RKS Ruby Red

guitarz.blogspot.com:

RKS Guitars were a modern forward-thinking innovative guitar company, and embodied everything we here at Guitarz applaud. They didn't look to the past and unquestioningly re-hash designs and concepts simply because that was the traditional way of doing things. They sought to find a new way, which can be seen clearly in the open architecture of their 21st Century semi-hollowbody guitars.

The only time I personally ever saw one, was at a Bauhaus gig several years ago when Daniel Ash was playing a Chrome Molly model (fitted, I believe, with a Fernandes Sustainer). It sounded - and looked - fantastic.

It's such a shame that the company seemed to cease activity in 2007, a mere four years after they went into production. These were boutique instruments with prices to match, so weren't affordable to your average player. Still, it's a pity that more of those with the cash to flash couldn't have been more imaginative instead of running to the likes of the Fender Custom Shop, who - let's face it - build high-end versions of guitars designed to be cheaply produced on a production line. That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

Anyway, the above-pictured beautiful RKS in ruby red acrylic is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $2,499. No, it's not in my price bracket either; I wish it was, although if I ever come into the big bucks in a lottery win or whatever, I have an XOX Audio Tools "The Handle" on my wish list first.

Thanks to Vince for bringing the RKS Ruby Red auction to my attention.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

OCG Freestyle - extreme offset body prototype guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

One of these of this extreme offset body prototypes by Oren Clark Guitars is up for grabs on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $3000. These guitars, built for Clark by Zion, are designed with ergonomics uppermost in mind.

For more, see the Oren Clark Guitars YouTube channel.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Teuffel Tesla glow-in-the-dark 7-string

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Everything about the Teuffel Tesla guitar screams "modern" and "innovative" at you, yet despite its space-age design the Tesla is the antithesis of all those modern "perfect" guitars and is designed specifically to emulate some of those idiosyncracies exhibited by some of those older planks we have struggled with. As Ulrich Teuffel says on his website:

In the early days of electric guitar building, you had to struggle not only with the guitar itself, but also with the unwanted background noises that guitars produced in those days, for example, pickup feedback resulting from pickups not yet being wax-potted, or loud humming coming from a loose solder joint. Sometimes the guitar signal would be interrupted when you randomly touched a knob.

Nowadays all these effects have disappeared as a result of technical improvements, although they have become part of music history as archetypes of guitar sounds. They are comparable to sounds such as the scratching of records and skipping of CDs, which have also become musical archetypes and are often cited in today’s music.

With the Tesla I have designed a guitar that, along with modern guitars sounds, also has these primitive sounds at its disposal. Contact points and push-buttons are situated all over the body, which, when pressed, activate the respective sounds.

The above-pictured 7-string Tesla, currently for sale on eBay with bidding at over $4,000 as I type this, has a glow-in-the-dark finish and - as requested by the customer - is the only example to feature glow-in-the-dark side dots along the top of the fingerboard.

The short neck (or is it an extended body on the bass side) make the Tesla an ideal candidate for a 7-string guitar, the rigidity of the body providing excellent bass response.

But if you're one of those "hook the thumb over the top of the neck" players, forget it. This guitar is not for you!

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1964 Harvey Thomas Model C

guitarz.blogspot.com:


I'm guessing Model C stands for COOL and this could well be one of the coolest guitars we've ever posted.

The seller certainly thinks so and I for one, find it hard to disagree. This is what he says:

1964 Thomas model C, finished in goldburst, new tuners, name and social security card number etched into back of headstock and tremolo cover, neck and fingerboard and frets have wear, sounds very much like a Gibson SG Special, if you are looking for the coolest of cool, you have finally found it.

The price is also pretty damn cool. $15,000 plus $750 insured delivery. I think if I could afford to spend fifteen grand on a guitar, I'd jump on a plane and pick it up in person.

Not only is it a beautiful piece of guitar quirkiness, it's innovative in design and manufacturing techniques. And, it also points the way to the solution to a guitar mystery that Gavin posted about waaaaay back in January 2003.

Firstly, the innovation and manufacturing techniques....

