If you don’t know anything about double neck guitars (the guitars with two fretboard necks), then probably you need to learn a bit about their history. It is acknowledged that the inventor of the double neck guitars is Michael Angelo Batio. He was the first one to create a guitar that had two necks, although it is more likely true to say that his first model was just a glued combination of two guitars. Led Zeppelin was the band that made the twin neck guitars popular. They used Gibson EDS 1275 on their live performances. That’s when the craze began.

The reason why a person would use a double neck is because they allow the player to quickly switch between two types of guitars. The types of necks are customized to the needs of a player, so you can make one neck into a bass fretless guitar, while the other neck becomes the classic 6 string guitar. Many other variations are possible, and sometimes people make guitars with even more than two necks, but in most people’s opinion that’s superfluous.

Drawbacks

Sure, those monsters do look amazing on pictures, and many people who like rock music have been inspired by them, but if you ask those guitar players who actually own a double neck, they usually tell you a lot of negatives. Well, firstly these guitars are very heavy. Expect a double neck electric guitar to weigh 12 pounds – that’s 4 more pounds than a regular guitar (and much more than a taylor 814ce – an acoustic electric guitar).

Moreover, they are not very comfortable to play and require some time for adaptation. All in all, while a double neck guitar does look good on live performances and doesn’t have any real performance drawbacks, it is not recommended to buy them unless there is a song that can not be played without having two necks at the same time. They are not ideal for lead roles, too.

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