Netherlands-based luthier Henk Vlaar was never afraid of tweaking the guitars he owned to get them exactly where he wanted them. “As long as I’ve played guitar, I’ve always customized them,” he says. “Not a single guitar I’ve bought ever sounded or played exactly how I wanted at first.”
Over the years, Vlaar’s bought more guitars than he could possibly play with regularity. But that didn’t stop him from feeling the need for a Gibson Les Paul Junior after hearing guitarist Mark Lennon’s tone at a show in 2007. Instead of running out to the closest guitar store, Vlaar took a different route. “I was sold on the great simplicity and sound of the Les Paul Junior, but because I already had several guitars and didn’t want to buy another one, I decided to go ahead and build one myself.”
Like many luthiers, Vlaar’s background is in cabinetry. By combining his woodworking skills with heavy research on guitar construction and sound characteristics of tonewoods, Vlaar built and modeled his very first guitar after a Les Paul Junior. The end result of his first attempt was met with approval by both a local luthier and a guitar shop that offered to sell it for him. “The ‘luthier’s virus’ had seized me, so I started visiting other guitar makers and kept my eyes and ears open,” says Vlaar. After building several more instruments, the rookie officially started his own company in 2008 under the moniker Lowland Guitars.
Vlaar uses only traditional woodworking machinery and hand tools for his builds, and contends that every neck he shapes is absolutely unique and fashioned per a customer’s requirements. He also likes to utilize alternatives for common wood types, such as abachi for red alder or Surinamese greenheart instead of ebony. Vlaar actually has some blanks from a chestnut tree that he planted as a child and plans to use for future builds. Olive wood and myrtlewood are two of his favorites to work with for tops.
“My opinion is that the full and rich sound of woods and the combinations used only really come to life if all the different parts of a guitar make contact with each other perfectly,” he says. “It’s amazing how much trouble I encounter when adjusting or repairing guitars—including ‘famous brands’—especially the joint between the body and the neck.” Be it cardboard or strips of plastic, Vlaar often finds a range of interesting materials in the joint for setting the neck at the right angle for the body. “Why didn’t they at least just use a good wedge made of the same wood as the body?”
Vlaar likes to keep it simple when it comes to electronics. “With the exception of effects, I assume that electronics on a guitar can’t add what is not already present in the guitar.” he says. “In my view, a tone control adds nothing and only squeezes the tone. So if possible, I skip the tone control.”
Pricing and Availability
All Lowland instruments are the result of one-on-one contact since Vlaar only sells direct. He enjoys the interaction and the challenge to “build the guitar with the sound I hear in my head” once he has an understanding of what the client needs. The luthier builds about 10 instruments annually with most guitars falling between $2,250 and $2,900 (including VAT).
VOX Amplification Tone Sculptor
The VOX Tone Sculptor graphic EQ delivers tube-driven tone shaping that adds warm distortion as you raise the level, infusing your sound with rich tube harmonics and natural compression.
$219 street
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SoloDallas SVDS Boost
This pedal recreates the legendary 1975 signal boost from the Schaffer-Vega Diversity System, which provided up to 30 dB of boost, shaping the tones of Angus Young, David Gilmour, and others. Unlike typical clean boosts, it enhances vintage coloration and harmonics. Built with high-quality components, it’s designed for both studio and stage reliability.
$129 street
solodallas.com
Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster Mini
The Pickup Booster Mini delivers the perfect boost and features a resonance switch for multiple tonal characteristics without taking up space on your board.
$99 street
seymourduncan.com
J. Rockett Audio Designs Archer Clean
The Archer Clean is a recreation of the clean boost found in a Klon Centaur. Go from beautiful cleans to slamming the front end of your amp instantly!
$229 street
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VOX Amplification Power Burst
The VOX Power Burst offers the rich tone of a genuine tube boost, designed to enhance your tone with natural compression and tube saturation.
