Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley first connected in Nashville in 2013, after the two had individually established themselves as formidable players in the bluegrass scene.
Life on the road is, quite literally, a driving force in country music. From the baleful strains of Hank Williams’ classic “Lost Highway” to Willie Nelson’s perennially uplifting “On the Road Again,” the endless black ribbon has inspired more songs, with a wider range of moods and emotions than there are twists and turns on a Blue Ridge mountain switchback. So it was only fitting that when Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley started digging into ideas with Grammy-winning producer Brent Maher, they found themselves chasing a familiar theme.
“Three crappy gigs in Ohio had a lot to do with it,” Ickes recalls with a laugh as he recounts the story behind the title cut to Living In A Song, the duo’s fourth album together, and their second with Maher producing. “I remember I was sick that weekend, just wore out, and I was sleeping in the car between soundcheck and showtime. It was just a weird experience, and then a couple of weeks later, Trey started singing this song. In the end, I think it’s about persevering. It can suck out here, but this is what you do when you love something, you know?”
Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley - Thanks
To be sure, the journey to where they are now has covered a lot of miles. After moving cross-country from the Bay Area to Nashville in 1992, Ickes emerged as a fleet-fingered demon on the dobro, first as a founding member of bluegrass band Blue Highway, whose early albums were released on Dick Freeland’s Rebel Records, the original home of bluegrass heroes the Seldom Scene. (That band’s Mike Auldridge, a key influence and eventual collaborator with Ickes, is a dobro legend in his own right.) A long-time player of Tim Scheerhorn’s resonator guitars—with his Wechter Scheerhorn 6500 series signature model introduced in 2006—Ickes is renowned for his singularly wide range of expression on lap steel. Folding down-home blues, country, and jazz into his repertoire, he has shared the spotlight with such heavyweights as Merle Haggard, Earl Scruggs, Vince Gill, and Alison Krauss, to name just a few.
Rig Rundown: Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley
Full Rig Details: https://bit.ly/Ickes-HensleyRRSubscribe to PG's Channel: https://bit.ly/SubscribePGYouTubeClick here to check out their new album Living in ...In 2013, he connected with Hensley in Nashville. Then just 22, Hensley had already carved out his own path as a child prodigy, having made his Grand Ole Opry debut with Earl Scruggs himself at the tender young age of 11. Brandishing a stalwart ’54 Martin D-28, he’s a sterling and technically gifted flatpicker whose own contemporaries claim him as an influence, but one of his most endearing traits is undoubtedly his humility. Just ask him to tell the story of how he came to play at the Carter Family Fold for Johnny and June Carter Cash; he still sounds as bowled over by the experience as he must have been when he was a kid.
For Living In A Song, the picking duo worked with producer Brent Maher, with whom they collaborated on 2019’s World Full of Blues.
“Actually, I think we borrowed one of Johnny’s tube mics to record vocals this time,” Hensley says with a smile. In the same train of thought, he name-drops Luther Perkins, whose licks on Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” were an early inspiration, as well as Roy Nichols—the understated but precision flatpicker on Cash’s classic “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” and later known for his long and legendary stint with Merle Haggard’s band. When it comes to knowing his craft, Hensley is still just as much a student as he is an innovator of country, bluegrass, rockabilly, and good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll.
All that experience came to bear on Living In A Song, which has its roots in the songwriting sessions that Ickes and Hensley took up in earnest with Brent Maher at his Blueroom Studios in Berry Hill, just outside of Nashville. “Mostly I come at it as a guitar player,” Hensley says with his usual modesty. “I’m a guitar player first, a singer way out in second somewhere, and a songwriter in distant third, you know? So from my perspective, here’s a guitar thing from me or Rob, and then all these cool melodies that Brent would just come up with, seemingly out of thin air. I mean, we wrote 30 songs or more, so that was a totally different experience, and I think that’s the overlying theme of this record. It’s just us being songwriters. That’s how this one is so much different.”
“I mean, we wrote 30 songs or more, so that was a totally different experience, and I think that’s the overlying theme of this record. It’s just us being songwriters.”—Trey Hensley
Maher has worked with all the major players—his biggest songwriting success was “Why Not Me” by the Judds, but he’s engineered and produced sessions with Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers, Nickel Creek, Shelby Lynne and plenty more. “We had written with Brent a little bit before,” Ickes notes, referring to 2019’s World Full of Blues (which also features guest shots from Vince Gill and Taj Mahal), “but with this record, we definitely made a conscious decision to write most of it. Then when the pandemic came along, it was like okay, we’ve got a little bit more time now. And I wouldn’t say he taught us, but just by working with somebody like that, you learn a lot. I know Trey and I both gained a lot of confidence from the experience, because you just start with nothing, and then after a couple of hours, you’ve got something.”
