TOP: With its quality tonewoods,
high-end appointments, and detailed
inlay work, a pre-owned Larrivée OM-
10 is a relative bargain considering
its current value of $1,600 to $2,000.
BOTTOM: The OM-10 sports rosewood
back and sides and a single-piece
mahogany neck.
Hey Zach,
I’m a big fan of Jean Larrivée and
his guitars. I used to own a Larrivée
OM-10 and sold it for $1,450 in
2002. Could you provide some history
on Larrivée and tell me what this guitar
is worth today? I feel like Larrivée
is an underappreciated luthier and I
don’t hear much about him. I’m curious
if I sold this guitar too cheaply!
Thanks,
Stan in Portland, OR
Hi Stan,
Jean Larrivée has been building for more
than 40 years and many of his instruments
feature beautiful inlay work. Like
you, many guitarists aren’t familiar with
Larrivée’s history, so before we get into the
OM-10 you sold, let’s take a moment to
recap the Canadian luthier’s journey.
Larrivée began studying classical guitar at the age of 20, and four years into his study, he met German classical-guitar luthier Edgar Mönch. Larrivée began an apprenticeship with the luthier in Toronto, and built two guitars under Mönch’s guidance before starting to build guitars on his own in his home workshop.
Larrivée Guitars officially launched in 1968 and Larrivée moved into his first true workshop in 1970, which was located above a theater. At first, he focused exclusively on classical guitars, but then in 1971 he built his first steel-string. After a period of extensive experimentation, he began introducing his own body styles and shapes, as well as original bracing systems and other unique features. In 1972, Larrivée married his wife Wendy, who designs and engraves the inlays on many of the company’s guitars.
Larrivée Guitars grew throughout the 1970s, and by 1976, the company had eight employees and was building between 25 and 30 guitars a month. In 1977, Larrivée moved operations to the island city of Victoria, British Columbia, providing access to the wet, coastal forests of Western Canada. Five years later, Larrivée moved the company to the mainland of British Columbia, right around the time most acoustic guitar manufacturers were going through their toughest times. But instead of consolidating operations, Larrivée began building solidbody electric guitars in 1983. Production of his electric guitars lasted through 1989, when the market had improved enough for him to focus solely on acoustics again.
The 1990s marked a resurgence in guitar manufacturing and the company moved to an 11,000 square foot factory in 1991, where they employed 35 people and built 25 guitars a day. In 1997, Larrivée Guitars introduced the lowest-priced model in their lineup with the D-03, which would firmly establish Larrivée in the acoustic guitar arena. In 1998, they moved into another new factory with 33,000 square feet, employing 100 people and producing 60 to 72 guitars per day. Three years later, Larrivée opened a U.S. factory in Southern California, just ten days before September 11, 2001.
During the next two years, Larrivée overhauled and streamlined their production process, ultimately building the 03 Series guitars in Canada and all remaining models in the U.S. In 2005 Larrivée introduced the Traditional Series guitars, and in 2008 the company again ventured into the electric realm with the RS-4 model.
Today, Larrivée is very much a family operation. Jean, his wife Wendy, son Matthew, and daughter Christine all work in the California plant where they build the company’s gloss-finish guitars. Larrivée’s other son, John Jr., operates the plant in Canada, which produces their satin-finished models. The company continues to offer several body shapes—including traditional designs and a few of Larrivée’s own—and several decoration levels for their models, from simple to highly ornate.
The Larrivée OM-10, as its name implies, has an OM-style body. Specifications include a Canadian Sitka spruce top, rosewood back and sides, abalone rosette, abalone purfling, and a mahogany neck. The OM-10 boasts other high-end features such as the ivoroid-bound ebony fretboard with deluxe abalone inlays, sterling silver headstock border with mother-ofpearl inlay, and an ebony bridge. Currently, this guitar is worth between $1,600 and $2,000 in excellent condition.
Considering what you sold it for and what it is worth today, I don’t think either party should feel cheated. Regardless of the owner, I’d treat this guitar as a treasure. Typically, you can’t buy guitars with such exquisite inlays for under $5,000, which makes this very fine flattop a relative bargain.
Zachary R. Fjestad
is author of Blue Book of
Acoustic Guitars, Blue Book
of Electric Guitars, and Blue
Book of Guitar Amplifiers.
For more information, visit
bluebookinc.com or email
Zach at guitars@bluebookinc.com.
Truetone 1 Spot Pro XP5-PS 5-output Low-profile Isolated Guitar Pedal Power Supply
The XP5-PS is a package containing the 1 Spot Pro XP5, along with a 12Vdc 2.5A adapter, which allows you to power the XP5 without having a CS11. The adapter comes with an array of international plugs so that you can take it with your pedalboard anywhere in the world. Some musicians may even choose to get one of these, plus another XP5, to distribute their power around the pedalboard and have the dual XP5s acting as two pedal risers.
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
