YouTube djent sensation Jared Dines selling custom 18-string guitar on eBay

Jared Dines with the 18-string, multiscale "Beast" and its creator, Perry Ormsby (right) (Image credit: Jared Dines via eBay)

It has 18-strings and a fretboard so wide it straddles different time zones, and if it is not the most ridiculous electric guitar ever built it certainly belongs in the conversation. And it could be yours!

Youtube star, comedian and guitarist Jared Dines has put his custom-built Ormsby extended-extended range guitar – named, the DJENT2018 – up for auction on eBay, with the proceeds going to supply under-privileged children with instruments.

The auction closes on Monday at 11pm, UK time, and bidding presently stands at  $16,300.00, with 95 bids already received.

Yes, we know what you're thinking. No tremolo, no sale. But come on! It's for a good cause.

Dines and Ormsby debuted the guitar at NAMM2018, where it sent the assembled crowd into bewilderment. "Just roll on it," someone shouted from the crowd. "I don't even know what to do, it's ridiculous," said Dines as they plugged it in.

Luckily, Dines made a video, a playful satire on djent's straight-faced technical ecstasy that just about proved that the 18-string was playable, if only we need to wait for evolution to catch us up.

Of course it is ridiculous. Look at the neck; there are three truss rods in what is a nine-piece mahogany, Tasmanian blackwood and ebony build, reinforced with carbon. But is Dines' guitar the most ridiculous? 

Well, don't get us started on robot tuners. In terms of ridiculous, Bo Diddley's custom-made plywood electric complete with built-in CD player and synth pickup, currently available from Carter Vintage Guitars for 30 grand has got to be up there, so too Rick Nielson's 1981 five-neck Hamer. Then there is Dines' YouTube nemesis, Stevie T, who has a 20-string electric built by 10S Guitars that would out-djent all comers.

Twenty strings? Maybe it's best starting out on 18 and seeing how that suits you. Start slow . . . 

Anyway, do check out the here, and if you are bidding, good luck!

Jonathan Horsley

Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars and guitar culture since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitar World. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.

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