Mac Ritchey, Luthier

1997: I have finally developed a taste for Phish. Yucky for years to me, but tastes are allowed to change. What finally caught my attention was “the tone” of the electric guitar. I had never listened to a player’s “tone” in that way before, not in this deep listening for attack time, sustain, something I would later come to understand as a “blooming sound”.

The guitar player for Phish is Trey Anastasio, a highly respected player in the field. I was told that his guitar was made for him by their sound engineer, Paul Languedoc. It was a semi-hollow body design, meaning rather than a solid piece of wood, there was a significant air chamber within the instrument and two f-holes (ports) like a violin to allow the chamber to breathe. It also had a “carve-top”, a curved surface that modifies the physical interaction between instrument and player, as well as changing the physics of the strings, their tension and vibration. It also had another feature that was to me unusual at the time – a natural wood finish (no paint, pigment), more like an acoustic guitar than what I was accustomed to seeing on the rock stage.

Typically, I had never been drawn to semi-hollow body guitars – I grew up on 80’s rock and metal, and there wasn’t a lot of semi-hollow body popularity going on at that time. As I listened closely to the way his guitar would sustain and bloom as he held preposterously long single notes at stadium-level volumes, I began to consider that some of the design features of this guitar may be what I was hearing that seemed so different than other guitar players I was listening to at the time (and the way I was listening to them). The “special thing in his tone” that I was hearing was the magical pairing between a player and an instrument, and someone who knew how to make that air chamber sing.

This new awareness of an instrument’s unique tone was like smelling a rose for the first time. I now was listening to guitars and basses in a whole new way, thinking about what it was that made an electric guitar or electric bass “sing” in a particular way.

The timing could not have been better for my invitation to Thailand. A friend and former bandmate was living in Bangkok for a few years. His name was David and he was teaching guitar at a music school there while his wife had a contract with the department of energy. Before I went to visit them, David told me of a local luthier he had met who was making better-than-average electric guitars in Bangkok. His name was Shane (although I think that was a taken name that he felt would be more relatable to non-Thai speakers) and he built guitars under the brand name Alecia Guitar Research. AGR guitars were popular at that time in Bangkok, and many of the respected local musicians were using his instruments.

Given the exchange rate during those few years after the Asian stock market crash, I was encouraged to order a custom guitar, anything I wanted, and it would cost between $250-400. David I assured me I would not be disappointed.

Suspending my skepticism, I decided this opportunity was not to be missed, even if viewed simply as an experiment. I asked my friend to hand the builder a copy of Phish’s CD “Lawn Boy”, which has a clear image of the Languedoc semi-hollow body guitar, and ask him if he could imitate that guitar. Commission accepted, I was delighted that I would at least be coming home from Thailand with a unique souvenir, a custom-made wall-hanging with a story.

A month later, I arrived in Bangok, and having traveled continuously for 24 hours, the first day was mostly recovery for this weary traveler, catching up with my friend and his wife – this was the first time we had seen each other their wedding two years prior. By the second day, I was ready to explore – and eager to meet my new guitar! David and I took a series of busses and trains from the outskirts closer toward the city center. Mopeds and street food vendors jockeyed for dominance in a test of will at every intersection. This was my first time overseas and the newness of it all is a feeling I will never forget.

Carefully winding our way through the occasional gang of non-yielding street cats, we found Shane’s shop a few blocks away from the main thoroughfare. The front area was a showroom and not much bigger than a tight fitting two-car garage. Guitars lined the luan-paneled walls, not a free hanger to be found. More guitars were on stands on the floor. All in all, there must have been 20 instruments, each one built by hand by Shane and his single assistant.

They all looked like your typical looking electric guitar for era, nothing terribly exotic or unique, and they all were essentially imitations of major US brands that would have been prohibitively expensive to import. These were the popular designs of the time and Shane found a lucrative market in building and selling guitars that mimicked the major makers. And while we were post-grunging our way toward the millennium, Thailand was still into the hair metal vibe and whammy bar solos over synth-soaked ballads. His customers’ taste in guitar designs were driven by an MTV diet of Aquanet and spandex and this dictated the market; Shane was happy to provide.

