Psych-out
Manne Guitars
Andrea 'Manne' Ballarin is a benchmark of the Italian lutherie, intended as art, tradition and innovation; an industry's cornerstone at trade fairs and exhibitions, whether in Italy or abroad. His guitars were compared to Ferrari, icon of the ‘Made In Italy’ standard for quality and character, and it's not hard to understand why: just...
MR Guitars
In the beginning was the verb. But that was really boring, monotonous, and so the verb became music. It found the harmonies and arpeggios; the scales and chords; the tone colours and tonalities... and the verb became playful and seductive. Everything in this world vibrates and reverberates on different wavelengths. And the people we call...
Daguet Guitars
Let's go back to France to study and investigate a bit more on the art of handcrafted guitars. This time Roger Daguet leads the dances. Roger is extremely kind: he tells us about his life, his guitars and his particular way of living with a job that, rather than customers, gives him new friends. His 'trick' is simple: fine quality woods,...
Ergon Guitars
Adriano Sergio, father of Ergon Guitars, was a musician and guitar technician. Now he is a guitar-maker. He’s living his dream, making cool hand-carved guitars, looking at each musician who enters his shop, Guitar Rehab in Lisbon (Portugal) as an opportunity to design, investigate and create a new instrument, a new source of sound waiting to...
George Beauchamp
...1930, in the California garage of George Beauchamp... No. Steve Jobs didn't invent the MP3 player any more than Marconi invented the radio or Les Paul the electric guitar. Although each one of them made some contribution: provide style, notoriety and a business model with the iPod; produce the...
Pheo Guitars
What is Art? Who is an artist? Does an artist work for his own satisfaction? Phil Sylvester from Pheo Guitars seems to have the answers to these questions. Their interesting route passes through the essence of art applied to the construction and re-construction of an instrument: from the visual to the roots of sound. Behind the...
BlackBeard
Paolo Lardera and his brand - BlackBeard Guitars (name that directly takes inspiration from Paolo´s long black beard) - constitute one of the most beautiful novelties in handcrafted guitars that the Italian market has seen in the last five years. A novelty that was born in the social media when one day Paolo shared his idea of turning his passion...
Ruokangas
In 2015 Juha Ruokangas and his team celebrate the 20th anniversary of Ruokangas Guitars. Juha is one of the very few Finnish luthiers with a Master’s Degree, and his guitars are regarded in various books, magazines and other independent sources as some of the finest in the world. Juha is also a co-founder and the vice president of EGB...
Meet & Jam
One of our favorite heroes, Joe Walsh, repeats the same advice whenever he can: plug in your guitar and play! Perhaps the problem is just this one: to find the perfect musicians to jam with. But with 'whom' is not the only problem...there comes the 'when', 'where', etc. Surfing the web, we discovered Meet&Jam, a British startup that...
B & G
Designed by David Weitzman, the Little Sister from B&G Guitars is fighting for her own place in the handcrafted guitar market. We discovered this guitar thanks to a video -very well done, indeed- that landed on our social networks by chance. Eliran Barashi and Kiki Goldstein (B&G) are passionate about vintage guitars and...
Rapolas Gražys (Lava Drops)
We are in Frankfurt, walking through the MusikMesse, pavilion #4: a sound calls our attention. Oriental notes fill the air of a pavilion full of distortion, electricity and ‘heavy’ oxygen. It's like a time warp. We are in the guitar makers’ area, the territory of who makes guitars with their hands, centimeter by centimeter. We are in the...
Thierry André
The first time we saw a guitar handcrafted by Thierry André, its shape caught our attention. It was the Kouai: an electric guitar with acoustic soul. It recalled to us the shape of a heart, a real one, as the one seen in anatomy lessons. It may be because Thierry’s guitars have a heart, his heart -and a waiting list of several months, if...
Relish Guitars
Relish Guitars Switzerland is a young Swiss guitar label founded in 2010 by Pirmin Giger and Silvan Küng, two designers, musicians and guitarists. Pirmin and Silvan succeeded in attracting the attention of the market due to their continuous research and innovation in construction, materials and design. While winning -also- startup...
Wild Customs
Wild Customs is a brand of guitar makers from the "lost" village of Creuzier-Le-Vieux, located in the south of France, a village of a mere 3.000 habitants. Three of whom are passionate guitarists-artisans who share a love for vintage and custom work via the "old style." From the beginning of production down to the tiniest of details, their...
Jacaranda
There are many luthiers who build modern instruments in Italy today, yet the names of bass and guitar luthiers who have really managed to establish themselves as true 'brands' could probably only be counted on one hand. Amongst this small group, undoubtedly, is Jacaranda, the luthier workshop of Daniele Fierro and Davide Fossati located in...
Rick Kelly
What do Lou Reed, Walter Becker, Bill Frisell, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Marc Ribot and Lenny Kaye have in common? What unites this handful of Rock nobility, a famous Manhattan hotel, the Chelsea, as well as the equally famous pub, Chumley's? No, no…don’t say that they were merely clients: perhaps they were, obviously, but that’s...
Pickups
The wood is important, of course: we've learned it by interviewing luthiers and visiting Madinter. And...what about the shape? Indeed it seems that the vast majority of the guitarists’ community is divided between Gibson or Fender-aholics, the eternal struggle. Weight, color, frets, neck thickness... many things effect the choice of a...
Seth Baccus
Seth Baccus is a young guitar maker with a lot of experience on his back. He grew up at Manson’s (Andy is his stepfather). He worked with such artists as Led Zeppelin. He has been able to see and regularly play an incredible array of instruments. How many people could say they’ve played Jimmy Page #1 Gibson Les Paul or his...
GNG (Giulio Negrini Guitars)
Giulio Negrini got his Master Luthier's degree in the Violin and Bow making's School of Gubbio (Italy), where he learnt the classical techniques of the great Italian masters, in the "Cremonese" style (Stradivarius, Guarneri, Amati). His passion for building fine (multi-strings, but not only) guitars started studying hard-rock and heavy-metal...