Rob Ickes' Gear
Ickes has two resonator signature models: one from the Wechter Scheerhorn 6500 series and the other by Byrl Guitars.
Photo by Jim Summaria
Guitars
- Byrl Guitars Rob Ickes Signature Series resonator
- Byrl Guitars flamed-maple shallow-body resonator
- ’40s Oahu Tonemaster lap steel
- 1932 Rickenbacker Frying Pan
- Fishman Nashville Series Resonator Guitar pickups
Amps
- ’65 Fender Deluxe black-panel
Effects
- Fishman Spectrum DI box
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario Medium Bronze (.016–.056)
- BlueChip Reso thumb pick
- Cobalt BP gold-plated finger picks
The album jumps off with the title cut—a slow-building ode that quickly grows inspirational, channeling tastes of Kris Kristofferson and Beggars Banquet-era Rolling Stones. Playing Maher’s full-sounding ’80s Gibson J-200 acoustic (his main guitar throughout most of the album), Hensley captures the feeling of solitude from the first line: “Well, I’ve been on this highway for about eight hours now….” with Ickes following on one of several resonators made by Indiana-based luthier Byrl Murdock (who designed and debuted a signature model with Ickes just last year). When the rest of the band kicks in—Pete Wasner on keyboards, Mike Bub on bass, and John Alvey on drums—and Ickes proceeds to rip a lap-steel solo on a vintage Oahu Tonemaster running through Maher’s ’65 black-panel Fender Deluxe, it all becomes clear what they’re going for: a rich, tone-heavy experience, tracked mostly live in the studio with few overdubs, and harking back to a time when capturing the pure essence of the song was the only goal.
“It wasn’t like they got the tape measure out to see how close the microphone was to my guitar, you know?” Hensley jokes. “But there’s a lot of attention to detail. We even toyed around with the idea of cutting analog, but tape just breaks the budget before you even get started. In the end, it didn’t matter. With Brent and his engineer Charles [Yingling], it just seems like they get great sounds in that room without really thinking about it too much.”
And when they plugged in, the same principles applied. You can hear a taste of the Allman Brothers in the barrelhouse anthem “Moonshine Run,” where Hensley grabs a ’52 Telecaster copy, built by Bristol, Tennessee’s own Chuck Tipton. “I talked Chuck into building me a Tele because he had just taken all these blueprints of a real ’52, or maybe even a ’51 Broadcaster—one of these really killer guitars,” he explains. “It’s been my main electric up until recently, and the Fender Deluxe just crushes the damn thing. I hooked up my wah on the third verse for five seconds just to please myself [laughs]! That amp makes anything sound good.”
“We even toyed around with the idea of cutting analog, but tape just breaks the budget before you even get started. In the end, it didn’t matter.”—Trey Hensley
And once again, it’s this commitment to capturing a sound, always in service to the song, that makes Living In A Song such a compelling document. Whether it’s in the poignant Glenn Campbell-isms of “Backstreets Off Broadway” (with Ickes blending seamlessly on background vocals), or the rapidfire energy that propels their version of the Doc Watson classic “Way Downtown” (a Martin D-28 vehicle for Hensley, with bluegrass ace Stuart Duncan burning up his fiddle in tribute), or the spontaneous mischief that sparked “Louisiana Woman” (a jam inspired from-the-hip by Buck Owens’ famed “Diggy Liggy Lo,” and rounded out by Tim Lauer on accordion), Ickes and Hensley are so sympatico with where they’re headed, at this point it just seems to come naturally.
“Most of our favorite records are very live-in-the-studio,” Ickes observes, “so that’s typically the way we operate. And it goes really quick. I don’t think we’ve taken more than two days to make a record yet.”
Trey Hensley's Gear
Hensley made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, playing with Earl Scruggs, when he was just 11 years old.
