Box SRB-640 Twin Neck Double Six String - The Only Time a Box Guitar Isn't One

A first take at the keywords of 'Box' and 'Guitar' would suggest to even the most casual of guitar infoists a picture of something like a simple and pleasantly eccentric cigar box type instrument with or without the orthodox number of strings. Of course, this would be a worthy guess, but it would, in this case, be quite wrong. For the more initiated in guitar and / or music circles, you may or may not have heard the name Stu Box. If you have heard, there's a good chance you also know about his SRB-640 twin neck 12 string range.

First, note the line; 'twin neck / 12 string'. Surely 'twin neck 6/12', or 'twin neck 12/6', or even awkwardly, 'twin neck 18 string' would make more sense? This isn't a contextual typo. So it should be appreciated that Box's SRB-640 is not a conventional 12 string of the tradition. By this, I mean if you are expecting the familiar jangly octave string versions pairing against their lower fuller bodied brethren, with the high tension, dual playing might and micro train track slicing tattooed imprints through your fingertips as proof from the twelve string section, then you will be left expecting. SRB-640 has no such section, per se. Instead, it appears to breathe through a different set of guitar lungs. Not content with just being apart from the regular single neck six string device, the SRB walks away from the regular and already a bit different breed of twin necks too. Box's SRB has a few alternative ways of looking at guitar playing up its gauge-wound sleeve.

Straight away we are met with a centrally-sited, single, but double width neck, acting as table for one super-wide fingerboard constructed of a dark Australian Blackwood, or African Walnut - availability dictating. Two truss rods sit more conventionally beneath each fingerboard section and there is one slotted nut with twelve grooves sat in the usual place stretching the width of the combined fingerboards. Box has inverted the traditional headstock spot, cosily tucking the twelve mean looking tuning keys in at the body base end. This integrated 'headstock' looks the part as it becomes part of the aluminium-machined bridge. The Australia-sourced Kauri Pine monocoque body-neck set up is tough, light, contains a striking tonal resemblance to the wood Alder and looks pretty in its adopted colours of blonde, greenburst, redburst, sunburst and what is assumed to be its own handsome naturally coloured finish.

Despite the perceived and expected size of this instrument, it merely weighs in around the same as an original Fender Strat (3.5 KG). Light by twin neck solid body guitar standards, the SRB is also physically more compact owing to the combined necks, very small conventionally-sat headstock for-show-only tips and single-width body design.

There are four Korean-made WSC pickups, which are high output and single coiled. Independent tone, volume and toggle switching can be achieved for each set of six strings. While a stereo/mono switch allows the running of a stereo lead or two regular monaural leads linking guitar to amp, delivering a range of sounds from each neck simultaneously.

Tuning - technically - defies the natural limitation of having only one neck and one set of strings. So, SRB boasts tunings for many more applications, including open tunings, tapping, slide, regular play, alternating, necks tuned against each other, or all of these at once, limited only by the players' imagination.

The SRB-640 guitars are built from the ground up by Stu's hand. And if the reader is left wondering whether the prerequisite of growing their favourite fretting hand to a freakishly abnormal scale is called for in order to handle that neck, it isn't. While it's clear that the SRB has been principally created for the dual fret handed tap playing style, it inevitably sets the player up to access the sound of, literally, two guitars being played at once. To grant more explanation to this twin fret fingerboard tapping style is best demonstrated when you fit a 25 inch long piece of hard material with magnetic pickups, metal strings, and some form of string anchoring at each end. The cool thing with the electric guitar - as those who use them will frequently know - is that there is (phat amplifier willing) a tremendous amount of volume to play with. What this means is that when an operator sets the gain of the guitar pickup and the gain of the amplifier at a healthy output sufficiency, the neck-clenching fingertips of the fret hand can get away with noodling away with an effortless and quite loud illusion at the fingerboard end, before the plectrum / fingernail-wielding other hand has even started doing its bit at the pickups end. In essence, one can play an electric guitar with only one hand successfully enough when it's plugged in. (The same technique can be applied to its acoustic cousin, but it's harder to prove it to an audience or a microphone without electricity).

Now, to show why and how the SRB-640 earns its dual sound, I Illustrate this via a right handers' spec, so lefties, do reverse these directions. Typical playing technique is: left hand = bottom neck / right hand = upper neck. The result, visually, is that each of the necks themselves are being played. The strings of both necks are pushed to the fingerboard - at the fingerboard position - between fret wire points in the same way the fretting hand would normally form notes and chords by itself. This doesn't render the traditional way redundant, however. Your fret hand may still manipulate chord progressions, fast leads, and the rest of the fretboard catalogue of ye old way, with your pick hand weaving out sound control at the pick up end. It should be mentioned that the only playing style not to be achieved - at all, or certainly not with regular sized human hands, at least, is a fretting thumb creeping over from behind the neck to hold down the bottom strings; The thumb tease. The opposable show off. Handy for some barre chords, or fancy assistance during moments of ad lib madness. Personally, as much as I like flexing my opposable show off thumb tease and undergoing many moments of relentless ad libbing fury, I deem this a very small trade off considering what this model is and the additional world of creative sound potential it represents to its intended intermediate to professional player market.

The Box SRB-640 offers 'as well as' versatility, as opposed to 'instead of' alien difference that condemns all the great and familiar technique of tradition. This makes it, for my mind, a quality, versatile, formidable and a modest alternative addition to any player or collectors' posse. With it, too, sway small hints of being even a sensible investment, holding in mind its speciality guitar tag. A possible future classic, if not one already.

Complete spec and Q&A on the Box SRB-640 can be found at The Jaicoxki OutPut Device.