Gibson Frethaus

In the spring of 2023, Gibson Guitars U.S.A. Nashville, approached our studio to create the next generation of Gibson electric guitars.

We were given one task:

Build a functioning custom electric guitar from scratch based on a theme or a market.

"look into the 'rearview mirror' of the past for hints on design, styles, and markets while exploring what the future holds through the windshield in front of you" - Caesar Gueikian CEO Gibson

Factory Tour

When beginning this project, we first visited the Gibson electric guitar factory in Nashville to observe their systems and processes for building guitars on a large scale.

Guns N' Roses, Slash's Les Paul Hanging in the Factory

In addition to a factory tour, we also explored their flagship showcase store, the Gibson Garage. Here we observed their custom shop, marketing styles, and clientele, learned general Gibson history, as well as got to play with a few guitars to familiarize ourselves with the product.

Learning about the history of Gibson from Mark Agnesi at the Gibson Garage. I was particularly inspired by the story of the 1958 Korina explorer. A guitar that was thought to have massive promise, but ended up flopping and wouldn't catch on till the emergence of hard rock and heavy metal movements of the 1970's and 80's. A design that was ahead of its time, lost then rediscovered and transformed into legend.

Research

Spending time familiarizing myself with Gibson product's styling, feel, playability, sound, aesthetics, as well as general brand image.

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Unbias Research

After observing and processing the Gibson lore and products, I started researching professional guitarists and learning what they usually look for in their instruments, as well as researching Gibson's competitors and observing what other designs are favored by both musicians and companies for both sound and aesthetics.

Fender

Paul Reed Smith

Yamaha

Gretsch

Schecter

Cole Clark

Real World Inspiration

After some initial research, I decided to try a different style of research and listened to some of my favorite guitar songs. A Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song came on, and I became interested in how to achieve a certain rock and roll sound and what guitar was being used. I dug in on this and discovered it was legendary guitarist Mike Campbell with a les Paul. I dug a little deeper and found a video of Mike running through his rigs talking about his delight with aged, overwound hot pickups and exposed functionality. I decided I wanted to recreate this sound and aesthetic in my guitar.

Mike Campbell Loves old Gold top les Pauls and has a large aged gitar collection.

Old pickups were wound with clear bobbins and covers were often misplaced, removed or damaged, providing interesting exposed functionality.

Initial Ideations

I chose to explore the nuanced dance between tradition and innovation, through the exploration of aged guitars and iconic styles such as the Les Paul, the ES, and the Stratocaster. Delving into the realm of aged guitars evokes a sense of nostalgia and heritage, where each scratch and patina tells a story of countless performances and untold journeys.

Moodboard showcasing ideal aged details for inspiration.

Initial shape ideations. Exploring a blend of traditional shapes with a groovy modern twist

After learning about the history of the Korina Explorer I was inspired by the nature of it's long lost legend. I decided to gravitate towards a shape that is a sleek and fast blend of both the Korina's fast lines and the Les paul's classic curves.

Exploring and finalizing curves to balance the speed and visual weight of the instrument.

My Journey

Ideation is a nuanced dance between tradition and innovation, and nowhere is this balance more evident than in the exploration of aged guitars and the iconic Les Paul style. Delving into the realm of aged guitars evokes a sense of nostalgia and heritage, where each scratch and patina tells a story of countless performances and untold journeys.

First full concepts exploring different details, color options, pickgaurds, and subtle shape differences.

Additional Inspiration

I spoke with legendary guitar enthesuist and aging specialist Tom Murphy from Gibsons own Murphy Labs on the phone about how to improve my aged design.

Custom Sounds

After listening to Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, speak about his preferences of the late 60's p90 hot pickups as well as the versatility of his staple pickups I had found my inspiration.

Neck Pickup

Custom Lollar p90 Nickel staple pickup

I chose to purchase a Lollar pick-up for a few reasons. Firstly their highstanding reputation of producing incredible recreations of aged pickups. In addition, I could not source the "staples" or the nickel magnets that run through the middle of the pickup creating the electromagnet that produces a certain tone.

Bridge Pickup

Handmade Custom 1968 clear bobbin hot p90

They were called hot pickups because it would take time to wind the pickups on the winding machines back in the day and sometimes they would get overwound due to production timing imperfections and this would cause the pickup to have higher "hotter" overdriven sound that was often exactly what early rock and rollers were listening for.

Developing Pickups

After learning of the high reaching prices of authentic vintage p90s and realizing that clear bobbin pickups are not commercially made anymore I realized I would get to enjoy the challenge of learning to build my own clear bobbin vintage p90 pickup.

Disassembling

I originally attempted to remove the top piece of an existing p90 pick up. My goal was to remove the top of the bobbin and replace it with a clear cover without damaging the rest of the pickup. Unfortunately my Dremel caught a few wires and spun into this birds nest. I then realized I was going to have to build my own pickup from scratch in order to achieve my goal.

Laser Cutting

I used a Laser Cutter to cut out the parts to my bobbin in clear Plaskolite Optix.

Poly Coated Copper Wire

I order 42 AWG poly coated wire from Stewmac as my wrapping material. In the future I would like to experiment with other kinds of wire to see the differences in sound produced.

Learning how to Assemble

learning how to reverse engineer existing p90s.

Completed Bobbins

After successfully recreating p90 bobbins the next step was to learn how to wrap.

Difficulties Wrapping

In order to properly wrap the Bobbin the spool must be placed 3 ft away from the bobbin during the wrapping process. Learning how to set this up and execute a proper wrapping proved more difficult than anticipated. The thin wire would often get snagged and break forcing me to restart.

Developing Methods

Through trial and error I steadily learned that in order to achieve required wraps for the desired sound I needed to increase wrapping speed and tautness.

Approaching Results

After learning how to wrap trial and error still led the way as I had to estimate the number of wraps to get my desired resistance for the desired sound. After finishing wrapping I used an electrometer to test the resistance.

Build Process

Learning how to be a Luthier: Learning how to iterate designs, work with wood and solve unforseen problems. I was extremely lucky to work closely with master luthier Kieth Medley who taught and helped me throughout the process.

The Relic Messenger

Exposed Functionality You Will Love

Aged Design

The Relic Messenger was designed to emulate a long lost legendary guitar shape. Designed to look, feel and sound like a guitar that went on tour in '58 and was lost in a sleepy bar somewhere and was forgetten in time. The Relic messenger is the voice of past speaking to the future of guitarist.

Custom Pickups

The Relic Messenger comes equipped with a custom p90 pick up designed after a classic 1959 p90. Hand made, hand wound, and resistance tested to reach a specific omh resistance to get that perfect aged les paul tone.

Each pickup requires nearly 50,000 wraps of .015 gage copper wire.

Exposed Functionality

Inspired by Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I wanted to create a guitar he wishes he had. Mike has an incredible collection of relic guitars and I studied his favorites and listened to why he likes each one and attemted to recreate aspects from each into a single guitar that fits his standards down to clear pickups.

Bigsby Vibrato Tailpiece

Inspired by classic legendary artist such as Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Jimmy Page, and Frank Zappa as well as modern rockers such as Tom Morello, and Eddie Van Halen, who used vibrato arms for more pronounced effects as I decided to incorporate one on the Relic Messenger. I actually used the Bigsby tailpiece as a partial inspiration for the shape of the guitar itself.