What's New

 

Watch for these recordings coming in 2012 that include performances with my guitars.

 

Steve Kaul and the Brass Kings "Machine"

Electro 35 "Loose Ends"

Nolan James "Sounds of Source"

Mike Salovich "Tango de Cesar"

 

 

I am very pleased to be included in a book by John Fellman called "Meeting the Makers" (Minnesotas Finest Guitar Builders).

Now Avaliable!

 

 

 

Watch Kinloch Nelson play my guitars at the Woodstock Luthiers Showcase 2011

 

 

Watch Nolan James play one of my guitars for a KFA I radio show

 

 

Watch John Fellman play my guitars at the Healdsburg Guitar Festival 2011

 

 

 

Old guitars are not better than new guitars. New guitars just need some playing time to open up and sound great. There are a variety of reason for this. Fresh finishes are one reason, but another reason is that the vibrations alter the woods' structure making the guitar more resonant.

The ToneRite is designed to give new guitars the sound of vintage tone by accelerating the "play in" process.

I use the tonerite on all of my guitars. On new guitars it helps the sound "open up". On older guitars it keeps them warm and lively sounding.

 

 

 

In 2010 John Fellman reviews one of my early guitars at

Luthier's Review

Hear sound samples there too.

 

 

 

I am quoted in an article in the October 2010 Acoustic Guitar Magazine about the Sonic Sitka Project.

 

 

 

Watch and listen to Tim Reede Custom Guitars performed by Nolan James at the Montreal Guitar show 2010.

 

 

 

Read about my trip to the 2010 Montreal Guitar Show

 

 

 

The first demo CD project is finished in 2010. It features some great players including Mike Cramer, who has been a teacher for the National Guitar Workshop, Steve Kaul who has had a successful solo career as well as playing with the Brass Kings, Cooker John who has been a musical fixture since the early seventies, and Nolan James, if you haven't heard of Nolan yet you will soon. He is young and new and very talented.

 

 

Watch Roy Book Binder play my guitar at the Newport Guitar festival 2010

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout history guitar makers have tried to understand why one guitar sounds good and another sounds great. A greater understanding of why will lead to more consistently great sounding instruments. Some experiments have been very helpful, like the Chladni mode patterns.

The Sonic Sitka Project involves many different kinds of guitars built by 101 different luthiers. I am one of the luthiers for this project. The guitars have various scale lengths, they have different woods and finishes. They will be kept in different parts of the country and they will be played in different ways. The one thing that all of these guitars have in common is that all of the sound boards are made from wood from the same part of the same tree.

Dennis Merrill will be sampling the sounds of these guitars over time and observing the audible changes. With this information we will be able to see if there is a consistent pattern, and we will learn something about how a guitars sound matures.

Here is one of my contributions to this project

 

 

The Blue Electric Guitar

The first blue guitar collection was commissioned by Scott Chinery. Mr. Chinery was a famous guitar collector. He had purchased a guitar from James D'Aquisto. It was a blue Centura Deluxe and it was hailed as being a masterpiece. When James D'Aquisto died in 1995, Scott Chinery asked some of the best archtop builders in the world to make a blue archtop guitar as a tribute to James D'Aquisto and the blue Centura Deluxe. This became the Blue Guitar collection. The collection went on to be exhibited at the Smithsonian.

The second blue guitar collection was the brainchild of another famous guitar collector, Henry Lowenstein. It is a tribute to the late Scott Chinery and the first Blue Guitar collection. This latest collection features all electric guitars. My guitar is one of them. It was exhibited as a collection at the Newport Guitar festival in Florida in 2010.

 

 

I have been using D'Addario strings long before I began building guitars. Strings make a big difference to the sound of an instrument. D'Addario strings sound great. And they are packaged in a way that keeps them fresh. I am very pleased that in 2009 I became a partner with this fine company. You can learn more about D'Addario strings by clicking on the logo below.

 

 

Click this link to read the 2009 interview with Tim Reede by Custom Guitar Boutique.

 

 

 

I am very pleased that my guitars are featured in a book by Michael Heatley called Guitar, released in 2008.

 

 

 

Watch Steve Kaul play my guitars at the Healdsburg Guitar Festival 2007

 

 

 

 

In 2008 I did an audio interview with the on-line magazine American Made Guitars.

 

 

 

 

The January/February 2008 issue of Marq Magazine features Tim Reede's Leopard electric guitar in an article comparing the virtues of a vintage Fender Telecaster with the virtues of a new custom made guitar by Tim Reede.