Handmade by Daniel Slusser in San Luis Obispo, CA
With every guitar I build, my aim is to make your artistic muse. One that inspires you to play differently, explore new ground, and experience the distinct feeling of familiar comfort and tone that only a hand crafted instrument can provide.
Design Philosophy
I want to inspire players to connect with the instrument in a way that draws them towards creating their own signature playing style and tone. The best way to do that is with a guitar that is custom made. Combine that customization with a dialed in neck and a resonant, articulate vintage-style tone, and you get something very special. Add in beautifully rolled fretboard edges and meticulously filed and polished frets featuring smooth, soft hemispherically shaped ends — you’ll fall in love with your Slusser guitar all over again every time you pick it up.
Quality Components
Lollar, Seymour Duncan, TV Jones, and McNelly pickups are offered as standard equipment. Other options available upon request.
CTS pots are included as standard. Caps and switches are up to the player, or I’m happy to recommend my personal favorites to get the tone you are after.
Tone and Tonewoods
My take on the electric guitar tonewood debate is pretty simple. Acoustically, the wood and construction method used absolutely makes a huge, easily detectable difference in tone that anyone can hear. But, as far as a tonewood’s effect on the sound coming out the amp speaker… it’s very subtle. That’s because the pickup, pots, tone capacitor, amp, and speaker are where about 90% or more of the tone comes from. With that said, the quality of the tone coming out of the amp’s speaker is only one part of what makes a great electric guitar.
What’s not debatable is that playing an electric guitar is primarily a tactile experience. The way the strings, body, and neck resonate in your hands and against your body are a kind of tone all their own, as they are also vibrations, just like the audible tones we hear.
So, the thing that separates a killer handmade guitar from the admittedly extremely high quality CNC’d guitars available at similar (or often much higher prices) is the feel of the guitar as it is played. With a handmade guitar, I can tune the guitar’s resonance to the unique wood selected and deliver a guitar that has that special feel we’re all after.
My goal is that every time you pick up a Slusser Guitar and play that first note or chord, you’re surprised at how great it feels, no matter how many times you’ve played it before.
