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Awesome Guitars

Playing a Double-Sided Guitar

Playing a Double-Sided Guitar

There’s a good reason that guitars are only playable from one side. But that didn’t stop musician Rob Scallon from giving this unusual double-sided guitar a try. This strange string instrument is configured as a regular guitar on one side and a bass guitar on the other. It’s super tricky to play both sides at the same time.

The Guitar Card

The Guitar Card

This stainless steel card is the ultimate cheat sheet for guitar players. One side of the pocket card features 42 common chords and their finger placements, while the other side has a fretboard diagram, chord charts for minor and major keys, and a circle of 5ths. The card comes with a matching leather card sleeve.

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Patterned Plywood Electric Guitar with LEDs

Patterned Plywood Electric Guitar with LEDs

We’ve seen a lot of cool custom guitar builds over the years, but we’re particularly enchanted by this one. Woodworker Ray Whitby created this beautiful and unique electric guitar from layers of wood and epoxy resin, cut into chevron shapes, assembled and shaped into the guitar’s face, and backlit with LED lighting.

The Cardboard Sessions

The Cardboard Sessions

The guys from Signal Snowboards teamed up with Ernest Packaging to create a custom electric guitar and drum kit made from cardboard. The Cardboard Sessions hands those instruments over to talented musicians to perform in impromptu jam sessions. Though they didn’t manage to make a cardboard brass section.

Self-Playing Guitar “Robot”

Self-Playing Guitar “Robot”

Musician Demin Vladimir created this electromechanical rig plays an acoustic guitar. It has one set of actuators that hold the frets while others strum the strings. It’s not the most expressive instrument, but neither were vintage player pianos, and we still love those. He’s also built an accordion that plays the notes itself.

So Many Bass Sounds

So Many Bass Sounds

When we hear the word “bass,” it conjures up the funky sounds that Flea bashes out for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But there are so many other kinds of noises that basses can make. Musicians Bart Soeters and Joris Holtackers show off some of the distinctive sounds made by the string instruments in this original composition.

4 Men, 1 Guitar

4 Men, 1 Guitar

Barcelona’s Maestros de la Guitarra stole a gimmick from the 2012 viral hit version of Somebody I Used to Know, performing with multiple musicians on a single acoustic guitar. Their four-person cover of Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean is our new favorite version of the track.

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Crafting an Ultra-Thin Guitar

Crafting an Ultra-Thin Guitar

A typical electric guitar body measures just under 2″ thick. Burls Art wanted to build the thinnest guitar he could out of wood. He used black limba wood for the body, which he cut and planed down to about half the regular thickness. He had to use special low-profile pickups due to the height limitations.

Making a Guitar from Guitar Picks

Making a Guitar from Guitar Picks

With enough skill and epoxy resin, you can make a guitar out of just about anything. Maker Noe Hervas shows off a colorful electric guitar he built by cutting a custom wood mold, filling it with stacks of guitar picks bathed in clear resin. At least he saved one pick to play it with.

French Fry Guitar

French Fry Guitar

We’ve seen guitars made from foods before, including jawbreakers, ramen noodles, and coffee beans. ArtMayer brought his junk food game with a custom Les-Paul style guitar with a body made from McDonald’s french fries. The fries probably came from a fake McDonald’s because Art is located in Moscow.

40 Fingers: Star Wars

40 Fingers: Star Wars

The members of 40 Fingers are back with another wonderful guitar performance. This time, they took on two classic compositions from John Williams’ Star Wars catalog, including the Main Theme and epic Emperor’s March, imbuing the tracks with their richly-layered acoustic sound.

Making a LEGO Bass Guitar

Making a LEGO Bass Guitar

In the past, Burls Art has shown off his guitar-building abilities by making instruments out of jawbreakers, Himalayan salt, coffee beans, and more. This time, he’s changed things up by building an electric bass guitar, using about 2,000 LEGO bricks to form its body. We love the colorful pattern he came up with.

