Bill Tippin of Tippin Guitars has been designing, building and repairing stringed instruments for the past 30 years. He showcased a Crescendo Al Petteway (Staccato Fan Fret series) and a Bravado at this year's show.
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Mario Beauregard is a renowned luthier with clients on all continents. His instruments are true works of art and known for their beautiful designs and tonal qualities.
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This 17'' archtop acoustic-electric guitar from Ribbecke Guitars is an "X"-braced traditional instrument, featuring a hand-carved and graduated top and back. Four different archtop models are available in traditional or modern shape with several peghead designs.
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Osthoff Guitars featuring the Auditorium Series. Similar in size and depth to a Dreadnought, but with a newly refined body shape offering more clarity to individual notes. An excellent model for longer scale instruments.
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The Lyrist (left) by Bill Comins is violin-inspired. The body consists of solid mahogany and the top features a gracefully carved figured maple with fine inlayed purfling. The Vert Axe (right) is an electric jazz guitar designed to be played sitting straight up.
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Sheldon Schwartz of Schwartz Guitars has been building innovative guitars for 17 years. He brought an Oracle guitar and a new Small Jumbo to the show.
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John Monteleone's Quattroport features unique soundhole designs. A third hole is located on the side under the player's arm, and an elliptical soundhole is located on the top.
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Richard Baudry has more than 70 creations to his credit including acoustic, electric, and bass models, among others. He has made quite the name for himself not only in France, but also with amateurs, professionals and collectors in Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg.
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Jean-Yves Alquier specializes in building concert classical guitars. At the show, he presented his classical Juliette as well as a unique jazz guitar model built specially for the Montreal event.
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Franck Cheval of Cheval Guitars has created more than 550 customized guitars on special orders since 1981. He exhibited his signature model, his steel and nylon string acoustics as well as his sculpted archtops at this year's show.
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Jean-Marie Fouilleul was named the "best craftsman in France" in 1989, only 10 years after building his first guitar. He focuses mainly on enhancing performance guitars and draws inspiration from both ancient and modern instruments. He presented an Arche-type performance model at the show.
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Olivier Pozzo is ranked among the top ten French luthiers. He builds a wide range of acoustic and electro-acoustic instruments, including a concert classical guitar. He exhibited his Guitarsonic models from his Horizon collection at this year's show.
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Francis Vendramini of Vendarmini Guitars constructs electric, acoustic, folk and jazz manouche guitars. At the show, he exhibited a 12-fret turn-of-the-century/Parlor-style instrument and a manouche guitar.
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Jef Demers of Demers Guitars makes around 12 instruments a year and has been in the business since 1993. He specializes in electroacoustics and displayed two archtop versions of his Voodoo, one electroacoustic model and one L13 acoustic guitar at this year's show.
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Demers L13 acoustic on display.
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Johanna Mutti and Curtis Rockwell of Oriskany Guitars specialize in building steel string acoustic guitars individually customized for their clients. At the show, the duo presented several steel string flatops. | | | | | | | | | | |
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Bernard Vachon is best known for repairing and restoring a vast array of stringed instruments. With him he brought a fan fret 7-string jazz guitar, a baritone, a traditional classical, and a fretless bass.
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Balazs Prohaszka has worked for many years on several types of instruments but now specializes in guitar making at Avalon Guitars. He focuses primarily on creating new designs and working on custom projects and inlays. He is pictured here with two of his steel string guitars. | | | | | | | | | | |
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Brian Kingston of BC Kingston Guitars exhibited his CR-P and CR-E models at this year's show, along with two new examples of his popular Fusion double cutaway. He has been building guitars for clients in five different countries for 30 years.
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Ervin Somogyi is one of the best-known working American luthiers. He showed off two steel string guitars and this special guitar that represents a revolutionary turning point in professional lutherie work at the show. | | | | | | | | | | |
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Oskar Graf of Graf Guitars has been in the guitar building business for over 35 years. He treated Montreal with some of his latest archtop, classical and acoustic models. | | | | | | | | | | |
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Michael Hemken of Hemken Guitars has been making acoustic instruments since 1976. He specializes in unique archtop designs. Two archtops were on display at the show.
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Les Guitars Pellerin specializes in creating high end acoustic guitars. Luthiers Michel Pellerin and Gilbert Blais exhibited four of their latest creations: two Grand Auditorium models, one Dreadnought Collection model, and one 20-string harp guitar.
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Olivier Planchon won the 2007 "best craftsman of France" title. He displayed his new concert classical model at the show.
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The Bus by Roadrunner, located in the south of France. The Bus is equipped with Benedetti pickups.
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Thomas Fejoz designs around 12 guitars a year. He exhibited a super jumbo 12 string, a new 6-string model and an Alize at the show. | | | | | | | | | | |
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Ken Parker Archtop
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Maurice Dupont has specialized in buidling acoustic guitars since 1981, but also builds a full range of instruments including classical to electric guitars as well as folding double basses, folk guitars, violas and Stimer pickups. His Cognac workshop is the biggest of its kind in France.
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Kathy Wingert of Wingert Guitars keeps production low with fewer than 15 instruments built per year. She exhibited an E cutaway model and a harp guitar at the show. | | | | | | | | | | |
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Marc Saumier of Saumier Guitars has been using Quebec-harvested maple, cherry and red spruce to create innovative guitars and basses since 1995. Saumier displayed his resonator, jazz archtop and manouche acoustic bass at the show.
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Randy Muth of R. S. Muth Guitars exhibited three special steel string guitars. Muth believes in building upon classic design features. | | | | | | | | | | |
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Martin Tremblay displayed three gypsy guitars, an OM folk guitar and an Irish bouzouki at the show. Tremblay serves as an ambassador for Quebec's up-and-coming luthiers.
