Blackbird Guitars

[navvid]

Hello all. I had a very interesting experience yesterday, and thought I would share. One of my old teachers sent me an email about carbon fiber guitars. He is a fabricationist, and we are both into performance motorsport, so we share a penchant for carbon fiber. I was fortunate enough to come into contact with Joe Luttwak, one of the founders of Blackbird Guitars. As they are entirely based and made in San Francisco (my neighborhood), he gave me a tour of the factory and I got to play both of their current models. As a general skeptic and cynicist, I am not easily impressed. Although I had heard and read very good things about them, especially regarding their sound, I doubted they would do the trick for me in terms of feel. Knowing the great acoustic properties of carbon fiber though, I did expect a big sound. So lets just say the bar was pretty high, especially as they are not cheap guitars. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they definitely cleared the bar, and even sent me away thinking maybe a little differently about guitars. Of their two models, the Super OM was my favorite, but that is not surprising because I like big guitars. Dreadnaught or Super Jumbo, no cutaways for me... And the Super OM sounds just that: BIG. As a house. It's unbelievable that the thing is barely a full size guitar when you play it.

The Rider, their real bread and butter, is a travel guitar. By far the best I have ever seen or heard. It has a bark which is very, very similar to my Loar L5 acoustic. It really sounds like a nice, big archtop hollowbody acoustic. Punchy, and very mid heavy. The smaller volume and more rigid top makes for less low frequencies causing the mids and highs to be heard better. Also, carbon fiber tends to voice mid and high frequencies more, while not being too bright. Very pleasant.

http://www.blackbirdguitar.com/image...ars_family.jpg

I honestly had no complaints, just comments about minor details that I could get used to. The micarta fretboard is flatter and wider than I am used to (16" radius, 1 3/4" at the nut) and the neck on the Super OM I played was very thin, although Joe tells me they vary slightly in thickness as they are hand made, and there is probably one out there that would suit me slightly better. Neck is not bound, but has very nice rosewood inlays (only organic material in the whole guitar).

Since they are constructed almost entirely out of high grade composite materials, they are extremely resistant to environmental conditions, and featherlight. These things are badass tough. All in all, the coolest and most impressive new guitars I have seen in a long time. Wish I could afford one...

[Robert****]

Weird looking geetars!