Review coming soon!
INDUSTRIAL GUITAR We believed it could happen from time to time, we just didn't know when, or what it would be. Here's the "Industrial Guitar", by Chris Fouke. What a pleasure to find this! He was bored with the SOS "Same Old Stuff", and decided to act on his wild ideas.
Sensitivity to the environment, and shrinking supplies of traditional wood, have lead to experiments in building guitars out of other materials. The extinct "Travis Bean", was a neat guitar, it had lots of sustain, and great pickups, at a time when Hot Rod, after- market goods were few and far between. Travis Bean imbedded their pickups in plastic. You'd really have to ruin the guitar to get them out. (We wanted those pickups...bad!) Their huge, Aluminum neck, and its cold metal feel, didn't appeal to lots of people. The company didn't begin distributing a guitar with a covered aluminum neck, until just before they closed their doors.
There have been, and continue to be new guitar designs; some are very creative, lightweight; and going in new directions. However; adding a musician's budget to the equation, eliminates some famous models. Though we have not tried "them all", at Tonefrenzy, we were startled by the Industrial Guitar. The best thing about the Industrial, is it's SOUND. Most guitars of alternative materials boast great sustain, which is central to this instrument as well; however there's no lack of tone quality here: it sounds great: warm, and BIG sounding. Not exactly like wood, but nice!
The materials produce such a pleasant "body tone", that we recorded our audio samples after installing the cheapest, erzats, (crappy/cheap), humbuckers we could find. They were jacked out of an Epiphone "LP II Special", with bolt on neck; about a $175 guitar. Uping the ante; we had the neck from this most modest guitar, bolted onto an Industrial body. Talk about practical: you can supply your own neck; the one you already know you like, and have it put on a custom Industrial body. Can it get any better than that?
A tiny bit of roughness is heard in the sustain of the guitar, from the $5 pickups, but we wanted to make a point: here's the guitar that will, (turning the old saying around), just about "polish your turd". Imagine the tone quality with good humbuckers. Have mercy! We've never pushed prices: This is reasonably priced investment. It's one of those deals where a few players are standing around in the future; one guy has an old Industrial: as the group admires the owner's timing, he says with a smile, "and ya know what I payed back then"...? Nuff said!
Some particulars: Industrial guitars are custom made to your whims. The the weight is about that, of a medium Strat, to a very light Les Paul. It varries some on the body style that you select. Weight is well distributed. The materials are a combination of a composite we call "Fouk-anium", and Aluminum. These two materials work together on the body, to produce a big warm tone, that isn't shrill, yet has plenty of musical, harmonic overtones. At the end of our sample below you'll hear strong harmonics in a riff played repeatedly on all three pickups: if you like using harmonics in your playing, always wishing they were stronger/louder/sustained better: DO NOT MISS the last 60 seconds of the sample below. No special attempt was made to turn them up, use a compressor, or doctor their volume in editing.
The MP3, audio sample below, features short selections played repeatedly; on each pickup, at various points of the neck. This is an attempt to let you hear the whole guitar, and a variety of pickup tones. Listen to the "groups of threes"; as in three pickup settings, for two humbucking pickups: Bridge, combined, and Neck pickups. Try listening to the sample a few times, you'll have a pretty good idea of what the Industrial guitar sounds like. This is a new form, but it works well.
Below you'll find an interview with Chris Fouke, some background on his creation, and a three minute MP3 audio demo, of the guitar.
Photo's are coming to Tonefrenzy, and Chris has photos at his Web site http://www.industrialguitar.com
Tonefrenzy: Interview with Chris Fouke, who has created a new guitar, made of alternative materials: only the neck is wood. As you'd hear about most alternative designs, this design has great sustain. However; in this case the damn thing also sounds very good! There's a warm, sweet kind of tone to it at modest volumes.then; when you kick it, the sound gets huge. You can let it ring, and work with the sustain or highlight the really nice harmonics. Let us count the ways!
THE INTERVIEW: Tonefrenzy: What made you start building Guitars?