$199 street
voxamps.com
Rock N’ Roll Relics Stinger Boost
Not your typical boost. This single-transistor midrange booster lets you switch between a punchy silicon transistor and a warm, vintage NOS Germanium transistor. Whether placed before or after other drives, it delivers the signature midrange growl that defines classic rock ’n’ roll. Each pedal is aged to perfection.
$279 street
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MXR Micro Amp
The MXR Micro Amp slams your amp to the brink—up to +26dB—while adding just a touch of honey to your tone with the twist of a single knob.
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Hammett remains big daddy to the Mummy, one of his favorite instruments. It also evokes his love of classic horror films.
Like his tone and fire-breathing technique, Kirk Hammett’s guitar collection is legendary. It’s also in motion–and not just in the sense that guitars come in and out of Hammett’s flotilla. He is keenly aware of all its core instruments and plays them in the studio and onstage when the occasion beckons.
For Hammett, having an armada of amazing vintage guitars at his convenience is a dream come true–as it would be for any of us. “When I first started playing, I would go to the guitar store and all the vintage stuff was on the very top racks where you needed a ladder to get to them,” he relates from his home in Hawaii. “I would stare up at these guitars that were literally untouchable and unattainable, but right in front of me. And I remember seeing a korina Flying V and thinking, ‘My god, that’s the most beautiful V’ … thinking ‘it’s so different from modern Vs, and it has so much class.’ Then, when I got my first korina V … I was so happy. I brought it down to the studio while we were recording Reload, and I said to [producer] Bob Rock, ‘I have to put this on a track.’ He goes, ‘Okay, plug it in.’ And it’s on ‘Fixxer.’”
More stories, and more photos of historic guitars, pack the new book The Collection: Kirk Hammett, from Gibson Publishing. The 400-page volume comes in three configurations. The 300 copies of the autographed custom edition ($799) checks in at 19" x 14 1/2" and comes in a case, with a portrait of Hammett signed by the guitarist and photographer Ross Halfin, plus a mini replica of Hammett’s beloved 1979 Flying V, a tin with six of Hammett’s signature Dunlop picks, and a certificate of authenticity. The deluxe edition ($299) has a run of 1,500 autographed copies and comes in a slipcase with Greeny–Peter Green’s legendary Les Paul–on the cover and a certificate of authenticity. And the standard edition ($149) will have greater availability.I asked Hammett if he knew how many guitars were in his collection. “I don’t like counting,” he replied. That roughly translates into a lot! But he noted, “I have a core collection that’s about 35, 40 guitars that I play pretty regularly, and most of them are vintage and I just love them for whatever little discrepancy or uniqueness or customization they have. Then there’s a whole host of guitars I own because I needed them to play certain songs on tour, and people have a tendency to give me guitars, which I always thought was frustrating. I can’t say, ‘No, I can’t take your guitar,’ because sometimes that is more insulting than anything else to a person. So over the years I’ve acquired guitars that I just don’t use. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of guitars anonymously, so there’s a lot of guitars out there in the market that I used to own that people don’t know I owned, and I love that.”
And now, it’s time for the Big Three. I asked Kirk which guitars in his collection are not the most famous or valuable, but closest to his heart.
1979 Gibson Flying V
Kirk’s 1979 Flying V with his signature EMG pickups installed. “That guitar that enabled me to flesh out the elements of my style of playing,” he says.
Photo courtesy of The Collection: Kirk Hammett, Gibson Publishing
“My 1979 black Flying V, that I’ve had ever since I was 16 or 17, is obviously very close to my heart,” he says. “Some of the very first heavy riffs I ever wrote, I wrote on that guitar, like the ‘die by my hand’ part of ‘Creeping Death.’ That came out of that guitar. I was sitting there when I was 17 years old in high school, and that riff came out, and I was thinking, ‘That doesn't sound like anything that’s on FM radio right now. And I love it.’ And it was that guitar that enabled me to flesh out the elements of my style of playing. And so that guitar will always be very, very close to me.”
The Mummy
Hammett remains big daddy to the Mummy, one of his favorite instruments. It also evokes his love of classic horror films.
Photo courtesy of The Collection: Kirk Hammett, Gibson Publishing
“The Mummy guitar is very close to me, too, because when I got that guitar in 1995 or 1996, man, it was a triple threat. It looked fantastic, it played fantastic, and it sounded fantastic,” observes Hammett. The guitar also features a legend taken from the poster for the 1932 film The Mummy, featuring Boris Karloff, reading, “It comes to life!” And indeed the 6-string did.
“I was like, ‘Okay. I think I have an extraordinary guitar in my hands right now.’ And I use the Mummy guitar just as much as I use Greeny in the studio.”
Greeny
Kirk Hammett with the guitar he calls his Excalibur, Greeny, which was formerly owned by both Peter Green and Gary Moore. “All I have to do is sit there with Greeny in my lap and the music comes,” he says.
Photo courtesy of The Collection: Kirk Hammett, Gibson Publishing
So, what was it like for Hammett to have Greeny, which he purchased in 2014 after it was used by legends Peter Green and Gary Moore on a host of historic recordings, in his hands for the first time?
“It was confusion,” he offers, “because I knew that a bunch of major players had played Greeny and passed on it. And a couple of those major players were James Hetfield and Joe Bonamassa–people that I know love Gibson Les Paul Standards as much as I do, but for some reason or another, they passed on it. I was confused by that because when I played Greeny, within the first minute I was like, ‘Oh my god, I think this is the guitar I’ve always been looking for, because it had so much mojo and so much tone and such a unique sound, and, of course, the history of it was not lost on me either. I thought, ‘Why hasn’t anyone else bought this guitar? I’m buying it.’ I told the guy who was selling it, ‘You're not getting this guitar back. Let’s work out a deal. I’m going to hold onto it forever.’ I feel like I didn’t choose Greeny; Greeny chose me, and it’s my Excalibur.“
It’s had such a big impact on me, and I wasn’t expecting it. All I have to do is sit there with Greeny in my lap and the music comes. It is a beautiful, wonderful thing. I used to have to really work hard at composing music and making music parts fit, but not anymore. With Greeny, stuff just comes to me spontaneously, and if it doesn’t work, I just move on, because more stuff comes.
“It had a large, large, large part in helping me recognize the power of inspiration in myself. It had played the most amazing songs and the most amazing shows before me. So to have it in my hands it’s like, I don’t want to say a separate entity, but almost like a freaking partner in music. I’m so thankful, and so lucky.”
On Creating the Book
“It was my idea to do the book,” Kirk explains. “I’ve been wanting to do a guitar book, because I did a book about my horror movie poster collection about 10 years ago. And man, that was so much freaking work, but it was worth it. And it opened up a whole range of opportunities I never thought or I could never see coming. I'm hoping that the same thing happens with this book. I have no idea what those opportunities are, but I'm hoping that they're great musical opportunities.
“I hope this book inspires people to just go out and look in pawn shops, go over to their grandmother’s house, look under the bed and in the closet; look into the attic. Because there’s a lot of vintage guitars still out there that have not been found. I mean, when you think about the production of electric guitars, how many were produced from 1952 on, of all models? That’s a shitload of guitars that absolutely have not been accounted for in the vintage market. You just got to do the hard work and be lucky as fuck. Things can be found.”
Hammett feels the book not only echoes the inspiration and passion he has for guitars, but also for his adopted home of Hawaii. “These guitars are beautiful. They’re unique. Some of them are one of a kind, and I love that. They are also the tools that are in my toolbox. But this book is also a love letter to Hawaii. It’s the place where I love to be with my guitars–a beautiful backdrop to these wonderful guitars.” In fact, the Hawaiian landscape is often the setting in which Halfin photographed Hammett and his collection. Ross and I didn’t want this to look like a catalog or your average coffee table book that you would see in freaking a doctor’s office or a hotel lobby or something. We wanted the approach to be a little bit more homegrown. And for me, I like being outdoors all the time. I might go inside to sleep at night, but usually from the time I get up, even at night, I’m just outside. The landscape and sky and ocean here is always gorgeous and always changing.”
