of charge.  Of course, the tuning and string arrangement can be customized to suit your style and background.

Under the hood we keep the output signal as clean as possible with full faraday cage shielding, meticulous grounding, and top shelf components from brands like AlphaBartolini and GraphTech.

All of that effort going into sound quality, playability, and responsiveness means nothing without excellent intonation. To do it right, we teamed up with intonation guru Buzz Feiton.  The result is an instrument that sounds perfectly in tune w…

All of that effort going into sound quality, playability, and responsiveness means nothing without excellent intonation. To do it right, we teamed up with intonation guru Buzz Feiton.  The result is an instrument that sounds perfectly in tune with other instruments, and more importantly is in tune with itself all over the fretboard for a clean, clear tone and tight harmonies.

Every new instrument ships with a patented 3-point strap, digital copies of a set of four method books, an extra .009 string, a stereo output cable and a tool kit. Several styles of cases are available, and are highly recommended.  A variety of accessories are also available for the players convenience.

 

Want to see more?

How to Buy