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A Collection of Crazy Guitars

A Collection of Crazy Guitars

Fans of 1980s metal might recognize some of the crazy multi-necked guitars in this video by Rob Scallon. They’re part of Michael Angelo Batio’s extensive guitar collection. Batio is known as the fastest guitar player of the era, and Rob is like a kid in a candy store when gets hands-on with some of these wild instruments.

Making a Kumiko Lattice Guitar

Making a Kumiko Lattice Guitar

We’ve always been wowed by the craft of Kumiko. Inspired by the elegant Japanese latticework, Make With Miles created a unique electric guitar with a body that incorporates the technique. After cutting and assembling the wood, he filled the openings with tinted epoxy for contrast. He also made a matching amp.

Colored Pencil Guitar 4.0

Colored Pencil Guitar 4.0

After building three electric guitar bodies out of colored pencils, Burls Art has stepped up his game by making one with more than 2000 individual pencils, nearly doubling his last effort, and incorporating the neck into the same mold as the body. Watching that crystal clear epoxy poured over the pencils is just so satisfying.

Playing a Guitar Through a Modular Synthesizer

Playing a Guitar Through a Modular Synthesizer

Guitarist Rob Scallon previously played his guitar through the world’s largest effects pedal board. This time, he and fellow musician Andrew Huang ran the sounds of this electric guitar through his enormous wall of modular synthesizers, resulting in some of most interesting sounds ever produced by a string instrument.

Hydro Dipping a Guitar

Hydro Dipping a Guitar

Burls Art made some resin guitar bodies that he wasn’t too happy with, so he decided to refinish one of them by dipping them in a tank of water and paints to produce a marbled design. It took a few tries to get it right, but after some trial-and-error, the finished guitar looks pretty awesome after the clear coat.

How Not to Use an Effects Pedal

How Not to Use an Effects Pedal

If you took two minutes to read the manual that came with the effects pedal, you’d know that it plugs in between your guitar and the amplifier. But musician Seiji Igusa came up with a less conventional way to use an effects pedal, to strum and manipulate his guitar’s strings. Whatever works, we suppose.

Gold Tone Guitar Shelf

Gold Tone Guitar Shelf
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Gold Tone makes banjos, guitars, mandolins and ukes that look as good as they sound. They also use real guitar parts to make this cool shelf for music lovers. It has a mahogany body and neck with interior detailing, shelves with binding, a walnut fingerboard, and a guitar hanger wall mount. Shredding talent not included.

Axes Guitar Ring

Axes Guitar Ring
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This unique ring from Boone Rings makes a great gift for guitar lovers. Each one is handmade to order from titanium and features four different styles of guitar that wrap around its wearer’s finger. Available in all ring sizes.

The Hydra

The Hydra

This insane three-headed instrument is the brainchild of musician Steve Vai and guitar-maker Ibanez. It combines a fretless 12-string neck, a half-fretless bass neck, a seven-string guitar neck, plus an electric harp at its base. This beautiful beast was designed by Moti Kashiuchi and crafted by Kazuya Kuroki of Ibanez Japan.

Recycled Ocean Plastic Guitar

Recycled Ocean Plastic Guitar

It’s a sad story we’ve heard before – our oceans are filled with discarded plastic that is destroying fragile ecosystems. To do his small part to help, Burls Art teamed up with 4Ocean who recovers and cleans plastic from the water. He then melted down the plastic chips and formed it into the body of a colorful electric guitar.

DOOM Eternal Crucible Guitar IRL

DOOM Eternal Crucible Guitar IRL

In the Fortress of Doom in DOOM Eternal, you’ll see a trio of bad-ass guitars, designed by artist Ethan Evans. Orbital Guitars looked at the one in the middle called the Crucible, and said “yeah, I can make that,” and got to building a real-world, 8-string version of the guitar. It’s made from wenge wood and epoxy resin.

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