This is re-posted from The Thomas Guitars Gallery with the kind permission of Tim Olsen, where he's talking about a white version of this guitar:

I think this is a Harvey-made whammy. These are the "bubble" pickguards. The plexiglas was heated in an oven and layed over a mold to form the bubbles. The pickups are just loose coils of wire and bar magnets wrapped in masking tape stuffed under the bubbles. Note also the fancy pickguard shape. It's a kind of Grand-Ol-Opry kind of snazz. And the little raised secondary pickguard says that this is a fingerstyle guitar. The white body lets you see the complex beveling plan of the top. Looking at this you can see the Moserite inspiration. Thanks Buzz! What a great example of Harvey's eccentric genius.

There are a lot more OMG! guitars and great stories about the designer on Tim's site so you'd be doing yourself a favour by moseying on down and checking it out.

While you're there, you'll also see first hand the mystery guitar that Gavin wrote about all those years ago....

The recent picture of Ian shows him holding a modern reproduction given to him by Joe Elliott of Def Leppard. This picture from Bobzilla's touching and entertaining "Rock N Roll on the road" blog.

Sorry this such a long post but you don't come across this kind of stuff every day.

Davib ib Bartheloba wid a dold... Atchoo!

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Charles H. Kaman, inventor of the Ovation Guitar dies at age 91

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Charles H. Kaman - aviation pioneer in the development of helicopters and the creator of the Ovation Roundback guitar - has died in Connecticut USA [on Monday January 31].

In the 1940s he split off from Sikorsky Aviation to found his own corporation to design and manufacture helicopter blades. Using the knowledge he had regarding the control of vibrations, he set out in the mid-1960s to create a new type of guitar: using a strong molded one-piece parabolic assembly of sides and back made out of the same fiberglass compound he used on his blades. In-store demonstrations of the earliest Ovation guitars were a sight to behold: the sales rep would put the guitar face-down on the floor and stand on the bowl assembly.

Kaman (sounds like "command") was among the first to use alternative synthetic materials on guitars, paving the way for Steinberger and others. Kaman was 91.

Via Alan Peterson

(See also the New York Times obituary)

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1947 Gretsch Electromatic Spanish Electric Guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This surprisingly well preserved Gretsch Electromatic currently gracing eBay is quite a beauty. It has some remarkable features but the most unusual, for me, are the machine heads. We showed a Modulus Genesis G3 a while back that had compensated tuners to keep the strings in a straight line and this appears to be an earlier attempt at the same idea. I think this is what's known as an "engineering solution".

I'll let the sellers describe the rest:

This is for a 1947 Gretsch Electromatic Hollow-body Spanish Electric Guitar. This terrific guitar looks great! The top and back of the body do not have any cracks or chips in them. The right side of the body has two screws driven into, one right next to the neck and the other right next to the top binding between the upper and lower bouts; the screw between the bouts appears to have a couple of very small cracks extending about 1/8" away from it kinda parallel to the binding, but the other screw does not have any cracks involved with it. The top, back, and sides all show a few dings and indentions in them as well as a few very light surface scratches - none of which is through the lacquer to the bare wood. The inside of the body appears to be a bit dirty and some of the wiring is not original. However, the pickup and potentiometers do appear to be original.

The output jack is loose and needs to be re-attached and the knobs are missing on the front. The neck and headstock both show similar surface scratches and indentions as those found on the body, but are also free of cracks and chips. The tuners on the headstock are also original. The fretboard has a some noticeable spots of what appears to be dried glue on it, plus the frets show some fairly heavy wear, but are still playable. The action on this guitar is about medium-high and it plays well and sounds wonderful. This amazing guitar features a scale of 25-1/2", a 1-11/16" nut width, a 19-fret (14-fret accessibility) rosewood fretboard, and a Gretsch tailpiece.

I'm not 100% convinced that the tailpiece is original, personally.

David - Slacking in Barcelona

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1967 Rickenbacker 366/12 Convertible Mapleglo

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's a rare Rickenbacker 366/12 Convertible from 1967 in "Mapleglo" finish. Perhaps I should have included this last month in our look at electric 12-string guitars, although this one is a particular oddity and also it's only just come up on eBay - with a Buy It Now price of $5999 (for those that are interested).

