Matt's Blog

The Fender Custom Shop Twisted Tele Pickup Set is our neck and neck favorite with the Nocaster Pickup set. The Twisted pickups are rooted in the vintage world but modernized with some sleek, under the hood design changes that have made this the favorite pickup of many Telecaster Players. 

The Fender Pure Vintage '65 Strat Pickup Set absolutely captures the sound of a timeless era in music history. From vintage bobbin construction to genuine original-era cloth wiring, all Fender Pure Vintage pickups are wound to precise specifications for authentic, traditional Fender tone and performance. So if you are looking to nail the Surf Sound of the mid-1960s in a Stratocaster, this is the pickup for you!

What is Swamp Ash? Technically, Swamp Ash is not a species of wood but a term for Ash that has grown along rivers, streams, creeks, bogs, and… swamps! Its roots are underneath the water table so the wood is super light. It is lighter weight than the Ash lumber produced by trees growing around less moisture. Us guitar guys and gals like it because it is lighter in weight than the stuff used for baseball bats and bowling pins. We mostly know it as a tonewood used for solid body Fender Guitars, though as of 2020, Fender is planning on slowing down the usage of this wood to help its resurgence.

This one time, my Strat fell out of an open gig bag on my concrete patio during loadout for a weekend of performances. After picking it and my jaw off the patio, I saw that it dinged up 2 frets but the fingerboard was totally fine. Had that been my Les Paul Custom I would have been taking it to Chip to work his Headstock Voodoo Magic! 

What is Spruce? Spruce is a widespread coniferous tree that has a distinctive conical shape and hanging cones, widely grown for timber, pulp, and Christmas trees. Part of the Picea Genus, along with 35 other species that carry 59 accepted names. Alright, see ya! Just kidding, I've got mad love for Spruce and lots more to say, hopefully, you find some of it helpful. 

The most commonly ‘built-in’ Rosewood you’ll find on a guitar is Indian Rosewood, so that’s what wood we will use as our baseline for this conversation, though others will be brought up. Harvested in India, this wood is also grown on plantations in Pakistan. Used widely for fingerboards and the back and sides of acoustic guitars. Fender, Gibson, Martin, Taylor, PRS, and literally every builder who can afford to use Rosewood does. It's a fantastic tonewood with deep roots in both the acoustic and electric guitar w

Learn about our Plek Machine Process! The playability of a guitar depends on how well dressed its frets are. Poorly crowned or flat frets are culprits for a buzzes, poor intonation, and the guitar choking out notes especially while bending strings. Doing a level and crown previously required hours of work by a skilled luthier, with a keen eye and strong arms. Now, this daunting and difficult process can be accomplished quickly and more accurately than ever with our Plek Machine!

You're here to learn about one of the top 5 tonewoods of all time and I will do my best to share with you the info I have found helpful. First off, a little background, here-say, and conjecture. Mahogany is a tonewood that many guitarists learn of early on because it has been used to build some of the most iconic instruments ever played. So it's very easy to uncover early on in the rabbit hole. It's also used for necks AND bodies more so than any other typical instrument wood. 

Alright! Let's learn a little about this relatively new Mahogany substitute. Well, new to some folks but many luthiers, big name and garage builders have been hip to this more cost-effective "Meliaceae" for a while now. Let's get the uber-dorky stuff out of the way... Sapele is a (confusing) type of wood. "Entandrophragma cylindricum" is a tree of the genus Entandrophragma of the family Meliaceae. It is commonly known as sapelli or sapele mahogany, as well as aboudikro, assi, and muyovu.