Photo by Jim Summaria
Guitars
- ’80s Gibson J-200
- 1954 Martin D-28
- 2021 Martin D-41 standard (on tour)
- 1965 Harmony Sovereign Deluxe H1265
- Preston Thompson acoustic with Gene Parsons B-bender
- Chuck Tipton T-style
- L.R. Baggs Anthem SL pickup
Amps
- ’65 Fender Deluxe black-panel
- Fender Tone Master Deluxe (live)
Effects
- L.R. Baggs Voiceprint DI box
- Boss CE-2W Waza Craft Chorus
- Boss HM-2W Waza Craft Heavy Metal Distortion
- DigiTech Whammy Ricochet
- Electro-Harmonix Micro Q-Tron
- Grace Design ALiX preamp
- Keeley Reverb
Strings & Picks
- D'Addario Nickel Bronze (.013–.056)
- BlueChip TAD60 picks
For his part, Ickes also finds it easier to tap into a deeper level of expression, and some of that has to do with his main instrument. “I was playing Scheerhorns forever, but Byrl’s guitars have just a little more crispness,” he says. “What I like in a really good dobro—and I think a lot of this actually has to do with the way they do the bridge, but there’s a response time. I mean, this guitar is in your face frickin’ immediately. It just seems like it gets to my ear quicker than any other guitar I’ve played. And that’s exciting, you know? It’s like a force or something.”
The excitement becomes visceral on songs like A.P. Carter’s “I’m Working On A Building” and the haunting ballad “I Thought I Saw A Carpenter,” which Ickes wrote for his dying father. His flawless instincts on lap steel are beginning to reach that rarified zone where the chord choices that would ordinarily originate with a pedal-steel guitar have crept into his playing—sometimes unexpectedly, but always with a relaxed sense of intention that still keeps him grounded.
“Most of our favorite records are very live-in-the-studio, so that’s typically the way we operate. I don’t think we’ve taken more than two days to make a record yet.”—Rob Ickes
There’s one player he cites as a key influence. “Jerry Byrd, man,” he says without hesitation. “He had this way of playing that was like a voice, you know? Obviously on a slide instrument, the pitch is very critical, and very difficult, and he just never missed it. It came from his soul, and at the same time he was just a great technician. You never heard the bar; you never heard the pick. All you heard was the music.”
For Living In A Song, as the title suggests, Rob and Trey explored their songwriting abilities more earnestly than on previous records.
Photo by Jeff Fasano
“Technically on the dobro, we don’t usually give a lot of vibrato,” he continues, “but he did, and it didn’t sound nervous. To me, that opened up a whole new way of playing using my left hand that I had never considered, because I didn’t want that nervous sound. And I honestly don’t know how he does it, but it’s kind of rubbed off on me. Somehow I’m able to do it, and it just sounds more in tune.”
Of course, the act of songwriting itself describes an ongoing journey toward self-discovery—the “long and winding road” that can lead to enlightenment, or wisdom, or redemption, or any exalted state you can imagine when you’re tapping into what Harlan Howard called “three chords and the truth.” As if to accentuate the point, Hensley takes the album’s concluding song, “Thanks,” as an example of the serendipity that can unfold so suddenly when you attune yourself to what’s right in front of you.
“I mean, this guitar is in your face frickin’ immediately. It just seems like it gets to my ear quicker than any other guitar I’ve played.”—Rob Ickes
“A friend of mine, Lyle Brewer, had written the melody,” he recalls, “and he asked me if I might want to write something to it. And honestly, it just sat there for a bit, because I didn’t listen to it with enough intention to really focus on it, but the title of the song as he had written it was ‘Thanks.’ And of course I’m a big Tom T. Hall fan, and as soon as I heard it, it sounded like something he would have written. It just came to me and it was done. It was done before it ever began, really. I feel like that song always existed, and I just stumbled on it, you know?”
When the duo convened with Maher at the studio to record it, lightning struck again. “It was just us, me and Rob and Brent, sitting in the studio with a few mics up, with no real intention other than we’re gonna get this down as a demo. And I remember Brent—you can hear it. He picks up a guitar about a verse in, and starts hitting the back of it, as a percussion thing, you know? We got to listening to it, and Brent told us, ‘What do you think if we just use this version? It has a vibe to it, and it’s silly to try it again if we’ve already got it.’ And I love it, because that’s the version that made the record. Every time I hear Brent pick up that guitar, it just makes me smile.”
YouTube It
Ickes and Hensley perform the title track from Living In A Song, with Trey leading with his rich vocal and acoustic textures before Rob enters with his signature resonator twang and harmonies.
Vox’s Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
I spent a day workshopping ideas in my studio using just the Vox Valvenergy Smooth Impact compressor and Tone Sculptor EQ, and a dash of amp tremolo and reverb to taste. In the process, I produced more arresting sounds than I had heard from my guitars in many days. There were radical direct-to-desk-style Jimmy Page/Beatles distortion tones, sun-sized, cosmic electric 12-string, Bakersfield twang that could burn through crude, and many other sweet and nasty colors. Most decent EQ and compressor combinations can achieve variations on all those themes. But the Smooth Impact and Tone Sculptor also reveal interesting personalities in unexpected places.