Yes, it may be a rarity, but I'm afraid for me it's a beautiful guitar with a very ugly contraption bolted to the front. And if you haven't guessed from the name, the contraption isolates the second strings in each course so that you can switch from 12-string to 6-string. It's got to be a lot less cumbersome than having a doubleneck guitar slung around your shoulders at a gig. I just wish they could have somehow concealed the contraption inside the body so that it didn't look quite so awful.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

In the beginning there was the guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The Modulus Genesis G3 

This an interesting example of a great solution to a problem that doesn't really exist for many other makers. Maybe it's to give you something to talk about. A way of breaking the ice at parties. "Hey man, crazy tuners you got on that geetar!" Is it really such a huge benefit to have the strings aligned perfectly straight? And, does that outweigh the disadvantages of having machine heads that are practically impossible to replace should it be necessary?

However, it is a very nice looking guitar and the seller says it's one of the best guitars he's ever played. And, as Modulus have stopped making guitars and now only produce basses and they made very few guitars during a short period, it is deserving of the tag "rare".

It may seem, from the slightly cynical tone of my intro, that I'm a bit of a luddite. That's not true. Well it might be but, in this case, it seems like being different for the sake of it rather than true innovation. I'm all for innovation and for the evolution of guitars. In fact, when you look at, say, Fender's bewildering catalogue of micro-variations on the Tele/Strat themes and those hideous limited-edition-figured-burly-swirly-deluxe-looks-like-a-sideboard-costs-an-arm-and-a-leg-made-in-the-USA Premiumcasters, it's clear that it's only the small boutiques that are truly pushing the evolution of guitars forward. And don't get me started on those ****ing "relics"! Sorry, sorry, hyperventilating. Don't worry, I'm OK now.

David in Barcelona

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

The Bassimer - an intriguing bass guitar/dulcimer hybrid

guitarz.blogspot.com:



The Bassimer is a bass guitar/dulcimer hybrid designed and built by John Shelton. It has a 30" scale length and features a fretless low D and a two strings arranged as a paired course in the highest position. The tuning is D1, A1, D2, D2/D3. The paired string course also has its own sustainer, an EBow built into the body. It's probably easiest to let these videos do the talking!



Thanks to Buck for bringing this very interesting instrument to my attention.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Semi-fretted, semi-fretless bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Graham Clark writes:

Here is my bass player Brian Franks. He is a lefty playing a right-handed bass - strings upside down - fat ones at the bottom.

He has modified the neck of his bass, making the 2 skinny strings FRETLESS, and the 2 fat strings FRETTED - if you look carefully at the pic you will see.

It is fantastic.

When he just wants to chug along he plays on the frets - when he wants to solo he can get freaky on the fretless - it's a fantastic concept.

He has been playing this bass for 10 years in my band BRILLEAUX.

Regards
Graham

Thanks for that, Graham. It's nice to see that the spirit of innovation is alive and well, and that people are actually making good use of such ideas.

It's not a totally new concept. I believe that Wilkes Guitars here in the UK used to offer this 2 strings fretted/2 strings fretless layout as an option on their basses. There was another option to have the bass fretted for all the strings half-way up the neck and then to have the rest of it fretless.

My favourite fretted/fretless concept is from a Russian manufacturer called Mikey Guitars who produce and guitars and basses with rotating frets allowing you to change from fretted to fretless at the flick of a switch.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Davoli Athena bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:
The Davioli Athena bass is quite a striking looking instrument with some elegant carving, although not quite a German carve (an Italian carve perhaps?), going on around the sides and top edge that give it a look reminiscent of an antique violin. The faux soundhole containing a rotating plate holding the pickups is also a novel idea and must have - if this is a 1960s bass, and I'm pretty certain that it is - pre-dated Rick Turner's use of the same idea on his Model 1 guitar (as played by Fleetwood Mac's Lyndsey Buckingham).

So, what do we know of Davoli? (I originally typed that as Davioli to rhymes with a popular Italian pasta dish. I must be hungry.) Well, Athos Davoli was a friend and associate of Antonio "Wandre" Pioli, and was responsible for the electrics and pickups found on Wandre guitars. Indeed, the names Wandre and Davioli are inextricably linked. Davoli started his own electronics workshop in 1957, and produced a range of amplifiers and PA systems under the Davioli Krundaal banner in the early 1960s before teaming up with Wandre.