The Sequel
Hammett mentions that another guitar tome might be on the horizon. “I have at least three or four essential guitars that didn’t make it into this book,” he says. “They need to make it into a second book, just as relevant, just as rare, just as unique. And people have not seen them. I have a Les Paul that’s so rare–a Mickey Baker Les Paul I’d been seeking for 10 years. In 1956 or 1957, Mickey Baker, the jazz session guy who had a big hit with ‘Love Is Strange’ … Gibson wanted to make him a Mickey Baker model. They made less than 10 prototypes and never put them out, because Mickey never liked any of ’em. They’re unique because they have three pickups and instead of four knobs, there are three–all master volumes. At the top where the pickup selector is, is another knob and it’s a master tone. People need to see that guitar! It has not quite the aggression and attack that Greeny has, but the fullness and the freaking kick and the punch.”
There’s also a black 1959 Standard, a custom-color ’57 goldtop, and other rarities that didn’t make The Collection, but there’s plenty of eye candy in the current book. Provided, of course, you’re interested in a ’52 goldtop, a ’58 sunburst Les Paul, a korina V prototype, a ’60 TV Special, the ESP KH-1 Joker, and other gems.
“I’m a caretaker for these guitars, and especially for Greeny,” Hammett says. “At some point, it’ll be time to redistribute these magical instruments. Guitars are invincible. Look at guitars from the ’50s. They’re holding up and playing better than ever. Guitars were made to last forever. They don’t break down like cars. They don’t degrade like artwork. Maybe they do, but the upkeep is easy and you can interact with them. Greeny, especially, is like a magic wand. I feel very, very lucky, and I hope that I play Greeny for a nice length of time.”
Rafiq Bhatia’s guitar is a Flip Scipio Flippercaster with vintage Teisco and DeArmond pickups and has a strikingly original voice, even without effects or processing.
“Where [neuroscience and economics] intersect is the science of decision making,” explains Bhatia. Back when he was a new student at Oberlin College, “the lab that I was the most interested in being a part of was focused on decision making under various levels of risk and uncertainty, and trying to pick apart aspects of what happens in the brain before cognition kicks in. What are the precognitive aspects of decision making, and do they predict in any way the decisions that you will actually make?
“And that, I think, is part of the same underlying spirit of inquiry that making music, and especially improvised music with other people, is born of,” he continues. “You’re in these situations where there is uncertainty and there is also risk—and if there’s not enough risk, then it’s not that compelling.”
Bhatia’s latest solo release—his first in five years—is the EP Each Dream, A Melting Door, made in collaboration with pianist Chris Pattishall. The duo improvise their way through the five-track record, unwinding an extended impressionistic world wherein dreamlike piano underscores a range of guitar tones that glimmer in an abstract light. It’s clear that Bhatia has no intention of conveying a traditional sonic image of a guitar, instead preferring to manipulate the instrument as a device for painting colors of sound.
Bhatia’s collaborator on his new EP is pianist and composer Chris Pattishall, at left.
Photo by Ebru Yildiz
Of course, before even getting into the methods of how he achieves those sounds, Bhatia says, “I think it’s less important how I get the sounds out of the guitar than the reasons why I might choose to go looking for them. And the way I get them out of the guitar today might be drastically different than the way I get them out of the guitar tomorrow. I care deeply about the sounds that are made, but I’m so not about the perception that you have to acquire all these ‘things’ to make it.”
His prized 6-string, the Flippercaster, was designed by the reclusive-yet-storied luthier Flip Scipio, who’s built and worked on guitars and basses for Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and many others. After coming to recognize Scipio’s trademark on builds he came across in various New York studios, Bhatia sought him out in an effort he compares to the search for the legendary swordsmith, Hattori Hanzō, in Kill Bill. “He’s the nicest dude ever; it just took me a while to find him. But if you go visit him, he’ll make you either an amazing AeroPress coffee or a mug of smoky lapsang tea and then sit and talk with you,” Bhatia adds, smiling.