The individuality and energy in the Vox Valvenergy pedals is attributable, in part, to the Nutube vacuum tube used in the circuit. Though it looks little like a vacuum tube as most guitarists know them, the thin, wafer-like Nutube is, in fact, a real vacuum tube like those used in fluorescent displays. Fluorescent display tubes have limitations. A maximum operating voltage of around 40 volts means they aren’t useful for bigger power tube applications like a 6L6, which has an operating voltage of about 400 volts. But it can work quite well as a preamp tube in concert with an op amp power section, which is how the Nutube is used in the new Valvenergy pedals, as well as older Vox products like the Vox MV50 and Superbeetle amps.
Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
When you think about “cinematic” effects, you likely imagine big reverb or modulation sounds that create a vivid picture and feeling of space or motion. But narrow, hyper-focused EQ profiles can evoke very different and equally powerful images. Radical EQ settings can add aggression, claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts more evocative of Hitchcock’s Psycho than Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Any of these moods can be summoned from the Valvenergy Tone Sculptor. Six sliders cut or boost 10 dB frequency bands spanning 100 Hz to 5.6 kHz. A seventh slider cuts or boosts the master output by 12 dB. This platter of options might not sound like much. But you can use these seven controls together to very specific ends.
“Radical EQ settings can add aggression, near-claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts.”
For example, bumping the high-midrange and the master output produces narrow cocked-wah-like filter sounds with enough push to produce extra amp overdrive—effectively turning the Tone Sculptor into a buzzy, almost fuzz-like filter effect. But unlike a wah, you can carefully scoop high end or add a spoonful of bass to blunt harsh frequencies or give the tone a bit more weight. You can also broaden the palette of an amp/guitar pairing. I matched a particularly trebly Jazzmaster bridge pickup with a very hot and toppy Vox AC15-flavored amp for this test—a recipe that can be spiky on the best days. But with the Tone Sculptor in the line, I could utilize the same sharp, fuzzy, and filtered Mick Ronson wah tones while shaving some of the most piercing frequencies.
EQ pedals exist on many points along the cost spectrum. And at $219, the Tone Sculptor lives on the high side of the affordable range. Does it offer something less expensive models can’t deliver? Well, for one thing, I found it relatively quiet, which is nice whether you’re shaping toppy high-contrast effects or performing more surgical adjustments. And the sliders feel nuanced and nicely tapered rather than like a dull axe with a few basic frequency notches. But in many situations I also liked the color imparted by the circuit—generated, presumably, by the Nutube. “Color,” in audio terms, is a broad and subjective thing, and one should not necessarily expect the warm, tube-y glow of a vintage tube Pultec. Still, the Tone Sculptor has many forgiving, flattering qualities—typical of studio EQs—that enable fine tuning and experimentation with more radical and creative applications of the effect.
Valvenergy Smooth Impact
As with the Tone Sculptor, the Smooth Impact’s use of Nutube engenders certain expectations. It’s easy to surmise that because Smooth Impact has a vacuum tube in the circuit that it will behave like a little Teletronix LA-2A leveling amplifier. That’s a big ask for a $219 stompbox. On the other hand, the Smooth Impact exhibits some appealing characteristics of studio tube compression. At lower compression levels, it works well as a thickening agent—adding mass without much additional noise. And at higher compression levels it can sound snappy, crisp, and tight without feeling like you’ve bled every trace of overtone from your signal.
The Smooth Impact’s controls aren’t totally atypical. But because it lacks some familiar features like variable attack and release, yet is more complicated than a 1-knob DynaComp, you have to trust your ear to navigate interactions among the controls. The most unfamiliar of these is the 3-way vintage/natural/sag toggle. The first two are defined by preset attack and release settings: Vintage is slow attack and long release, and natural is the opposite. The sag mode’s compression is more like what you get from tube saturation, and it’s useful for adding thickness and complexity to a thin amp tone at modest compression levels.
Though the vintage and natural modes certainly have a different feel, they don’t always sound worlds apart. And like the sag mode, the thing they have in common is the way they enrich lifeless amp output at low to medium compression, with a bit of grind from the tube gain and a little extra makeup gain from the output. At the most aggressive settings, the tube gain can get a little crispy. And really crushing the compression can flatline your tone without adding much in the way of extra sustain. These are limitations common to many compressors with similar features. But unless I was chasing very ultra-snappy Prince and Nile Rodgers fast-funk caricatures, I enjoyed the Smooth Impact most in its in-between ranges, where mass, mild, harmonious drive, and low noise showcase the pedal’s sometimes studio-like personality.