The seller of this bass suggests that it was created by Wandre, although it is very different - almost conservative - compared to the majority of his guitars. Most noticeably, it does not have a metal neck with bolted on headstock. This isn't to say that there was no Wandre connection, but I feel it's interesting that this bass is referred to specifically as a "Davoli".

If anyone knows the full story or has any further info, then please do share!

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Z.S. Thomas Custom Electric Guitars

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I suppose one of the things we are sometimes guilty of on this blog is that to an extent we are living in the past. When looking for the weird, wacky and wonderful - indeed the blog-worthy - we look to the past all too often and not towards new and contemporary instruments.

I suppose this is partly a backlash against the major guitar companies, who issue and re-issue subtle variants of the same old guitar models over and over. I'm sorry but I'm not going to go to the effort of writing a blog post about the latest Stratocaster offering from Fender that appears ostensibly to have no significant difference from the last one they were raving about. Gibson are a bit more amusing with their re-hashed designs with reverse bodies and guitars with holes cut out of them, but I'd rather leave this coverage to the other blogs and look for something more original. (And some of my fellow bloggers will sympathize when I mention the sheer onslaught of Epiphone press releases promoting the same guitars over and over. It doesn't put you into a good disposition towards a manufacturer.)

But, yes, here at Guitarz we are interested in genuine new products and innovation. We especially like the "little guy" who more often than not is behind the truly original and interesting guitar designs of the modern day.

I've been meaning to post about Z.S. Thomas Custom Electric Guitars for several months now but what with one thing and another and being slightly absent-minded these days, I kept managing to forget to do so. Until Seth Thomas himself, the luthier behind Z.S. Thomas guitars, gave me a kick up the arse (or "ass" if you're American - but in the UK that's just another word for donkey) and asked me when I was going to get around to it.

From the front the Z.S. Thomas guitar is a fairly recognisable design, but as you'll appreciate from viewing the graphic showing the guitar in rotation, the body is in fact ergonomically contoured and sculpted to fit snugly against the human form.

Now what the photo at the top of this post doesn't show you is the rear of the guitar. I so wanted to show you a picture of the rear, and so have taken one from the Z.S. Thomas website.

Now, looking at the photos above and the one here on the left, what do you notice?

Anything unusual at all?

Anything missing in fact?

You'll see that there is no pickguard on the front of the guitar, but also no access plates on the rear of the guitar.

So, the $64,000 question is, how does Mr Thomas get all the electrickery inside?

Here's the cunning part. It's an invention call the "pot pod". Other than the pickup routing, the only other routing in the guitar is a circular hole beneath each of the volume and tone controls. The volume and tone pots are each mounted in a little unit - the pot pod - and these are inserted into the holes. Very clever. And which leaves for a guitar with a minium of routing, no extraneous cavities, and which should resonate all the better. It also, of course, has a very neat appearance with no plates on the front or back, because they simply are not needed.

If I did have a criticism, I'd say that I'm personally not too enamoured by the oversize knobs, no doubt chosen because they cover the whole of the top of each pot pod (1.25" diameter), but these are custom-built guitars and I'm sure Mr Thomas would oblige with a different choice of knob if that's what the customer asked for. There must be plenty of knobs of a top-hat style with a wide lower flange that could cover the required area. But as I say, this is just a very minor issue, and a purely personal one.

Read more here: www.zsthomas.com

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Rickenbacker 481 guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Another "bass-shaped" Rickenbacker guitar has turned up on eBay, this time it's a Rickenbacker 481.

The differences between this and the Rickenbacker 480 we looked at the other day are subtle. The 481 does not have the contoured edges of the 480, instead it has a bound body. You'll also observe that it has different pickups (humbuckers) mounted on a larger pickguard.

The pickups, in fact, are set at an angle. Look closer and you'll see that the bridge, nut and the frets themselves are also angled, but not like on a modern "fanned fret" guitar (such as the Novax system); these frets are angled whilst remaining parallel with each other. (In other words, the scale-length is contant for each string, unlike on fanned-fret instruments).

