Several months ago, I was
approached by one of the
wealthiest guitar collectors in
the world. He requested that
I send pictures of everything I
make. After a month of emails
and very short phone calls, I
had sold him a big nothing.
Apparently, no guitar I’d done
in the past excited him. I had
no choice but to throw down
my last card—the Red Queen.
The Red Queen is something
I’ve been planning for years—a
hollowbody concept electric that
can only be described as Alice
in Wonderland meets Cirque
Du Soleil—and it’s such a big,
bizarre, painstaking project that
the editors of Premier Guitar
thought I should tell you about
it even if it risks having some
readers thinking this page has
been set aside for self-congratulatory
blathering. But the Red
Queen is expensive—private-jet-on-wing-to-your-private-island
expensive. So please rest assured
that I’m not trying to sell you
this guitar. I just thought you
might like to ride along on this
journey with me.
After giving this collector a few details about my vision for the Red Queen—such as that it would have a 1000-piece neck, a 500-piece top, and a few details that I can’t talk about yet—he responded with, “Well, I’m very interested in that.” For a guitar maker like me, this is one of those rare events one can only dream about. So I’ve been drawing up the details and making sketches for a few months, and now I must begin. There is no room for failure or disappointment when you’re dealing with a billionaire and a Red Queen. Either I achieve success or it’s off with my head. Wish me luck! I’ll keep you posted on my progress with this guitar over the coming months!
As I reflected on this long-dreamed-of Red Queen project, I contemplated my career as a luthier up to this point. It’s been long, hard, and rewarding. And over the years I’ve been asked the same two questions over and over: “How do you get into guitar making?” and “What does it take to have a career in it?” Here’s what I tell people.
Step 1.
Shut up and do it. Do it today! Stop telling people (like me) it’s what you want to do. Instead, go buy some damn materials, some simple tools, and start cutting and gluing some wood. If you’re just drawn to guitar building as a great hobby, this will put you on your way. If you want a career, keep reading.
Step 2.
Spend two years learning to build. Seek out other guitar makers, take classes, research online information, and devote the months it requires to making sense of what you’ve absorbed. You can take one of those expensive courses where you build two guitars, but I’ve never met any would-be luthiers who actually continued building once they stepped away from the comfort of the classroom and instructors. My advice is to teach yourself first and learn to figure things out on your own. You’ll be better off in the long run.
Step 3.
Work in the field. Get a repair gig or start your own repair business. This is the way to start building a reputation and a clientele list. You’ll also learn tons about running a business and client expectations. While you’re at it, start acquiring luthier tools.
Step 4.
Keep building and always keep learning. After five to 10 years, you might start selling a few pieces. Build from the heart, build what you want, stand your ground at times, and be a bit stubborn.
Step 5.
If you can make it to the 15-year mark, congratulations! You should be fine.
Building a guitar is the easy part. The hard part is designing something original, finding a buyer, correctly negotiating a price (remember, if you think a guitar will cost you $500 to make, it will cost you two grand), keeping on schedule, managing the budget, finishing the instrument, surpassing the customer’s expectations, and then getting paid. Remember this is your job—you’d better have money left over for food and rent. Now start the process all over again.
It’s a fact that 80 percent of making guitars is sanding. It’s a dirty, unhealthy, physical job, and it’s the part no one sees. They see the cool stuff—the shop, the tools, the videos, and the magazine articles. They don’t understand the marathon. Someone asked me, “How did you decide to become a guitar maker?” I replied with a half grin, “It was an error in judgment.”
It’s not easy if you’re trying to get noticed. Most builders fail, many stay poor, and to say that making guitars is a labor of love is an understatement.
So, is it worth it? Yes!
Randy Parsons
builds guitars for Jack
White, Jimmy Page, Joe
Perry, and other adventurous
players using
out-of-the-box materials
like bone, flowers, copper,
and solid ebony.![Jerry Cantrell Rig Rundown [2024]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/youtube.jpg?id=53714787&width=600&height=600&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C560%2C0)
Peterson StroboStomp Mini Pedal Tuner
| The StroboStomp Mini delivers the unmatched 0.1 cent tuning accuracy of all authentic Peterson Strobe Tuners in a mini pedal tuner format. We designed StroboStomp Mini around the most requested features from our customers: a mini form factor, and top mounted jacks. |
But by gosh, if delay—and its sister effect, reverb—haven’t always been perfect for the music I like to write and play. Which brings us to the Fishman EchoBack Mini Delay. The EchoBack, along with the standard delay controls of level, time, and repeats—as well as a tap tempo—has a toggle to alternate between analog, tape, and digital-delay voices.
I hooked up my Washburn Bella Tono Elegante to my Blues Junior to give the EchoBack a test run. We love a medium delay—my usual preference for delay settings is to have both level and repeats at 1 o’clock, and time at 11 o’clock. With the analog voice switched on, I heard some pillowy warmth in the processed signal, as well as a familiar degradation with each repeat—until their wake gave way to a gentle, distant, crinkly ticking. Staying on analog and adjusting delay time down to 8 o’clock and repeats to about 11:30, some cozy slapback enveloped my rendition of Johnny Marr’s part to “Back to the Old House,” conjuring up thoughts of Elvis trapped in a small chamber, but in a good way. It sounded indubitably authentic. The one drawback of analog delay for me, generally, is that its roundness can feel a bit under water at times.
Switching over to tape, that pillowy warmth evaporated, and in its place came a very clear replication of my tone—but with just a bit of the highs shaved off the top. With the settings at the medium-length mode listed above, I could see the empty, glass hall the pedal sent my sound bouncing down. I heard several pronounced pings of repeats before the signal fully faded out. On slapback settings (time at 8 o’clock, repeats at 11:30), rather than Elvis, I heard something more along the lines of a honky-tonk mic in a glass bottle. Still relatively crystalline, which actually was not my favorite. I like a bit more crinkle—so maybe analog is my bag....“That pillowy warmth evaporated, and in its place came a very clear, pristine replication of my tone—but with just a bit of the highs shaved off the top.”
Next up, digital. Here we have the brightest voice, and as expected, the most faithful repeats. They ping just a few times before shifting to a smooth, single undulating wave. When putting its slapback hat on, I found that the effect was a bit less alluring than I’d observed for the analog and tape voices. This is where the digital delay felt a little too sterile, with the cleanly preserved signal feeling a bit unnatural.
All in all, I dig the EchoBack for its replications of analog and tape voices, and ultimately, lean towards tape. While it’s nice having the digital delay there as an option, it feels a bit too clean when meddling with time of any given length. Nonetheless, this is surely a handy stomp for any acoustic player looking to venture into the land of live effects, or for those who are already there.
