The bodies, though beautiful, look impractical. But some of the bridges and pickguards I find appealing.
Rick Toone, Luthier
31–40 of 58 posts
Re: Rick Toone, Luthier
#32For something a little more off-beat, see Matthias Wandel's experiments with a "home made" ukelele: https://woodgears.ca/ukulele/
And his wooden pipe organ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5baNcgIA8o
Or you can see what it could have become, if Wandel had any real passion for it: Raphi Giangiulio's home-built pipe organ.
Re: Rick Toone, Luthier
#33Other significant modern luthiers: Ken Parker: http://www.kenparkerarchtops.com/ Michihiro Matsuda: http://www.matsudaguitars.com/gallery.htm Ola Strandberg: https://strandbergguitars.com/ Linda Mantzer: http://www.manzer.com/guitars/ Last but not least, the Stradivarius of the steel-string guitar, Ervin Somogyi: http://www.esomogyi.com/
Thanks for the turn on! I like the Strandbergs!
Re: Rick Toone, Luthier
#34Very nice designs. It's been interesting to see the explosion of headless, fanned-fret guitars over the last few years. Kiesel and Strandberg seemed to be the only places to reliably find them a few years ago.
Re: Rick Toone, Luthier
#35I just had a new Kiesel guitar delivered a month ago. They can make custom guitars for you, and since they are factory direct, you can get a great deal. They are made in Southern California in Escondido.
Carvin Guitar on Sunset was a truly unique store and concept. You walk in, play some guitars, and buy everything a la carte. They would mainly sell you the parts, and you'd go home and build it yourself (though I guess they'd build it for you as well?). It was definitely higher end and those Carvins have a rabid fan base. I'm not really sure if they had guitars prebuilt, but I'm bringing this up because Carvin turned…
AFAIK the prebuilt ones they carry in stock are basically just particular configurations of what you could have got through the custom-build route.
I've got an LB75 fretless bass, which is a joy. Though in my case I bought it pre-owned, because one came up on eBay that was almost exactly what I would have wished to order from them, but at a third of the price. Ten years on, I still think it's the best deal I ever got.
Re: Rick Toone, Luthier
#36Guitar players, as a whole, are a very conservative bunch when it comes to their instruments. Most luthiers are simply building very careful copies of designs that have existed for over 50 years. This is true from both a visual and a mechanical/electrical perspective. We're inspired by our heroes, and want to play what they played.
I have a custom made guitar myself - an acoustic by Running Dog Guitars (now defunct, I think the builder retired), a quasi-original design modeled after certain Gibson models from the 1930s. Different woods, more careful construction, but... it's an acoustic guitar, with the same X-bracing that Martin developed over a century ago.
On the other hand, there's no good reason for guitar technology to improve, either. They work really well. Modernist guitars like these are still relying on traditional electronics - these pictures have modern copies of PAF pickups designed by Gibson in the 1950s! Even active electronics are something of anathema to most guitarists. Visually, these are modernist - but technically, they're not much more advanced than what Gibson and Fender were building 60+ years ago.
Even amplification, which unlike guitars, has improved since the 1950s, is pretty static. We still buy tube amps - often slavish copies of amps from 50 or more years ago. I personally play a 1977 Mesa amp, tubes and all. I can't find a modern solid-state amp that touches it tonally. But then again, my tastes are kind of conservative. I am, after all, a guitarist.
Re: Rick Toone, Luthier
#37Guitar players, as a whole, are a very conservative bunch when it comes to their instruments. Most luthiers are simply building very careful copies of designs that have existed for over 50 years. This is true from both a visual and a mechanical/electrical perspective. We're inspired by our heroes, and want to play what they played. I have a custom made guitar myself - an acoustic by Running Dog Guitars (now defunct,…
I think that's slowly starting to change. Over the last decade or so both headless guitars and multi-scale (fanned fret) designs have become semi-mainstream.
Sure, you won't see such designs from Gibson or Fender, but companies like Kiesel are making them widely available and relatively affordable.
I've personally also moved away from traditional amps to an all-digital full range modeler. The gap between modeling and tubes is pretty narrow these days.
Re: Rick Toone, Luthier
#38Guitar players, as a whole, are a very conservative bunch when it comes to their instruments. Most luthiers are simply building very careful copies of designs that have existed for over 50 years. This is true from both a visual and a mechanical/electrical perspective. We're inspired by our heroes, and want to play what they played. I have a custom made guitar myself - an acoustic by Running Dog Guitars (now defunct,…
Metal guitarists seem to be largely unafflicted by guitarist conservatism. They're eager to play guitars with seven, eight or more strings, fanned frets and unusual pickups like Fishman Fluences or Lace Alumitones. They've embraced amp modelling and digital effects. They're the main buyers of headless guitars. They were the main buyers of Floyd Rose bridges back when they were exciting new technology and they're the main buyers of Evertune bridges today.
Re: Rick Toone, Luthier
#39Guitar players, as a whole, are a very conservative bunch when it comes to their instruments. Most luthiers are simply building very careful copies of designs that have existed for over 50 years. This is true from both a visual and a mechanical/electrical perspective. We're inspired by our heroes, and want to play what they played. I have a custom made guitar myself - an acoustic by Running Dog Guitars (now defunct,…
I think that's slowly starting to change. Over the last decade or so both headless guitars and multi-scale (fanned fret) designs have become semi-mainstream. Sure, you won't see such designs from Gibson or Fender, but companies like Kiesel are making them widely available and relatively affordable. I've personally also moved away from traditional amps to an all-digital full range modeler. The gap between modeling and…
Modeling suffers a lot from bad interface design. It's not the digital that's the problem, it's the interface.
I recently picked up a Boss SY-300 guitar synth. It sounds great, but I hate it. It's almost impossible to manipulate its behavior in realtime. It really needs a computer plugged in, and a lot of clicking around with a mouse. It's completely outside my music-brain. I don't have these problems with a traditional analog synth, with knobs for everything (I play an Arturia Microbrute regularly).
It CAN be done, though. I use a digital tape-modeling delay, and it works beautifully and sounds amazing. It just respects how we work things with our hands.
Re: Rick Toone, Luthier
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's slowly starting to change. Over the last decade or so both headless guitars and multi-scale (fanned fret) designs have become semi-mainstream. Sure, you won't see such designs from Gibson or Fender, but companies like Kiesel are making them widely available and relatively affordable. I've personally also moved away from traditional amps to an all-digital full range modeler. The gap between modeling and…
Modeling suffers a lot from bad interface design. It's not the digital that's the problem, it's the interface. I recently picked up a Boss SY-300 guitar synth. It sounds great, but I hate it. It's almost impossible to manipulate its behavior in realtime. It really needs a computer plugged in, and a lot of clicking around with a mouse. It's completely outside my music-brain. I don't have these problems with a traditio…
The Line 6 Helix UI is pretty great. That's the unit I'm running. Everything easily tweakable from the unit, or connect it to a PC via USB and use the their software which is even easier since you have a mouse, drag and drop, etc. Way way better than, say, Fractal.
This video shows what the UI on the unit itself is like...