I believe (at least I'm pretty sure I read somewhere) that this was an early attempt a left-hand ergonomics. In reality, it didn't play any better or worse than regular "straight" frets, and so the idea was abandoned. At least, that's how I remember the story. If you know differently, then - as ever - please let us know with a note in the comments below.

G L Wilson

NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!

The Misa Digital Guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:


The Misa digital guitar is an Aussie MIDI synth-controller and which - at first glance - reminds me of a more professional Yamaha EZ-EG combined with a KAOSS-pad type controller, although to say that is probably to do it a dis-service.

It is powered by the Linux operating system and software is open-source, allowing individuals the flexibility to modify it to their own requirements and to share their innovations with others. Sounds a bit too much like rocket science to me, I'm afraid.

Read all about it at: misadigital.com

Thanks to Dave Brown for submitting this to Guitarz.

G L Wilson

NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!

The evolution of Lubani RotoNeck guitars

guitarz.blogspot.com: In February we took an all-too brief look at a Roberts RotoNeck guitar. I don't think we really knew quite what we were looking at at the time. Such is the beauty of the internet, that one of the guitar's creators has been in touch.

Curt Roberts with the original 4-sided RotoNeck guitar

Lou Bonkowski writes:

"I am the co-inventor of the RotoNeck and it has evolved quite far from the version you have there on the blog. Our very first RotoNeck was four sided with four 6-string guitars on one neck. Looked like a table leg. [pictured above]

"The evolution of RotoNeck started back in the late 70s while Curt Roberts and Lou 'Lubani' Bonkowski were living in the San Bernardino Mountains. Lake Arrowhead to be exact. The first concept model was cut out of a 4x4 piece of pine wood which later became the 'Roberts RotoNeck', a 4 sided guitar on one neck which each neck had its own tuning and you could rotate the guitar on two lexan discs. I have since then built approximately a dozen other concept models in search of the right model to manufacture. There are so many different models that this whole invention has gotten way too out of hand. The versions of RotoNeck are ENDLESS!!!

"Almost immediately the three-sided and two-sided versions became dreams. We built the two-sided version first. I wanted to put it in a body and Curt wanted to continue using the lexan discs. You have the version just mentioned [on the blog - pictured above] and it is called 'Roberts RotoNeck' I believe there might be as many as 12 to 15 of these. I have one and my son has another plus the very first 10 in the series never even got built. I believe the serial numbers started at 010.

"Anyway soon there after and at our first NAMM Show, we did another run of 13 RotoNecks that were spun in the body, not on the discs. This line was a combination of 6x6 and 6x12 [i.e. 6 and 12-strings]. I think only a few 12-6s, not sure.

"I wanted a line of guitars named after my father 'Lou Bonnie', studio musician and guitar great of the 30s, 40s and 50s. I came up with the name while living in Hawaii and spelled the name Hawaiian style: 'Lubani'.

"While living in Hawaii in the early 90s I came up with the concept of just using four strings on the thumb side of the guitar and putting those strings in a tuning so at any given moment during the use of the six string side the notes on the open four string side could be easily accessed or by just using a thumb-over as a capo, compliment the adjacent cord formed on the six string side. Also each side of the guitar is amplified seperately and can be either played separately or together sounding like almost three different instruments. I am calling this version/model 'Lubani Tener' and have another nine string version with only 5 strings on the bottom side and 4 on the thumb side. This is called 'Lubani Niner' and has a very slim neck and feel. The 'Niner' is my favorite because of the thinness of feel. At present Curt Roberts is playing this guitar. He won't give it back to me he likes it so much. He would be the person to demonstrate how to play RotoNeck guitars. Your hand has to reform itself to play certain models which makes the early versions of RotoNeck not very desireable to play. The 'Tener' and the 'Niner' are very much more desireable.

"I have two 'Teners' here with me in Port Orchard, WA and would love to find a couple of shredders to try and learn this instrument. Got any suggestions?"

Lou Bonkowski

Lou demonstrates a few RotoNeck chords:

I'd like to thank Lou for taking the time to answer questions about the RotoNeck guitars and for supplying photos from his archive for this article. If any shredders want to take Lou up on his offer, you can contact him via us here at Guitarz.

All photos courtesy of Lou Bonkowski. Please do not copy without permission.

G L Wilson

NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!