Hi Everybody!
Our page has gone live with Destroy All Guitars, featuring all our guitars including the new Legend and the HTL!
We’re proud to say that you can now buy or order our guitars directly from DAG.
Cliff of Destroy All Guitars has been fantastic in getting us to this point, and we’re looking forward to working with him.
Chuck and Rich
Hi Everyone,
Richard and I are back from the Montreal Guitar Show and I wanted to take a moment to say how much we appreciate the other guitar makers we met there. One would think that at a show like that the competition would be dog eat dog but we were so impressed with the kindness and genuine concern for each other to do well. We not only got to see other peoples guitars but made new friends.
As for the people who put the show on and the staff that worked the show, my hat is off to you, I don’t think the show could have been run any better.
Thank you for your genuine courteousness, kindness and professionalism.
Chuck
Hi Everybody,
Chuck and I just got back from our amazing weekend at at the Montreal Guitar Show. While we were gone, Lance Keltner of Destroy All Guitars posted videos of our Professional and Legend guitars. Lance is awesome, and we’re more than thrilled.
I’ve put the Professional video up on our video page. It’s the third video down from the top.
I’ll put the Legend video up as soon as we debut the model, which we want to do simultaneously with Destroy All Guitars. Of course, you can get a sneak peak on Lance Keltner’s Youtube Channel (grin).
More to come! Stay tuned …
Rich
I’ll be away from the shop from this evening, July 1, to the evening of July 4, or possibly the following morning, while I’m away at the Montreal Guitar Show.
I will not be reachable by phone or e-mail until I get back.
Thanks, everybody, for your understanding.
Chuck
As people who follow the Small Luthier’s forum on The Gear Page may know, it has come to our attention that somebody else has a legitimate claim to the name “Tradition” when used for guitars.
So, rather than force the issue, we’ve decided to rename the guitar. We weren’t able to come with anything we liked better, so we’re holding a “Name This Guitar” contest.
Here are the rules:
1) Please take it seriously. We’re really busy and can’t afford to wade through a bunch of jokes, however well intended.
2) This is a highly evolved design that respects, and pays homage to, the rich history behind this type of guitar, so, we will give at least a little preference to names that reflect this wonderful history.
3) Please submit your entries to rich@cpthorntonguitars.com.
4) Multiple entries are allowed.
5) In the case of duplicate entries, the first one to get to me wins.
6) The contest ends when someone comes up with a name we want to put on this guitar.
7) The winner gets a Cp Thornton T-shirt … and bragging rights. Don’t forget to include your t-shirt size with your entries.
Chuck and I are entering this too. If one of us wins, he gets the shirt.
Please spread the word. The more entries we have, the better the result’s going to be.
Rich
Sorry, everybody. I seem to have had a setting wrong on the videos I uploaded the other day. There was an extra sound track in the mix so they have some pretty annoying digital clipping (they sound fine in my video editing program … oh well). I’m re-rendering them and uploading fresh copies.
It’ll be at least a few hours before the new ones are up, as uploading takes about an hour each.
Rich
Hi Everybody!
I’ve posted the videos of Denny Breau playing our new Professional Acoustic II and our Professional that we shot a couple of weeks ago.
They’re right on top of our Video page.
Denny is wonderful and I think the guitars have never sounded better.
I’m holding back a couple of videos of the Legend model, like I am the photographs, so that we can make an introduction of the guitar simultaneously with Cliff of Destroy All Guitars, so please be patient with me for just a little longer.
Rich
A few years ago, a guitar player friend of mine brought this beautiful acoustic guitar by a well known maker by for a set up.
After the setup I played the guitar and was extremely impressed with the sound of this instrument, and when my friend came back to pick it up he invited me to come hear it live.
When I heard this beautiful sounding guitar on stage through a PA system with drums, electric guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals, it just didn’t sound that great any more.
Two things had happened. One, it was trying to feed back, so the frequencies that were trying to feed were pulled back in the board which wasn’t good for the guitar’s tone. Two, every time he strummed, his strumming hand was contacting the top or the bridge causing a thumping sound through the low end of the system.
Then, one day my friend Denny Breau and I were talking about an acoustic gig he had coming up and he made a comment that an electric guitar equipped with piezo pickups is great for the electric player who needs an acoustic sound. But, he said, you can’t play it like an acoustic because it has electric guitar strings and you can’t dig into them like you can acoustic guitar strings.
The Professional Acoustic II was designed for the acoustic guitarist who has to play live.
It has a master grade spruce top with mahogany back sides and neck, and I redesigned the interior carving of the top to allow it to vibrate more freely, producing a wonderful acoustic tone.
It is set up like an acoustic with acoustic guitar strings.
It has an LR Baggs pickup system and preamp.
It plays like an acoustic guitar.
When plugged in, it sounds like an acoustic guitar.
But it dosn’t feed back like an acoustic guitar.
And it dosn’t have that low end thump through the PA system like an acoustic guitar.
We recently shot a video of Denny playing this guitar, and the tone blew us away. I can’t wait to show you this video, which Rich will post just as soon as we get the audio files from the studio.
In the mean time, photos of the Professional Acoustic II #228 are in our Latest Batch page.
I hope you will be as excited about the guitar as I am to offer it!
Chuck
Gene Ess is a fantastic Jazz guitar player in New York City who just happens to endorse our guitars.
He recently received a SESAC award for one of the Top 10 Jazz albums of 2009 for his album “Modes of Limited Transcendence” featuring our Elite guitar.
Here’s the link to the announcement:
http://sesac.com/News/News_Details.aspx?id=1107
I had the pleasure of listening to Gene as he tested out one of our guitars (not the one he ended up purchasing) and was stunned by not only his skill but also with his tone.
Congratulations Gene! We are privileged to have you playing one of our guitars.
Rich
Hi Everyone,
I have put this off as long as possible, but the time has come for me to raise my prices.
As you know, my prices have always been substantially lower than other guitars of similar quality. While my costs have increased, I have not had a price increase in a year and a half. I had intended to raise prices at the beginning of the year, but decided to put it off as long as possible because of doubts about the economy. I have always tried to give my customers the best guitar I can build at a very reasonable price.
Today, I have no choice but to align my prices so that they accurately reflect the quality and the production costs of my guitars.
While raising these prices, I have changed my specifications to include 5A Western Curly Maple and Master Grade Sitka, which were previously extra cost options on the models that call for them. I did this because our customers overwhelmingly chose those options. It greatly simplifies the process of choosing, buying, and sorting wood for my guitars if I offer only the best I can get. I believe my customers deserve no less.
Please know that this price increase will allow me to continue to make the best guitars that I know how to make, and I look forward to many years of bringing you not only the guitars you have seen, but several new models that I hope you will like even more.
With all my gratitude,
Chuck
