Month: January 2017

Spotlight on Luthiers – AC Guitars (seen at NAMM)

Not that I was at NAMM myself, but I was watching the Anderton’s video on boutique guitars at NAMM 2017, and noticed a UK luthier that I didn’t have on my list page.  It’s AC Guitars, which is a one-man custom shop in Dumfrieshire, Scotland, and the man himself, Alan Cringean, focuses on custom bass guitars (although a recent post on his website says that he’s also making 6-string guitars under another name, Reiver Guitars).

An AC Guitars Salace bass

AC Guitars makes a number of different body shapes and has lots of gorgeous finishes.  The range includes basses with anything from four to seven strings.

A Krell headless six-string bass

If you’re looking for a special bass, they seem to be well worth a look.

New stuff day!

I ordered a few bits and pieces from Thomann on Sunday evening, and they arrived today – pretty quick service!

I needed some components to play with for my Crimson build guitar, so I ordered two 250k pots, two 500k pots and two output jack sockets. I also got three more packs of my favourite Ibanez Grip Wizard picks, and the big thing is a new power supply for my pedalboard, to replace my two Harley Benton Power Plants and the separate Strymon adapter. I’m hoping that this will eliminate the noise that comes from my pedalboard.

The 1Spot Pro power supply was recommended to me when I last visited Anderton’s in October. It has 12 outputs, although I won’t use all of them – there are two 18v outputs and an AC output which are all currently useless for me, but that still gives me nine usable outputs. As I currently have 12 pedals on my board, I will either daisychain a few of them or kick a couple off the board.

On the bottom of the power supply, there are some dip switches which allow you to choose different voltage options for five of the outputs. These make it a very flexible power supply.

This could well be my only new gear day for 2017 as I don’t really intend to buy anything else. On the other hand….nah, that’s not going to happen!

PRS Periscope Guitars 6 and 7

Previously on this site, I posted links to the Periscope videos in which Paul Reed Smith and his team selected the woods for some very special guitars.  Today I noticed two of them that have been sold by World Guitars.  They both sport an unusual colour on the top, called Teal Nightshade.  They are stunning guitars, and I thought they are worth posting here!

These are both McCarty 594 models with natural wood backs and necks; #6 has a swamp ash back, and #7 has a ziricote neck.  The links lead to the World Guitars website where you can see more photos, but they probably won’t stay live forever.

Firstly, Periscope #6

And then Periscope #7

They were listed at £8,995 – a bit above most of our budgets, but certainly unique and very beautiful guitars!

Welcome to 2017!

After a break of a few weeks, I’m back for the New Year.  I took a break from building my guitar over Christmas because I was busy with other things, including skiing with family and friends for Christmas week.  I ran into some problems with the electronics on my Crimson guitar, and will probably need to return the entire bridge and piezo equipment for replacement, which is causing a delay.  More news will follow in the fairly near future.

In the meantime, Winter NAMM 2017 will be opening its doors in a few days, and I’ll post some links to the most interesting things I see here.  There have already been a few early reveals, but full details are not yet available about those.

I am also thinking of returning to Crimson Guitars for another build this year, although I haven’t yet taken a final decision on whether or when to do it.

I wish everybody a belated but happy and musical New Year!