Guitarist Dave Harrington concedes that while there are a few mile markers in the music that he and musician Nicolas Jaar create as Darkside, improvisation has been the rule from day one. The experimental electronic trio’s latest record, Nothing, which released in February on Matador, was the first to feature new percussionist Tlacael Esparza.
Taking the record on tour this year, Darkside stopped in at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, where Harrington broke down his complex signal chains for PG’s Chris Kies.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Express Yourself
Harrington bought this mid-2000s Gibson SG at 30th Street Guitars in New York, a shop he used to visit as a kid. The headstock had already been broken and repaired, and Harrington switched the neck pickup to a Seymour Duncan model used by Derek Trucks. Harrington runs it with D’Addario NYXL .010s, which he prefers for their stretch and stability.
The standout feature is a round knob installed by his tech behind the bridge, which operates like an expression pedal for the Line 6 DL4. Harrington has extras on hand in case one breaks.
Triple Threat
Harrington’s backline setup in Nashville included two Fender Twin Reverbs and one Fender Hot Rod DeVille. He likes the reissue Fender amps for their reliability and clean headroom. Each amp handles an individual signal, including loops that Harrington creates and plays over; with each amp handling just one signal rather than one handling all loops and live playing, there’s less loss of definition and competition for frequency space.
Dave Harrington’s Pedalboards
Harrington says he never gives up on a pedal, which could explain why he’s got so many. You’re going to have to tune in to the full Rundown to get the proper scoop on how Harrington conducts his three-section orchestra of stomps, but at his feet, he runs a board with a Chase Bliss Habit, Mu-Tron Micro-Tron IV, Eventide PitchFactor, Eventide H90, Hologram Microcosm, Hologram Chroma Console, Walrus Monument, Chase Bliss Thermae, Chase Bliss Brothers AM, JHS NOTAKLÖN, two HexeFX reVOLVERs, and an Amped Innovations JJJ Special Harmonics Extender. A Strymon Ojai provides power.
At hip-level sits a board with a ZVEX Mastotron, Electro-Harmonix Cathedral, EHX Pitch Fork, Xotic EP Booster, two EHX 45000 multi-track looping recorders, Walrus Slöer, Expedition Electronics 60 Second Deluxe, and another Hologram Microcosm. A Live Wire Solutions ABY Box and MXR DC Brick are among the utility tools on deck.
Under that board rest Harrington’s beloved Line 6 DL4—his desert-island, must-have pedal—along with a controller for the EHX 45000, Boss FV-50H volume pedal, Dunlop expression pedal, Boss RT-20, a Radial ProD2, and another MXR DC Brick.
This story’s author played this Belltone B-Classic 3 and found its neck instantly appealing, the tremolo capable of taking abuse and staying in tune, and the Filter’Tron pickups possessed of hi-fi clarity. Also, the sky burst metallic finish is pure eye candy.
That’s where guitar-by-menu comes in. Think of it as Build–A-Bear for guitar players, but louder and with cooler options, like a coral pink sparkle finish or a trapeze tailpiece. A coterie of manufacturers offers such services, some with online pull-down menus that cover everything from pickups to, well, all that goes into a guitar. And the advantage here is that no particular expertise other than knowing what you love to play and why you love to play it is required. You dig a Tele or a Jazzmaster or an SG or a Firebird from a certain era, but want a specific bridge or pickup combination, a ’50s or late-’60s neck, a finish not available in production models? No problem. Or maybe you crave something a tad more distinctive, with a non-traditional body shape, no headstock, and a finish that draws from the color palette of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. All you gotta do is ask … or, rather, pick, click, order, or email, perhaps with a phone call to confirm the details.
We spoke to a clutch of large and smaller guitar companies—Belltone, Kiesel, Fender, and Gibson—to see how they do it.
The Belltone Way
“I was always the guy who had to tweak the guitar no matter what it was,” says Belltone founder Steve Harriman. “I changed out the pickups, I changed the pickguards, tuners, whatever.”
Like former Gibson CEO James Curleigh, Belltone Guitars founder Stephen King Harriman was an apparel executive with Perry Ellis before starting the Florida-based company in 2016. But the gig he’s had since junior high school is guitarist.
