Guitars, page 5

Nik Huber

Orca

1997

Nik Huber admits his shapes are “a mix of everybody.” When Gibson wrote about the Orca, he didn’t argue.

Novo

Serus

2016

Dennis Fano walked away from the brand with his name on it, and drew a body big enough to start over.

Ovation

Balladeer

1966

A helicopter builder looked at a guitar and asked why the back had to be made of wood. This was his answer.

Ovation

Adamas

1976

Seven years, 186 changes, and no hole in the middle. Ovation rebuilt the acoustic guitar top from scratch.

Parker

Fly

1993

Ken Parker built it like a lobster: wood on the inside, and all the strength in a skin thinner than the paint.

Peavey

T-40

1978

Peavey’s first production bass got two basses’ worth of sound out of one tone knob, and no battery.

Peavey

T-60

1978

Peavey’s guitar man said the big guys told dealers: no amps, no guitars. So the amp company built its own.

Pedulla

Buzzard

1980

A fusion bassist botched his homemade fretless. The builder who fixed it went on to build him a better one.

Pensa

MK-1

1988

Mark Knopfler was tired of swapping a Strat for a Les Paul, so a New York shop carved him one guitar instead.

PRS

Custom 24

1985

Paul Reed Smith spent a decade building guitars one at a time for touring stars. The Custom was for everybody else.

PRS

CE 24

1988

PRS meant it to be the cheaper, quicker one. Then a second-hand black one made Opeth’s Blackwater Park.

PRS

McCarty

1994

Named for a man who never played guitar, built for a player who turned down having his own name on it.

PRS

Santana

1995

Paul Reed Smith kept building guitars for Carlos Santana until Santana called him a guitar maker.

PRS

Hollowbody II

1998

The quiet half of the song and the loud half, out of one hollow PRS with two jacks.

PRS

509

2017

The 513 had thirteen sounds. The 509 kept all five pickups and threw four of the sounds away.

Relish

Mary

2016

The back comes off in your hands and the pickups lift out. The company that built it didn’t last.

Reverend

Warhawk

2005

Reverend changed the Warhawk’s neck, pickups, and scale. It kept the ridge down the middle.

Reverend

Buckshot

2007

Tele twang with more meat on it. Knopfler tried one for slide, and it never made a record. It kept working anyway.

Rick Turner

Model 1

1979

In 1978 Rick Turner was fired from the company he co-founded, and his house burned down. He kept the drawing.

Rickenbacker

A-22 Frying Pan

1932

The first electric guitar you could buy looked like a frying pan. The patent office didn’t believe it worked.

Rickenbacker

325

1958

Lennon bought it natural in Hamburg and had it painted black. The reissues copy the ends of that story, not the middle.

Rickenbacker

330 / 360

1958 · 3 versions

Same body, same neck, same pickups. The 360 got the binding. The 330 got Paul Weller’s, with “I AM NOBODY” on it.

Rickenbacker

4001

1961

Geddy Lee bought one to sound like Chris Squire. He plugged it in. It didn’t.

Rickenbacker

620

1973

The Rickenbacker on the Damn the Torpedoes cover isn’t a 620. It’s still the reason the 620 is around.

Rickenbacker

4003

1980

Rickenbacker’s first answer to players’ new strings was to void the warranty. The 4003 was the better answer.

Roland

G-707

1984

Roland bent a guitar into a strange shape so a machine could hear it. Then the machine learned to hear any guitar.

Roscoe

SKB

1990

Roscoe’s middle-size bass is the one called Skyscraper. The big one came along about ten years later.

Sadowsky

NYC Bass

1982

Built for the New York session bassist whose engineer wasn’t going to reset the board for him.

Sandberg

California

2000

Six bolts, a zero fret, a knob that pulls. About four of every five Sandbergs are this bass.

Santa Cruz

Tony Rice

1981

Tony Rice already owned the one guitar he couldn’t replace. Santa Cruz built him one he could.

Schecter

C-1

1999

It made its debut in a Papa Roach video, dressed exactly like the music. It never changed clothes.

Schecter

Hellraiser

2006

A borrowed shape, a set neck dressed as a neck-through, and a band that trusted it with the rhythms.

Seagull

S6

1982

Kim Deal liked it because it sounded flat and dull. James Blunt took his to Kosovo.

Selmer

Modèle Jazz

1936

Built so a guitar could be heard over a dance band. In Django Reinhardt’s hands, it led one.

Shergold

Masquerader

1975

Two men spent twenty years making guitars with other people’s names on them. Then they made this.

Silvertone

1448

1962

A beginner’s electric from the Sears catalog, with the amp in the case. Beck has played one his whole career.

Spector

NS-2

1979

It started with a man looking for a belt sander. Sting found his lying on the stage before soundcheck.

Status

Series II

1984

Rob Green looked at a room full of expensive basses and said he could build a better one. Then he did.

Steinberger

GL

1984

No headstock, no wood, and designed by a man who didn’t play. Eddie Van Halen wrote two songs on it in days.

Steinberger

XM

1987

Bill Wyman said the little Steinberger looked like a machine gun. The full-size one, he kept.

Strandberg

Boden

2014

It started with a sore shoulder. A Swedish engineer built a guitar that would stop fighting him.

Suhr

Modern

2008

Suhr could have added two frets to a Standard. It drew a new guitar instead.

Suhr

Classic S

2018

It looks like a Strat on purpose. Everything that’s different about it, you feel instead of see.

Supro

Dual Tone

1954

Link Wray posed with one for Rumble. Bowie found two on eBay. James Murphy bought his because Bowie said so.

Takamine

EG360SC

2006

The stars played the Japanese Takamine. The EG360SC was the one that turned up for everybody else’s gig.

Taylor

814ce

1996

Taylor has rebuilt its flagship from the braces out, again and again, and kept the same three numbers on it.

Taylor

314ce

2000

Nobody writes songs about the workhorse. They just keep reaching for it.

Taylor

T5

2005

Bob Taylor said Taylor would build an electric somewhere between never and a truly new idea. This was the idea.