PG's Pat Smith walks us through his latest review in the June
2010 issue of Premier Guitar -- the Ritter Instruments Princess
Isabella Baritone Jazz Guitar.
The Isabella is Jens Ritter's
(renowned bass luthier) take on building a hollowbody-style guitar but
with a solid body construction. It also uniquely thin as it only
measures 1" thick. Also, it has a very different bridge
design/construction, which Ritter describes as "the hand cast bridge
foot is mounted into a small hollowed area carved into the body that
exactly matches the contour of the bridge foot. The bridge foot is held
in place by a friction setting and only makes contact with a 2mm thin
elliptical contour ridge along the hollow area. Thus, most of the
surface area on the interior side of the bridge foot and the bridge
studs float in the hollow area."
The body is made from a very
light swamp ash, the neck is switenia mahogany and the fingerboard is
Bavarian maple. The tuners are Gotohs, the bridge is a Schaller and the
pickup is a Haeussel Custom Fat-Jazz.