“I was always the guy who had to tweak the guitar no matter what it was,” Harriman says. “I changed out the pickups, I changed the pickguards, tuners, whatever. I always had to make what I was playing, whether it was a Les Paul or a Tele, unique, so it would be personally mine.”
Initially, Belltone offered modded versions of Les Paul- and Telecaster-style guitars, but in 2019 he reframed his business, designing an ergonomically contoured pear-shaped body and distinctive 6-on-a-side headstock as a foundation, and establishing a group of craftspeople to bring his solidbody B-Classic One, B-Classic Two, and B-Classic Three variations to life.
Today, Belltone guitars are made for players looking for a similar mix of the fresh and the familiar, at $2,680 to $3,129, depending on appointments. And the range of appointments is impressive. Let’s start with the templates. The Classic One has a flat top with edge binding, an alder body, a rounded tapered neck pocket, the company’s signature Devil’s Tail bridge and angled switch-control plate, reverse-dome tall-boy knobs, and a 12" compound-radius neck (held on by four bolts), with 22 medium-jumbo frets. In contrast, the Classic Two has all of the above, except there are arm and body contours with no binding, and the Classic Three offers the same plus Belltone’s patented Back-Lip Tremolo System and top hat controls.
“I’m inspired by a lot of ’50s and ’60 car designs for the elements of my guitars.”—Belltone’s Steve Harriman
Then, there’s a rabbit hole of options. There are 36 finish choices, with 10 ’bursts—including gorgeous black cherry burst, sky burst metallic, and lemon burst shades—requiring an upcharge of $40. There are varied pickguards to choose from within Belltone’s distinctive “Deco” version, which comes in black, white, and brown tortoise. There are four neck combinations (standard C and ’59 roundback profiles, with maple or rosewood fretboards), four tuner options (locking tuners from Belltone, Sperzel, and Kluson, plus ratio tuners), and a set of any-gauge Stringjoys. And the selection of pickups is truly impressive—36 in all, from TV Jones, Benson, Rio Grande, Mojo, Lindy Fralin, Porter, McNelly, Righteous Sound, Gabojo, and the newly added Brickhouse Tone Works. And within those selections are standard and hum-cancelling P-90s, stacked humbuckers, PAF humbuckers, regular and noiseless single-coils, multiple Filter’Tron variations, and more. Further, via Belltone’s Tone-Sure program, if a customer feels they’ve made the wrong call on pickups after playing their guitar a while, Belltone will swap them out at no charge save for covering shipping and the additional cost of pricier units.
“I’m inspired by a lot of ’50s and ’60 car designs for the elements of my guitars,” Harriman attests. “If you look at my bridge, for example, it’s got kind of a tailfin look to it. For me, guitars need to not only play well and sound great, but look cool. Also, everything is designed by me and is machine-tooled. My bridge is machine-tooled aluminum with rounded contours, as your palm can get roughed up on the old-style stamped ashtray bridges. I take all the things that make players happy into consideration.” Including sturdy and handsome faux-alligator-skin cases.
A deliberative buyer could spend weeks contemplating all of Belltone’s options before pushing the “submit” button, and then, instead of being invoiced, they are contacted directly by Harriman to review it all again before his luthiers get to work.
Gibson’s Made to Measure
One of Gibson’s Made to Measure fantasies: an SG with three humbuckers in a crimson sparkle finish.
The 131-year-old Gibson company’s Made to Measure (MTM) program is a bit more conservative … but only if you’d call a hot-crimson-sparkle SG with three humbuckers, a burgundy Les Paul Standard with a full-fretboard vine inlay, a champagne-pink-sparkle Les Paul, or a 3-pickup Firebird with a P-90 in the middle conservative.
There are two ways to initiate an order for an MTM guitar. You can fill out the online questionnaire on the Gibson Custom Shop’s Made to Measure page or stop by the Nashville or London locations of the Gibson Garage in person. I visited the Nashville Garage for this story, where I spoke with Dustin Wainscott, director of the Made to Measure program, and Matt Boyer, the sales associate you’d likely encounter if you walked into the Music City shop. They brought a clutch of recent MTM examples. And a wall of the MTM room was covered in slabs of wood, available for the choosing, and various bridges, tuners, pickups, and other parts for inspection and selection. Of course, some of the on-location fun is speaking with MTM program leaders like Boyer and Wainscott, who love guitars as much as you do and are happy to swap stories.
Whether by email, which will likely be followed up by a call from Boyer, or in person, the conversation that starts a MTM order begins with questions about body style, neck preference, electronics configuration, and the finish type and treatment.
