The instrument itself is ground breaking as it has a lot of very fancy features that, firstly are very difficult to put into the Guitar, and secondly do not appear on many,  if any Boutique instruments.

(View in Full Screen to see the details – use the full screen button in the player.)

Some of the features include:

The back and sides are made of Cocobolo and the top is AAA grade Englemann Spruce all the other features including the Binding are made from AAAA Grade African Ebony.

The Bevel on the top of the Lower Bout and the Mini cutaway (all ebony) are High end features and very difficult to make, not to mention that they are also very time consuming to make.

The fretboard is inner lined with Cocobolo and the frets are Gold which look terrific against the Phosphor- Bronze strings.

The fretboard has a continuous Compound Radius 10′ at the nut going to 20′ at the Saddle.

The nut, Saddle and Tuner pins are Fossilized Ivory, and the large rosette ring is Cocobolo.

The tuner buttons are fashioned from Cocobolo and the neck is Laminated in our shop, the two outer laminations are Brazilian Mahogany, then two laminations of Rock Maple and the middle timber is Wenge.

Before any of our Guitars leave our shop they are broken in using a ToneRight Vibrator, this fantastic piece of electronic wizardry actually plays the instrument in, it does, in three days, what you take three years of constant playing to achieve. This means that on delivery of your NEW Guitar you have an instrument that is played in and sounds and feels like you would expect a fully played in Guitar to be.

The scale of the Guitar is 27.5″ and is fitted, on delivery with Elixir Nano strings 16 to 70 gauge, tuned B-B.

There is a Players listening hole cut into the top of the upper bout.

The Body shape is interesting in itself. After exhaustive testing we decided to Mix and Match on the body shape whilst maintaining the overall symmetry of the instrument without any loss of sound, therefore the instrument is somewhere in between a Dreadnought and an OM. Being a Baritone we needed to keep the bottom end crisp and punchy with simmering highs and we believed that we have achieved that on this Guitar. In fact,  we  are absolutely “over the moon” with how it sounds.

The Guitar is fitted with a K&K Stereo Mix electronics which sound just Fantastic, in fact whether played through a pre-amp or straight Acoustically its all that we hoped to achieve.

This Guitar is going to Brad Bergen a very well known, 1st call, Acoustic Pro player in Sydney.

He played at our Entertainment Centre and stopped by Valleys Guitars to visit and see how the Guitar was coming.

He was blown away.

We are very excited to have Brad’s endorsement.

Watch for more on this fine instrument in the near future.

Now you may regard him as scary but he is really very sweet and a great receptionist,for example only the real keen punters seem to get t the sales staff and by then they KNOW what they want, no mucking around,little Horney sorts them out.

LMI's resident Receptionist

The Guitar is a maple Instrument (back and sides) and is heavily and exquisitely inlaid

on its back.

Price $US4000000:00

Whilst I did not get to play the Guitar I spoke at length to somebody that did and the reported

that the Instrument was surpassingly light, considering the amount of pearl and other material used in the inlay.

As to what it all means, well your guess is as good as mine. Not my “cup of Tea” but to each his own.

I must say however the Instrument was beautifully made and the Inlay and Marquetry work Impeccable.

Charles fox exhibited at the festival again this year and as one would expect ,attended with a range of stunning instruments. none the least of which was his SJ-!4 Ergo Noir 2005 Guitar or as I like to call it his

Ebony Guitar,( pictured here), this Stunning Instrument is FULL of innovative Features, or possibly more accuratively put ,”Recent Design Trends” such as a Wedge-shaped body,elevated Finger Board and a double top soundboard or Sandwich Laminated Top.

Charles also had a number of other Instruments that engaged the many people that filed past his stand during the Festival.

Charles ,along with a number of other builders exhibiting, were advocating the advantages of the “Double Top”, two very thin pieces (1 mm thick) of soundboard material, be it spruce,Redwood cedar or the like sandwiched between a very thin layer of honey combed Nomex material making  the top, not only very thin and light but extremely strong ,so much so that Charles is making Guitars without any top bracing whatsoever.This Ultra Low Mass Parabolic Soundboard weighs  about 40% than a normal solid wood soundboard and does NOT require Bracing of the top

Charles is seen here holding an OM Cutaway style of Instrument which has been constructed using this method, this Instrument had NO top bracing, of any kind whatsoever.

I had an opportunity to play one of these guitars and was immediately struck by just how light it was, but more importantly, how open and loud the instrument played, further I was very impressed by the evenness and balance across the strings which was immediately evident.

As a lot of you would already be aware, Charles was and is always ready to answer question not only about his instruments and methods of construction, but about anything to do with LUTHERI in general.

I was very interested in this form of construction particularly as it referenced to Acoustic Baritone Construction.

Here is a Photo of Picture of the Laminated top with the Nomex type material displayed lying on top of it. Just note how thin the top is. I estimate that the Laminated top is no thicker than 2.5 mm.