The guitar is equipped with vintage Teisco and DeArmond pickups wired to a blend knob in place of a switch, which Bhatia loves. “I usually don’t want half and half; I want a little bit of one and mostly all of the other. And to me it’s very dependent on what the room sounds like and what musical context I’m in,” he explains. The Flippercaster goes into a small pedalboard, the brain of which is a custom Eventide H90. Bhatia collaborated with the pedal manufacturer on the development of the device’s design.
The duo improvise their way through the five-track record, unwinding an extended impressionistic world wherein dreamlike piano underscores a range of guitar tones that glimmer in an abstract light.
“I was really excited,” Bhatia shares. “I was like, ‘Can you make it switch other pedals in and out of the chain like one of those pedalboard controllers? And let’s say I’m using one of your reverbs, but I want to put distortion on it. Can you make it only affect the wet signal?’ I thought they’d maybe do 10 percent of what I asked, and they did basically all of it,” he concludes, laughing.
Aside from his expression and volume pedals, his pedalboard is otherwise made up of a Klon KTR and a ZVEX Fat Fuzz Factory, the latter of which he has particular fun with. “I’m very jealous of saxophone players because they have breath,” he prefaces. “But what I’ve found is that if you play in such a way where you flirt with the edge of the [Fat Fuzz Factory’s built-in] gate, you can get the ends of notes to crackle and decay, almost like when you hear a saxophone player breathe out at the end of the note.”
His pedalboard then goes through a Universal Audio Apollo Twin MkII interface, which connects to Ableton Live on his MacBook Pro. Bhatia then uses two MIDI controllers—one on the floor with a digital display, and one with knobs that he controls with his left hand—that are both color-coded to match the lanes of his session in the DAW. “I can then grab these little bits of things that I’m playing, and bring them in and out and manipulate them while I’m also playing the guitar and generating other ones. I’m excited about it because it’s a process that is helping me erase the line between what I’ve been doing on the guitar and what I’ve been doing away from the guitar. I feel like I’m getting a little bit closer to where I can play, and the sound is saying who I am.”
Rafiq Bhatia’s Gear
Filmmaker David Lynch has been a powerful influence on Bhatia—a cover of “The Voice of Love,” from Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, appears at the end of Each Dream, A Melting Door—as have a number of hip-hop producers and jazz musicians.
Photo by John Klukas
Guitars
- 2018 Flip Scipio Flippercaster with vintage Teisco and DeArmond pickups
Amps
Live:
- Strymon Iridium (with replaced IRs and EQ tweaks) > Telefunken TDA-2 DI > Universal Audio Apollo Twin MkII > MacBook Pro running Ableton Live > FOH
Studio:
- Swart Atomic Space Tone Pro
- Anderson custom 1x12
- Swart Space Tone Atomic Jr.
Effects
- Ableton Live controlled by Morningstar MC6 PRO and DJ TechTools Midi Fighter Twister
- Eventide H90
- ZVEX Fat Fuzz Factory
- Klon KTR Overdrive
- Lehle Dual Expression
- Sound Sculpture Volcano Volume
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL Balanced Tension (.011–.050)
- Bluebird 1.5 mm custom picks, handmade from vintage Galalith poker chips
Filmmaker David Lynch has been a powerful influence on Bhatia—a cover of “The Voice of Love,” from Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, appears at the end of Each Dream, A Melting Door—as have a number of hip-hop producers and jazz musicians. Bhatia shares, “If you listen to Madlib beats, sometimes he’s doing a lot and it’s a million different small elements that have been collaged together, but other times it’s just a sample that he flipped and he didn’t change anything except for the loop point. But whether it’s something he made while fussing over all these little ingredients, or it’s just something he looped, you hear two seconds of it and it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s Madlib.’”