“On the cosmetic side, we can go as far as you want to, with any color or finish you want.”—Gibson’s Dustin Wainscott
At the Gibson Garage Nashville, Dustin Wainscott, director of the Made to Measure program, and Matt Boyer, the sales associate in charge of MTM at that location, brandish a pair of custom-ordered instruments.
Photo by Ted Drozdowski
Essentially, any Gibson body currently in production and most historic appointments from that model’s history—and some from other compatible Gibson models—can be used for an MTM order. After selecting the white wood, as slabs are called in lutherie, “figuring out the pickup layout, the neck profile, and the tailpiece you want is the next step,” says Wainscott. “Then you get into the electronics and the look of the guitar: pickup selection, coil-splitting, what color or finish hardware, a glossy or flat finish, any Murphy Lab aging.
“Non-proprietary parts can sometimes be a roadblock. Typically, we’d use our pickups, for example, so if somebody makes a request for a pickup outside of Gibson’s, I try to steer them toward something we have that’s similar. You’ve got to play in the Gibson sandbox.” Stepping outside of historic model-design parameters, which would require re-engineering, is also a no-fly. That means don’t ask for a Les Paul with a Firebird neck, or an Explorer with a 3-on-a-side headstock. That said, there is a lot of wiggle room within the company’s catalog, and “on the cosmetic side, we can go as far as you want to, with any color or finish you want,” adds Wainscott. Personalized headstocks are also a popular option.
A Made to Measure order’s price starts with a $500 charge on top of a model’s current tag, and can increase depending on the complexity of wiring, finish, inlays, etc. Wainscott notes that about 30 percent of the Custom Shop’s business is Made to Measure.
“We also do a lot of recreating of models you’ve seen in the past that aren’t available now,” adds Boyer. “So, we can’t make a Jimmy Page Les Paul with his name on it, per se, but if you want a Les Paul Custom with three pickups, a Bigsby, a 6-position switch, and all that, we can do it for you.”
Kiesel’s Family Style
Kiesel can get as rad as you wanna be, including characterful flourishes like this naturally figured wood with pools of radiant blue finish and an organically striking neck.
Kiesel Guitars has essentially always been a custom-order builder, even if its name and line of business has evolved. The L.C. Kiesel Company was founded in 1946 by Lowell Kiesel as a manufacturer of pickups he sold from the back pages of magazines. As it grew, he renamed it after two of his sons, Carson and Gavin, as the well-known brand Carvin, which became famous as a maker of quality guitars, amps, and instrument parts. In 2015, the company split, Lowell’s son Mark and his son Jeff established the guitar-building operation under the Kiesel name. Today, thanks to their high-caliber construction and endorsees like Allan Holdsworth, Devin Townsend, Craig Chaquico, Jason Becker, and Johnny Hiland, the company makes more than 4,000 custom-order guitars a year.
“We have four types of construction: bolt-on, set-neck, set-through, and neck-through,” explains VP Jeff Kiesel. The company also offers the unusual choice of nine different headstocks, which most manufacturers limit to one style as part of branding, and sans-headstock models, which Kiesel began making in 2012 with the debut of its Allan Holdsworth model. All Kiesel headstocks have an 8 1/2-degree tilt, to create a steeper string angle over the nut, which can potentially improve tone and sustain.
At work on a body in the Kiesel factory, which produces about 4,000 custom-order guitars annually.
“We’re appealing to everybody because we do so many different things.”—Jeff Kiesel
“We never build the headstock separate from the neck and then scarf joint them in—it’s all one piece,” Kiesel adds. Necks are also quarter-sawn, with a two-way truss rod, dual carbon-fiber reinforcement rods, stainless steel frets, and Luminlay side dots.
After that, ordering a Kiesel is all about options. There are 56 models, including signatures, to choose from. Once you select a model on the company’s website, you’re taken to a page that includes a builder menu. Kiesel’s lowest-priced models, including the Delos, start at $1,649, while the top-priced, flagship K-Series model starts at $4,399.
The Aries, one of Kiesel’s most popular guitars, starts at a base of $1,699 with a bolt-on neck and has a menu that includes, under general options, right- or left-hand orientation; the choice of 6, 7, 8, or 9 strings; multiscale necks; and 25 1/2", 26 1/2", or 27" scale lengths. Under body options, you can select beveled or unbeveled edges, and eight different body and 16 different top woods. There are more than 80 finishes to choose from, and 14 variations on the Kiesel logo. The neck options are equally rich, with five fretboard radius selections plus choices for neck wood, three neck profiles, inlays, truss rod covers, and more. The electronic options boast four pickup configurations, five different Kiesel neck and bridge pickup models, and additional alternatives. It’s easy to get lost in the woods, but when you emerge, an image of your guitar with all its appointments, generated as you make your choices, is waiting for you.
