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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Diamond Pedals Dark Cloud
True to the Diamond design ethos of our dBBD’s hybrid analog architecture, Dark Cloud unlocks a new frontier in delay technology which was once deemed unobtainable by standard BBD circuit.
Powered by an embedded system, the Dark Cloud seamlessly blends input and output signals, crafting Tape, Harmonic, and Reverse delays with the organic warmth of analog companding and the meticulous precision of digital control.
Where analog warmth meets digital precision, the Dark Cloud redefines delay effects to create a pedal like no other
Cory Wong—a funky player with his own signature-model Strat wiring.
Guitarist, songwriter, and producer Cory Wong is renowned for his solo work, his band Fearless Flyers (with Mark Lettieri, Joe Dart, and Nate Smith), and collaborations with artists such as Vulfpeck, Jon Batiste, and Dave Koz. His playing style is deeply rooted in funk rhythm guitar, with a heavy dose of rock and jazz. Well-known for playing a Stratocaster, his signature model was released in 2021, and it’s a unique offering. If you want to build your personal Cory Wong Strat, here is your shopping list, starting with the primary structure:
• Alder body, scaled down to slightly smaller than a regular Stratocaster, with Fender American Ultra body contours
• Maple neck with a rosewood fretboard with rolled edges, modern Fender American Ultra D neck profile, slightly larger headstock, 25.5" scale, 10" to 14" compound radius, 22 medium jumbo frets
• Locking tuners with all short posts, a bone nut, and two roller string trees
• Vintage-style 6-screw synchronized tremolo
• Hair tie around the tremolo springs (which mutes them to enhance the rhythm tone)
• .010–.046 strings (nickel-plated steel)
“While these are all interesting features, resulting in a very comfortable guitar, you don’t need to copy every detail to transform one of your Stratocasters into a Cory Wong-style Strat.”
For the physical build, as you can see, Wong and Fender created a real signature instrument to his specs and wishes. While these are all interesting features, resulting in a very comfortable guitar, you don’t need to copy every detail to transform one of your Stratocasters into a Cory Wong-style Strat. My personal favorite of these is the hair tie for muting the tremolo springs. A lot of my funk-playing customers are doing similar things on their Strats to get a dry sound, and they’re using all kinds of funny things in there, like foam, rubber bands, and pieces of cotton, as well as hair ties.
Now, let’s have a look at the electronics:
• Seymour Duncan Cory Wong Clean Machine SSS pickup set
• Standard 5-way pickup-selector switch with classic Strat switching matrix
• 250k master volume pot with a 90/10 audio taper and Fender treble-bleed circuit PCB
• 250k tone pot with a 90/10 audio taper and Fender Greasebucket tone control PCB for only the neck pickup
• 250k audio push-push tone pot with Fender Greasebucket tone control PCB for only the bridge pickup; the push-push switch overrides the 5-way switch and defaults to middle + neck pickup (in parallel) as a preset
• Middle pickup is without tone control
Let’s break this down piece-by-piece to decode it:
Pickups
The pickup set is a custom SSS set from the Seymour Duncan company with the following specs:
• Overwound hum-canceling stacked bridge pickup with a 3-conductor wire and shield in permanent hum-canceling mode (red wire taped off), bevelled alnico 5 magnets, approximately 14.5k-ohm DCR
• Overwound middle single-coil, RWRP, beveled alnico 4 magnets, approximately 7.1k-ohm DCR
• Overwound neck single-coil, bevelled alnico 4 magnets, approx. 7.0k-ohm DCR
The pickups are voiced for clear highs, which perfectly suits Wong’s funky playing style and tone. While a lot of pickup companies will have pickups in that ballpark, it will be difficult to put together a full set that really works as intended. The Duncans in the Cory Wong Strat are available as a balanced set, so if you want to get as close as possible, I think this is your best bet.
5-Way Pickup Selector Switch
Nothing special here, just the standard 5-way switch with two switching stages that is wired like a classic Stratocaster:
bridge
bridge + middle in parallel
middle
middle + neck in parallel
neck
The upper tone pot is assigned to the neck pickup, while the lower tone pot is connected to the bridge pickup, leaving the middle pickup without tone control.
Master volume pot and treble-bleed circuit.
The 250k master volume pot is a standard CTS pot with a 90/10 audio taper found in all U.S.-made Fender guitars. The volume pot has the treble-bleed circuit from the Fender American Pro series, but uses a ready-to-solder PCB from Fender instead of individual electronic parts. The PCB is available from Fender individually (part #7711092000), but I have some thoughts about it. While using a PCB makes a lot of sense for mass production, it has some downsides for us mortal human beings:
• Soldering on PCBs requires some training and also special soldering tools.
• The PCB is quite expensive, while the individual electronic parts are only a few cents.
• The PCB uses ultra-tiny surface-mount parts, so it’s very difficult to repair or mod it to your personal taste.
I don’t think we need a PCB for adding a treble-bleed circuit, so let’s do this project using conventional electronic parts. The treble-bleed PCB contains a 1200 pF capacitor with a 150k-ohm resistor in parallel, plus another 20k-ohm resistor in series. Using individual parts, it looks like this:
Courtesy of single-coil.com
In general, a treble-bleed circuit will help you to combat the “volume vs. tone problem” when using passive single-coil pickups. When you turn down the volume (even just a bit), the high end or treble loss is not proportionate. In other words, a small cut in volume creates a far greater loss in your guitar’s treble response. Using a treble-bleed circuit is an easy way to get rid of this problem, as long as it is calculated carefully.
ONLINE ONLY: If you want to find out more about treble bleed circuits please have a look here: https://www.premierguitar.com/diy/mod-garage/treble-bleed-mod
Next month, we will continue with part two of the Cory Wong Stratocaster wiring, bringing it all together, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!