But he didn’t get to stretch out too often. He was busy making guitars for his local customers who really wanted an American made Strat or a Les Paul, models that appealed to early 80’s metal players like Explorers and V’s, or maybe something pointy and dangerous like Jacksons or BC Rich. He had imitations of them all, and every instrument was essentially “his take” on the big makers. These were not copies, but they were clearly suggesting other styles and designs from other designers. His signature was in there, but you could name each guitar shape by the one it was trying to be, minus the import fees.

Shane and I had very little ability to communicate through words to each other, his English limited to but a few words and two word expressions (which was in turn undercut by vocabulary in his language tied solely to looking for the bus station, a public bathroom, and of course, thank you. (Sidenote: “White” was difficult for me. It can mean five different things depending on tone, rising or falling, and I never quite got rice and snow properly differentiated.) Dave, however, had enough language skills after a few years in Bangkok that he was able to bridge enough of the gap for me to learn something beautiful. My commission for him to build a semi-hollow body of this design was an artistic opportunity for him as well, a chance for him to break out creatively and try something new. There was also a cultural status associated with building a guitar for a US customer, of which I was also made clear through our limited verbal interactions.

Shane took me and Dave toward the back end of the shop into the assembly and set-up area. (I assume his woodshop was either elsewhere or in a room I never saw.) There were a few body parts lying around (the wood kind waiting for a neck), and one neck laying on a long carpeted work desk, but it was oddly shaped – it was square. With no frets. Oh, this was part of the building process, I surmised. Frets, then shape the back of the neck. Interesting.

There were boxes and drawers, all labeled in words I could not read; “hex wrench” and “potentiometer” never made it to my Lonely Planet guide. It was my first time seeing guitars in the assembly phase, and if there is someone in the world that WOULDN’T find that really cool, they don’t have a pulse.

I was only given a few minutes to gape in awe at the glory behind the scenes of a luthiery, because soon I was being handed a gig bag. Shane showed me a to a chair where I could sit ad meet my new instrument. He was clearly eagerly awaiting my reaction, and told me through our mutual friend that he used a special wood for the top, a Thai wood, something that would always make this guitar connected to its birthplace.

He had built me a teak guitar.

I reached into the gig bag to extract the first custom built instrument (of many) I would ever play in my life. It was absolutely beautiful and more than I could have imagined. Other than imitating the Languedoc semi-hollow concept, Shane had had free creative reign to build a guitar as he saw fit. The body and neck were mahogany, a rich caramel color that only gets better with age. The neck had a white binding trim – I had never thought about binding before, and I loved it. The top was two pieces of wood, joined together and hand carved into a lovely arc. When I strummed my first chord (was it E minor, G major, D major? If only the guitar could tell us), it was love at first vibe. If I had ever played a semi-hollow body guitar before in my life, it was only in passing and I probably was too young to appreciate it; this was all new to me. The guitar had air coming in and out like an acoustic guitar, but it was still played smooth and lithe and quick in the corners like you want for an electric guitar.

This was as fancy as it gets for him.
He pulled out all the stops on this one.
The price tag $375.

Even after you factored in the temporary massive disparity between the dollar and the baht, this was a mere FRACTION of what I would pay for a guitar of this quality back at home – hand-made, teak top, custom design. Furthermore, an instrument of this price range was completely unaffordable by only the wealthiest of Thai locals, so for him, this was a huge commission, one that would be finance-changing. We all won.

For me, it was music-changing. My AGR teak guitar (it never got “a name” other than teak guitar) is still one of the primary guitars in my recording and performing arsenal. It is unique, it was made specifically for me, and I still use it to make music a quarter of a century later.

This is how I was introduced to luthiery – in a back alley in a steamy southeast Asian city, by a man was honored to build an instrument for me and to whom I am forever grateful.

A few years later, a second luthier came into my life. This was Chris Stambaugh, bass player and neighbor in southern NH. Chris and I ended up playing a band together for a few years. He built not only his own basses that he played in our band, but for customers, and many of them. He was a young guy in his early 20’s, already sought after by a steady stream of bass players who wanted a Stambaugh. His work was indeed remarkable, and I was duly impressed by this guy’s talent and craft.

I too became a customer, ordering a six string electric bass from him. It is remarkable, with a striking thuya burl top that looks like mud swirls in a raging river, and a gloriously wide ebony fingerboard. Sustain for days, but your chiropractor may take issue with its weight.