“Our lead time is seven to 12 weeks,” Kiesel says, “and we offer a 10-day trial period unless somebody gets too wild on their options.” Anyone ordering a guitar is welcome to phone the company to talk over their order, and Kiesel highly recommends that first-time buyers call.
While Kiesel Guitars once had a reputation as a shredder-axe factory, Jeff Kiesel explains that’s changed over the past decade. “Our demographic is not set anymore,” he shares. “We’re appealing to everybody because we do so many different things. We can build a very classy jazz-style neck pickup on a semi-hollow guitar that you can play some amazing Frank Gambale licks on. And then we can turn around and build a guitar that will do some really technical modern metal, like Marc Okubo. We can build really wild or really classy, and that’s created so much growth within our company.”
Fender’s Mod Shop
Ted created this “dream Strat” with a silverburst finish, noiseless single-coils, and a 2-Point Deluxe Synchronized Tremolo Bridge using Fender’s Mod Shop online tool.
Like Gibson, Fender’s Mod Shop is about personalizing classic templates—in this case, the Strat, Tele, Jaguar, Jazzmaster, P and J basses, and Acoustasonic Telecasters and Jazzmasters. And while the program was birthed in 2014 as the American Design Experience, it evolved into the Mod Shop and has continued to improve, most recently with an update this April that made the online menu easier to use and added more options.
“We know that 80 percent of customers will be loyal to brands where they can personalize and customize,” says Shannon Stokes, Fender’s VP of eCommerce. “So the whole online user experience has been finessed. It’s much easier to navigate on both desktop and mobile. You move through it choosing the orientation of the guitar, the finish … everything through the pickguard, the hardware.”
Justin Norvell, Fender’s VP of product, observes, “This is a playground, and you’re able to just mess around and see what appeals to you. We allow people to save their configurations to PDFs, and they can share them and send them out,” akin to trading cards. “There’s an exponential number of people that might sit on their favorite design for a year before they actually place an order.” Some hardcore fans buy multiple variations of a favorite-style guitar over time, “because you can engrave the neck plate, collect multiple finishes, and other cool stuff. This is an area where selection runs wild for lefties, too,” he adds.
Fender’s Justin Norvell with his own dream machine: an American Professional Jazzmaster in mystic seafoam.
“This is an area where selection runs wild for lefties, too.”—Fender’s Justin Norvell
“What’s amazing to me,” says Shannon Stokes, Fender’s VP of eCommerce, “is the number of people ordering black, white, and sunburst. I would think the rarer colors would be the thing.”
The cost of a Mod Shop guitar is an upcharge of several hundred dollars, with certain customizations increasing the tab. I decided to jump in and outfit a Strat, with a base price of $2,085, to my taste. After selecting the right-hand player’s orientation, I chose an alder body with a silverburst finish from a palette of nearly 50 colors and wood offerings that also included chambered ash, mahogany, and roasted pine. For the neck, I went with solid rosewood with Fender’s deep-C profile. Eight maple variations were also available. That neck option automatically led me to a rosewood fretboard, and then I hunted through 16 pickup configurations before stopping at the Generation 4 Noiseless Stratocaster set. I opted for a 4-ply black pearl pickguard, and aged white plastic controls and pickup frames. Next, from three bridge choices I tapped a 2-Point Deluxe Synchronized Tremolo Bridge. Chrome Fender strap lock buttons would do the job, since I’ve had un-strap-locked guitars fall to the stage at gigs in years past. For strings, a set for .010s, and the only case option is deluxe molded plastic with a fuzzy interior. Total cost: $2,175, which is not bad for those modest-but-swell appointments. I also downloaded a PDF, so you can see what I designed. Unhappy with the purchase? It can be returned within 30 days for a refund or exchange, plus shipping.
There’s about a half-dozen builders in the Mod Shop, but workers from the normal production line can be called in when there is an uptick in commissions, Norvell explains.
“What’s amazing to me,” says Stokes, “is the number of people ordering black, white, and sunburst. I love the satin orange because it’s vibrant, different. I would think the rarer colors would be the thing.” But players often look for instruments that are evocative of classic guitars they’ve seen. And 6-string dreams do come in all shades.