CHRIS: I started taking lessons at the age of 10. Later on when; I was actually in a band, I was maxing out my credit cards, trying to buy the newest guitar. It came to me, that I should start building my own, because it would cheaper in the long run. I've done a lot of woodwork and mechanical work; so it was natural assumption that a guy would try to make his own. I built my first guitar 10 years ago.
Tonefrenzy: Like most people, you used wood in the beginning. What was the motivation to go astray?
Chris: For years, my day job was as an aircraft mechanic. There's a lot of aluminum, riveting, a lot of mechanical work and fabrication. Combining this with guitars, just stuck in my mind. My first plan was to make an all aluminum guitar by riveting it together. I didn't have the engineering problems all worked out, but I kept this idea in mind every day. At work I stumbled onto some other raw materials, and eventually I bought some for a work bench. The more I messed with it, it came to me: this would be a great core material for the aluminum body guitar! Now I could avoid the engineering problems of trying to rivet it all together. As it turned out, it had some good benefits as far as tone.
Tone Frenzy: Did you try anything else besides this composite material, with the aluminum?
CHRIS: Yeah...originally, as an experimental stage trying with wood, I tried with cheap wood, like pine. They were hollow bodys, like the ones I make now, but they sounded too bright, too brittle. I like the look of the aluminum, but I didn't like the brittle sound. I tried this composit material just on the off chance that something would be different: it creates a totally different sound than the wood does. The core material seems to deaden some of that brightness, and allows the some "play", which the guitar has. The different thicknesses, (layers), and the combination between that thickens the sound. The danmpng qualities of the composites just seemed to work out perfect. Which has that kind of round sweet tone to it.
Tonefrenzy: Yeah it's wonderful! Some people have come up with great inventions, simply because they didn't know what "couldn't be done". There was a recent documentary on a fellow who created an effective, FDA approved medication by trial, and error. Experts, and Doctor's cited, some of his success, was due to the fact that he didn't rule out what professionals believed, wouldn't work!
CHRIS: Yep! This was totally accidental. :-)
Tonefrenzy: That's wonderful, we love it!
CHRIS: The best thing about the composite is, it doesn't crack. It's basically indestructible, and it's the toughest stuff in the World. I had a lot of problems with the wooden core, experimental ones. They'd tend to crack because they didn't like the expansion and contraction, of the aluminum; which you can't get away from, that's just the way it works. The composite expands, and contracts too, but in a slightly different way.they compliment each other. Both materials are tough enough, to where there are no problems.
Tonefrenzy: re: the future of this. You've made some electric guitars. Some of it has been very custom, some of it has been of your own design, these materials seems to really lend themselves to tremendous variety in sound, and construction: both guitars and basses. With this tremendous variety in what you can build, have you considered moving into acoustic designs or making other instruments?
CHRIS: Definitely. I've done a couple of bass guitars now. I would like to try some other instruments, provided I can find parts that are feasible for me to use. I would like try an Acoustic, (guitar). I am kind of working on increasing the depths of the body, without adding any kind of substantial weight to the guitar. At this point, I've been busy building them and selling them. I just have not gotten to that point, to experiment.
Tonefrenzy: It would be interesting. The electric guitar we got, has really good volume and projection, even though it's completely closed; you can still hear it well...to a surprising degree.
CHRIS: Currently I'm working on one that will be the first one with sound holes cut in it, I'm kind of anxious to see what effect that will have on the Acoustic qualities...as well as amplified. It's about 3/4 of the way done, so I am anxious to wrap it up and try it out.
Tonefrenzy: In closing, is there anything you would like to say about your company, seeking funding, or if you have a pet cause.
CHRIS: What would really be unique: Wood Free totally, I like Mahogany, it's my favorite wood as far of any I've worked with, as far as tone quality. It's getting scare, and expensive, and it's an endangered wood. The ones that they're using now, are the traditional woods Still have to use wooden necks, I havn't found an alternative to that. I would welcome someone to develop an alternative to that, (wood), neck, or an aluminum, or carbon fiber neck that isn't too weighty...one that would compliment these guitars. It would be nice to offer a few standard models for mass production. I would welcome any offers or ideas of ways to get these out into the world in more quantity.
THANKS CHRIS! Audio sample below
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