This was probably the year 2000, and I had just discovered what an “oud” was – and I wanted to learn how to play one. There wasn’t much of an internet e-commerce thing going on yet and there wasn’t a local Ouds’R’Us in my zip code. Again, suggesting to the luthier what the end goal was – an “electric oud” (rather than the traditional fully acoustic hollow body fragile eggshell I would come to play a year later and still to this day) – and let the artist run with it, I commissioned a new instrument and awaited its arrival.

This time, given that Chris lived only a few miles away and we were band mates, I had opportunities along the way to visit his shop and see the building process unfold. It was all over my head at the time – the angles, physics, quartersawn vs flatsawn – but it showed me that guitar building isn’t magic. It may be magical, but it is a craft, and one can learn how to make guitars. Someday, I vowed, I would learn how to do this.

That electric oud that Chris made for me is the single most influential instrument in my musical career. It literally changed my life. Although this was in no way a traditional oud, it got me started on the instrument. It does different things than an acoustic oud, just as an electric guitar can do different things than an acoustic guitar. It has a deep rich sound with sustain that goes on for days, and because it has a piezo pickup going to an output jack, I can plug it into all the special effects I historically use with reckless abandon.

I’ve played it on countless recordings for my own groups as well as clients. It’s a big part of “Mt Tone”, because there is no other instrument in the world like it. It’s the basis for nearly every song I wrote for Evren Ozan, and if you’ve ever been someplace between 2005 and 2010 where the stream new age music, you have probably heard Evren Ozan at some point. If Chris had not invented this hybrid instrument, brought an idea into the world as a musical tool for me, that music would never have been made. And let me tell you, that would be a loss for crystal stores and Native American flute shops all over the country.

A few years later, I moved from New Hampshire to Massachusetts and found myself with an enormous garage that allowed for more than enough space to begin acquiring some woodworking tools. I had always wanted to get a lathe; I fell in love with woodturning in shop class in high school, but never looked into continuing the practice. A acquired a lathe, began turning, and that got the wood chips flying. It wasn’t long before I considered that maybe this was the time to start fumbling around with luthiery.

We live in a remarkably generous time. The internet has given each and every one of us an opportunity to stock the shelves of the library of humanity. Not all submissions are created equal, but thanks to upvoting and ad revenue, we get access to some pretty amazing tutorials, talks, how-to’s, tips and tricks, never before available to us sitting at home surfing youtube. That and some good books got me up and running. Thank you, Melvyn Hiscock. We love you.

My first efforts were… well… some of them have since revisited the band saw. But they got pretty good as early as #4, a hybrid design between a Turkish Lauto and a multiscale electric fretless guitar for my first customer, on the west coast no less. We made a trade for an instrument he owned, and that marked my first “sale”. It was a great moment.

Then this weird thing happened – a global pandemic.
Life kinda changed.

Band rehearsals stopped, gigs were canceled, recording clients stayed away. It got quiet at Possum Hall. I began spending 6-8 hours a day in the garage, either wood turning or instrument building. At that time, my shop wasn’t heated and it was “bracing”, as they say.

The first instrument took two years. I had no idea what I was doing, but I muddled through. Every time I would come up against a block, I would stall out and have to get motivated and confident enough to make the mistakes I would need to make in order to improve my craft. It was scary, diving into the unknown, but an encouraging friend said as long as my finger is still attached, those mistakes ARE the process and embrace them, move through them.

The second instrument took six months. Third – three. They were getting better and quicker. I was working through the blocks, I was learning. With the help of the internet community, great books that are readily available, and people who are generous with their woodworking knowledge, I have a logo and serial numbers, customers who play my instruments, and a seemingly endless supply of mulch for my garden walkways.

Now when I build instruments, I experience a joy and connectedness to the process in ways that are similarly meaningful as the music I make and assist in making in other spheres on my life work. Luthiery provided me a bridge a tough time in the world’s history, and it has helped me find a new and rewarding way to be of service to others in making their music come alive.

If I can help someone “find their tone”, as two people before have with me, I could ask for no greater gift to be of service. Building a guitar that someone else will play and that music will reach other people? I’m in.