He mentions how that effect similarly belongs to icons such as Thelonious Monk and Jimi Hendrix. “Those are all the heroes, and they say something that’s so personal and honest to who they are and their experience that right away, you just know [snaps fingers]—it’s them. To me it sounds like honesty, and it sounds like an expression in many cases of hybridity.
“I was in class in 9th grade when the planes hit the Twin Towers, and it was on our school news channel,” he continues, emphasizing the discomfort it created for him as someone of Muslim origin, which drew unwanted speculation from his non-Muslim peers. “That was the backdrop to how I got into playing the guitar and listening to music. So, when I would hear folks who seemed to be able to take all these different aspects of who they were and what their experience was and distill it into a way of communicating through sound, that was really inspiring. It just felt like therapy to engage in trying to figure out how to do that.”
For the release of his last solo album, Breaking English, Bhatia performs here with a trio, showcasing his uniquely creative approach on the instrument in a more traditional context.
Duane Betts enjoys a control set modification that was preferred by his father, the late, legendary Dickey Betts.
Guest Picker - Duane Betts
Betts’ 1961 ES-335 has its toggle and volume-dial positions switched.
A: My favorite mod is the one on my 1961 Gibson ES-335. The toggle switch and neck volume knob positions have been switched so the volume knob is more accessible for volume swells using your pinky finger. This is something my dad had done when he obtained the guitar in the ’90s as he loved using the volume swell effect.
A pedal primed for vintage fuzz sounds.
Obsession: My current obsession is this DanDrive Secret Machine fuzz that JD Simo gave me a few years ago. I don’t use fuzz often but I’ve loved it as a way to change things up and give the listener something fresh. My normal tone is very natural with the amp turned up. This is just a great fuzz tone that gives me a new angle that I really enjoy pursuing both live and in the studio.
Reader of the Month - Steve Nowicki
A: A push/pull knob for humbucker coil split. It’s a sneaky little mod I throw on my tone pots. You won’t get amazing Strat tone, but the ability to instantly swap between Les Paul chunk and Fender twang during a jam opens a ton of possibilities tonally. Plus, no extra switches or routing needed—even though it’s fun to hack guitars apart.
Obsession: The EVH 5150 Iconic EL34 amp. Owning an 80-watt half-stack in a Brooklyn apartment might be overkill, but damn this amp is awesome. It delivers insane amounts of gain and distortion, yet every little nuance of your playing comes through crystal clear. I pair it with a Bugera Power Soak so I can crank the head and get that warm “Brown Sound” tone at lower volumes.
John Bohlinger - Nashville Correspondent
John Bohlinger and his Lukather-ized Strat.
A: I’ve hacked up a bunch of guitars over the years, but my favorite mod remains the highly intrusive, expensive, and quixotic B-bender install. It is the equivalent of open heart surgery, and there’s no going back—but the first time you play the Clarence White “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” intro right, it’s totally worth it.
John at work. When it comes to mods, he know the drill!
Obsession: I recently filmed a PG video where we swapped pickups in my ’90s Strat with an EMG Lukather set. I never thought I’d go active, but what gets me is how smoothly the volume and tone work. I’m rethinking all my gear biases. Like maybe there’s been some progress since 1957.
Jon Levy - Publisher
Let it bleed: Jon dials back the treble on his Tele.
A: Installing a treble bleed on my volume pots has changed how I play electric guitar. Previously, I never dialed back my volume knob because it dulled my sound. Now I can fine-tune loudness and gain while retaining tone—it’s a game changer. I still swap pickups and hardware, but one mod always comes first: the humble treble bleed.
Did you know both John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page played on Shirley Bassey’s iconic recording of “Goldfinger?”
Obsession: John Paul Jones. I’ve always loved his bass (and other instrumental contributions) with Led Zeppelin. But after seeing the Zep documentary [Becoming Led Zeppelin] I searched his session work from 1964–1968, which includes Shirley Bassey, Lulu, Donovan and more. What an amazingly versatile and talented artist he is!