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The Penelope by Fabrizio Alberico features a German spruce top and ziricote back and sides. Fabrizio has been hand-crafting since 1998.
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Hotone Wong Press
Cory Wong Signature Volume/Wah/Expression Pedal
Renowned international funk guitar maestro and 63rd Grammy nominee Cory Wong is celebrated for his unique playing style and unmistakable crisp tone. Known for his expressive technique, he’s been acclaimed across the globe by all audiences for his unique blend of energy and soul. In 2022, Cory discovered the multi-functional Soul Press II pedal from Hotone and instantly fell in love. Since then, it has become his go-to pedal for live performances.
Now, two years later, the Hotone team has meticulously crafted the Wong Press, a pedal tailored specifically for Cory Wong. Building on the multi-functional design philosophy of the Soul Press series, this new pedal includes Cory’s custom requests: a signature blue and white color scheme, a customized volume pedal curve, an adjustable wah Q value range, and travel lights that indicate both pedal position and working mode.
Cory’s near-perfect pursuit of tone and pedal feel presented a significant challenge for our development team. After countless adjustments to the Q value range, Hotone engineers achieved the precise WAH tone Cory desired while minimizing the risk of accidental Q value changes affecting the sound. Additionally, based on Cory’s feedback, the volume control was fine-tuned for a smoother, more musical transition, enhancing the overall feel of volume swells. The team also upgraded the iconic travel lights of the Soul Press II to dual-color travel lights—blue for Wah mode and green for Volume mode—making live performances more intuitive and visually striking!
In line with the Hotone Design Inspiration philosophy, the Wong Press represents the perfect blend of design and inspiration. Now, musicians can channel their inner Cory Wong and enjoy the freedom and joy of playing with the Wong Press!
Reverend Vernon Reid Totem Series Electric Guitar - Shaman
Silos features six presets, tap tempo, one full second of delay time, and three voices—two of which are styled after bucket-brigade and tape-delay sounds. In the $150 price category, it’s not unusual for a digital delay to leave some number of those functions out. And spending the same money on a true-analog alternative usually means warm, enveloping sounds but limited functionality and delay time. Silos, improbably perhaps, offers a very elegant solution to this can’t-have-it-all dilemma in a U.S.-made effect.
A More Complete Cobbling Together
Silos’ utility is bolstered by a very unintimidating control set, which is streamlined and approachable. Three of those controls are dedicated to the same mix, time, and repeats controls you see on any delay. But saving a preset to one of the six spots on the rotary preset dial is as easy as holding the green/red illuminated button just below the mix and preset knobs. And you certainly won’t get lost in the weeds if you move to the 3-position toggle, which switches between a clear “digital” voice, darker “analog” voice, and a “tape” voice which is darker still.
“The three voices offer discernibly different response to gain devices.”
One might suspect that a tone control for the repeats offers similar functionality as the voice toggle switch. But while it’s true that the most obvious audible differences between digital, BBD, and tape delays are apparent in the relative fidelity and darkness of their echoes, the Silos’ three voices behave differently in ways that are more complex than lighter or duskier tonality. For instance, the digital voice will never exhibit runaway oscillation, even at maximum mix and repeat settings. Instead, repeats fade out after about six seconds (at the fastest time settings) or create sleepy layers of slow-decaying repeats that enhance detail in complex, sprawling, loop-like melodic phrases. The analog voice and tape voice, on the other hand, will happily feed back to psychotic extremes. Both also offer satisfying sensitivity to real-time, on-the-fly adjustments. For example, I was tickled with how I could generate Apocalypse Now helicopter-chop effects and fade them in and out of prominence as if they were approaching or receding in proximity—an effect made easier still if you assign an expression pedal to the mix control. This kind of interactivity is what makes analog machines like the Echoplex, Space Echo, and Memory Man transcend mere delay status, and the sensitivity and just-right resistance make the process of manipulating repeats endlessly engaging.
Doesn't Flinch at Filth
EarthQuaker makes a point of highlighting the Silos’ affinity for dirty and distorted sounds. I did not notice that it behaved light-years better than other delays in this regard. But the three voices most definitely offer discernibly different responses to gain devices. The super-clear first repeat in the digital mode lends clarity and melodic focus, even to hectic, unpredictable, fractured fuzzes. The analog voice, which EQD says is inspired by the tone makeup of a 1980s-vintage, Japan-made KMD bucket brigade echo, handles fuzz forgivingly inasmuch as its repeats fade warmly and evenly, but the strong midrange also keeps many overtones present as the echoes fade. The tape voice, which uses aMaestro Echoplex as its sonic inspiration, is distinctly dirtier and creates more nebulous undercurrents in the repeats. If you want to retain clarity in more melodic settings, it will create a warm glow around repeats at conservative levels. Push it, and it will summon thick, sometimes droning haze that makes a great backdrop for slower, simpler, and hooky psychedelic riffs.
In clean applications, this decay and tone profile lend the tape setting a spooky, foggy aura that suggests the cold vastness of outer space. The analog voice often displays an authentic BBD clickiness in clean repeats that’s sweet for underscoring rhythmic patterns, while the digital voice’s pronounced regularity adds a clockwork quality that supports more up-tempo, driving, electronic rhythms.
The Verdict
Silos’ combination of features seems like a very obvious and appealing one. But bringing it all together at just less than 150 bucks represents a smart, adept threading of the cost/feature needle.
EarthQuaker Devices Silos Multi-generational Time Reflection Delay Pedal
