Breedlove Guitars was started in 1990 by Larry Breedlove and Steve Henderson. Kim Breedlove, older brother of Larry, now heads the company. He’s the one who really mastered the art of guitar making. He’s the company’s master luthier, so he’s the one to really thank for all the many models of Breedlove Guitars. Today the company operates out of Tumalo in Oregon.

Breedlove Guitars started out producing acoustic guitars for fingerstyle guitar player. Earlier, Kim had been a banjo player with the Mojave Greens bluegrass band in Ridgecrest, California. Kim understood finger picking styles of playing, and his first guitars reflected that.

Flat top guitars are usually made out of familiar woods such as mahogany and rosewood. They may have sides and even backs made from the more common maple, but they don’t as a rule use exotic and rarely heard of woods. Breedlove Guitars are the exception.

Koa and acacia koa, wood that comes from Hawaii, is what Breedlove Guitars are made from. The ancient Hawaiians used this wood to make canoes, the paddles for the canoes and spears to hunt or fight with. They used huge koa tree trunks that were deemed to be “spiritually suitable” to carve their sea going canoes from. Breedlove Guitars may not go as far as ensuring that their koa wood is “spiritually suitable,” though the quality of their guitars suggests that they just might.

The koa wood of Breedlove Guitars has a wide variety of colour and light tone. They can range from yellow blonde to deep brown, bright gold to dark red, and everything in between. The tonal quality of the guitars can vary as well. They can range from rich and deep to light and harmonic. Each of the Breedlove Guitars has unique features.

The people who play Breedlove Guitars are never likely to desert the guitar they love best. They are people like Kristian Bush of Sugarland, Ed Gerhard, an artist who won a Grammy Award, and Richard Gilewitz, an excellent guitar soloist. These musicians and others swear by the special guitars made from the unusual wood.

Breedlove Guitars are not cheap to buy. Their most inexpensive “S” series guitars are still world class instruments, and their most expensive ones are three month’s wages for some. That includes their first model, the one that started it all off, the C10 Concert Shallow Body guitar. This guitar is still one of the most popular models. Its design, colour, rich tone and ease of playing experience make a classic in its own time.

Breedlove Guitars employ some very modern technology in the making of the products. The Polhemus FastSCAN Cobra is one such device that they use to scan guitar parts in a mesh format to be saved as files and used to cut parts to exact dimensions. Some of these tasks used to take days, but now take hours, thus saving time and effort. It also ensures greater consistency across the range of products for the company.

Breedlove Guitars is a company that shows no sign of slowing down. Their guitars are loved and used all over the world by some of the greatest names in guitar playing circles. If you can say that you play a Breedlove, then you are in very good company indeed.

 Mail this post

Technorati Tags: