Guild Guitars and I are both 27 years old, but whereas I as a rock musician occasionally feel like Methuselah, as the latest manifestations of rock's eternal silly season hit the headlines, Guild Guitars are considered a comparatively young company. There is, however, an element of tradition and of striving to retain original values in the Guild story — the kind of thing that creates the legend of a great instrument builder.

A history of the company can be found in the current Guild acoustic guitar catalogue, and I wonder whether this may be a comment, albeit inadvertent, on either the literacy or the sense of history of the contemporary electric guitarist. Guild have always enjoyed readier acceptance among acoustic players, so one can perhaps sympathise. But as the company prepares to enter a new 'golden era', they should perhaps remember that rock guitarists, too, love a good legend, and that they need reminding that Guild were not always the underdogs that they have recently been.

But I digress. In the very early 1950s the late Alfred Dronge started the ball rolling with the aid of five established patriarchal guitar-builders in a small loft near the West Village area of New York City. Dronge was a music store proprietor and a former professional musician — he hand-tested every instrument himself. The instruments themselves were mainly acoustics at this stage but, as amplification of the guitar was already well on the way in, the forerunners of the current jazz guitar models were early additions to the range offered. The popularity of the guitar was meanwhile increasing in proportion to the swing away from the big band sound in favour of the smaller 'hot combos' of the early part of the 50s. Here the guitar's role was more crucial, and the lead guitar was assuming importance as the new solo instrument. To establish a guitar-making business of reliable quality at such a time throws light on Dronge as entrepreneur, and his choice of geographical location was perfect for the birth of a major company servicing what was to become the rock'n'roll industry as we know it.

Guild continued to expand, establishing a national network of dealerships and competing with the long-established leaders among guitar manufacturers. They were one of the first companies to adopt machines to speed up the laborious task of cutting out the wood for their guitars, thus liberating their craftsmen to concentrate on the more important and finer points of finishing (and also, I imagine, reducing the risk of injury to the invaluable hands of these experienced people). When the rock'n'roll boom came, Guild were ready with their well-known Starfire range of slimline semi-acoustics, in addition to the series of solid-body guitars with names like Polara and Jet-Star, whose looks matched the fashionable tackiness of their names, and whose pure kitsch designs, with their Flash-Gordon-meets-the-American-Tailfinned-Dream sense of taste would find favour with today's new wave. However, the guitars are rarely encountered now.

Meanwhile the company expanded, moving first to New Jersey in 1956, then to the present factory at Westerly, Rhode Island in 1968, leaving the administrative centre at New Jersey under president Leon Tell and vice-president Neil Lilien, who were both long-standing colleagues of the founder. In addition, Guild Guitars became in 1966 a division of Avnet Inc, a large conglomerate corporation with interests in consumer electronics, automotive and industrial fields. And the answer to your conditioned music-magazine reader's question is, emphatically, no, there seems to have been no drop in quality as a result of the company's growth pattern. If anything, it would be a fair assumption that the increased finance available through becoming part of a large corporation has given breathing space for well-planned design and marketing development — as seen in the launching and promotion of the current series of state-of-the-art solid guitars. The ensuing sales have meant that the factory will soon be taking over adjacent property for expansion of the existing premises, and production staff are in the meantime having to work a night shift in addition to the usual factory hours in a brave attempt to meet the orders.

Guild in the UK

Guild guitars were brought into this country by Top Gear until a few years ago, as one of a number of best-selling lines. This company, however, was unable to ensure Guild proper promotion and so Guild UK Ltd was established to give the instruments a major sales push on this side of the Atlantic. Guild UK Ltd consists of a three-man sales team led by a likeable extrovert, Alan Grant (an ex-member of a top South Coast pop-harmony band and still, whenever time allows, a working guitar-player of considerable ability). The UK division also handles a budget-priced range of guitars called Madeira, and the Barcus-Berry range of products. The company's headquarters are in Hove on the south coast (by chance, almost next door to the house where I was born). The premises consist of the office and a nearby warehouse where the guitars are stocked. When they arrive they are set up by another local guitarist of repute, Bob Hawkins. Bob is a guitar builder in his spare time, and is full of praise for Guild's quality. 'They have probably the straightest necks of any imported guitar,' he recently told me. 'Also the ebony used on the fingerboards is only of the very best quality, and the number of duff guitars received, other than those damaged in transit, is negligible. The main part of the work I have to do, apart from customers' specific requests, is taking down the action a little on the acoustics, as the Americans seem to like it higher. The electrics, however, need hardly any attention, and are playable when they arrive. By the way, spares are no problem — we have virtually everything in stock.' Alan Grant added that the actions requested by dealers vary from area to area, and in most cases it all depends on how the local guitar hero has his axe set up — lesser local luminaries follow suit, and a regional trend is established.

Guild UK submit reports and comments, naturally enough, to the American parent company. A recent illustration of this relationship was when guitar maker and retailer Stephen Delft's published comments about the protruding adjustment screw in the newly designed bridge/tailpiece unit of the B301 bass were relayed to America. This has now been modified so as not to interfere with the playing hand. However, although such improvements are often adopted by the factory's design team, they resolutely refuse to accept orders for custom built guitars. Guild UK have had to turn down a good half-dozen orders for a twin-neck, some from dealers with whom Guild have excellent business relations. 'They won't budge on this one,' says Grant. 'Apart from stereo wiring and left-handed guitars, custom-building is no longer considered viable in view of the order backlog at the factory. And it really doesn't matter who you are!'

Despite this, one can admire Guild's belief in their designs and it would certainly seem justified in view of the official list they showed me of registered 'name' users, numbering well over a hundred. Of these, several are contracted to Guild as active endorsers of the guitars: John Abercrombie, Lol Creme, Ralph McTell, Mel Tillis, Ralph Towner and Frank Jennings.

This is not to suggest, however, that Guild have a reactionary attitude towards innovation in their range of electrics. Apparently preliminary work is being carried out in America on a new deluxe solid prototype with active electrics and a straight-through-the-body neck. There are slight reservations about their introducing active circuitry to the guitar before the bass, as direct injection of bass guitar is already well-established. Better eq and stronger output would be more beneficial in this area than in adding versatility to an already highly versatile guitar.

The Guitars

When Guild UK took over the distribution of Guild electric guitars in this country there were problems. The range included many fine semi-acoustic instruments such as the legendary Artist Award and X500, and the more moderately priced X175 and CE100D, all featuring a purity of tone and appearance, and distinguished by their attractive harp-shaped tailpieces and very good playability. These instruments are rightly renowned and are still included in the range. There will always be a demand for tonal and visual elegance, especially in the case of the Artist Award which sells its limited production each year on the strength of one pickup, one volume control, and a reputation among connoisseurs as the most beautiful instrument of its kind ever made.

The Starfire series, however, was losing ground. Despite the introduction of the internal solid block to rid the hollow-bodied instruments of their inherent properties of resonant feedback, the Starfire 2 had to be discontinued, recently followed by the Starfire 6, leaving only the excellent Starfire 4 to carry the flag as Guild's twin cutaway thin-bodied semi-acoustic. The tendency away from guitars of this type is perhaps regrettable, especially when it means the loss of such a fine instrument as the luxuriously-appointed Starfire 6, which featured as high a standard of finish as any Guild, with gold-plated hardware and 7-ply binding around the curly maple body, f-holes and head. It is inevitable, however, that the trend away from such instruments should curtail a guitar so costly and time-consuming to produce.

The continuing success of the remainder of the semi-acoustic range is I feel, largely attributable to the brightness of Guild's standard humbucking pickup, as fitted to all except the Artist Award (which, as its price-tag would indicate, features unique hardware, including a specially designed suspended pickup). The standard humbuckers give a clear, bell-like tone when paired with a hollow body, which I well remember from my own cherry-red Starfire 2. Although the sustain properties were limited as my guitar had a Bigsby tremolo unit and a rosewood bridge — unsuitable in my opinion in a modern rock guitar — chord work, especially arpeggio style, sounded remarkably good. The action, too, was outstanding, although my choice of string gauges, beginning with .009 as a top E, was rather at odds with the spring tensions in the Bigsby unit, which demanded the use of heavier strings for reliable tuning. I have unfortunately been unable to find a photograph of this particular guitar, but it bore a strong resemblance to the CE-100D illustrated, but with a thinner body, dots on the fingerboard instead of block inlays, and of course the tremolo arm.

A further problem in the Guild range, and perhaps the most significant, was the highly Gibson-influenced range of solids introduced in the late 1960s. Guild's Les Paul-styled entry was the M75CS, a rather unattractive paraphrase of a Les Paul. As far as its electrics were concerned, there were pros and cons. The control layout was far superior to the Gibson, including a master volume control and Guild's then innovatory phase switch, which reverses the polarity of the bridge pickup, and gives a pleasant nasal whine to the tone of the guitar when the pickup selector is in the middle position. The brightness of the Guild humbuckers' tonal response was, however, a little disconcerting to the average would-be purchaser of a guitar of this style, and not in the least bluesy or raunchy. An attempt was made to give the M75CS a new lease of life by offering optional DiMarzio pickups, but by this time Guild had experimented further with the body shape of the guitar, and introduced the MC80CS.

Fundamentally a very similar guitar, the M80CS was a departure from the trend-following school of thought, and features a twin cutaway body design with an arched top, the usual Guild option of DiMarzio PAF and Super Distortion pickups, and Guild's new closer bridge-tailpiece placement. It was introduced before Yamaha's SG2000, and with the DiMarzios it provides an attractively-priced alternative to this kind of instrument, with the added bonus of phase-reversal and master volume controls. It is every bit as substantial in physical feel as the Yamaha or the Gibson, but seems to be suffering a little on the promotional front. Alan Grant of Guild UK feels there may be a psychological price barrier involved with the M80CS, but I feel that a little more publicity would attract plenty of admirers to this highly desirable instrument. I love the appearance and sound, even though it's not quite my cup of tea as regards feel. There again, I don't like Les Pauls or SG2000s either!

There was an entry in the SG stakes too: the S100 which was as much a competitor of the Gibson SG Standard as the M75CS was of the Les Paul. The problems, too, were virtually identical. The only difference was that in the lower price bracket buyers were more willing to take a gamble on the Guild. Here, however, there was another factor — Japanese copies. Faced with the Gibson original the Guild 'restatement of the theme in a different key' as it were, and the considerably less expensive — and constantly improving — Japanese copies, the customer, and of course the retailer, were faced with a choice which yet again placed Guild in the middle, being neither an inexpensive copy for the beginner nor a true original to impress your fellow musicians with.

However, this somewhat derivative range of solids (the S100, S90 and S50) showed that Guild had almost beaten an important problem from the performance aspect: combining excellent tone, response, and sustain with an unusually slight physical weight. The S50 in particular was so lively that it virtually went for the throat of the unwary guitarist with its raunchiness! With only one pickup, minimum circuitry, solid brass hardware and a hard, unrelenting tone, it filled a gap in the market created by Gibson's termination of their quality single-pickup designs. This kind of guitar places emphasis on the musician as opposed to the instrument, and brings the best out of the former, who has nothing to fiddle with but technique and inspiration. It was the S50 which won me away from the Starfire, but I felt I needed the extra pickup and plumped for the S100 — I now wonder whether I should have followed my instinctive choice of the single-pickup model; happy though I was with the S100 it never impressed me as being such a dangerous beast.

The current breakthrough for Guild came with the new range of solids. The first model was the B301 bass guitar which featured a single pickup of entirely new design and which showed that, at last, Guild had come up with a superb value long-scale bass, worthy competition for Rickenbacker and Fender in their lower-octave rivalry and, in the area of sound, once again the middle choice — this time, however, with considerable success. This bass was closely followed by the B302 (I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out the specification of that one!), the S300 and the S60. The whole range features the same unique body styling, and represents Guild's first major expression of individual identity for some considerable time. Alan Grant's initial reaction to the new body shape was well-publicised at the time — you may recall a photograph of the gentleman clutching an S300 and a B301 in a crucifixion pose, with what looks like an expression of stark horror frozen on his visage. Perhaps it would be as well to explain that Mr Grant is a purist and a connoisseur. However he soon realised, as did the rest of us, that the new Guilds assume a totally balanced and logical aspect when viewed in the usual playing position. The fact that they look less attractive on the guitar showroom wall reveals a new dimension to Guild's market psychology. Rather than giving customers what they think they want, Guild seem to have given them something to discover for themselves. The new range was introduced early in 1977, and the order books speak volumes on the success of their ploy. 'It looks better on' is the catchphrase, and the Guild UK team freely confess to adopting the sales patter of gents' outfitters in order to sell their guitars to the uninitiated.

The top guitar in the range is the S300AD. This instrument has the familiar specification of the S300 with DiMarzios, but in addition it features a body of natural-finish solid ash and a maple neck as opposed to the usual all-mahogany construction. The fingerboard remains of finest quality ebony. This guitar offers a slightly different tone and 'envelope' by means of the higher-density wood. With its 4-octave fingerboard (standard on the new series), Schaller-style individual machine heads, fixed dovetail jointed neck and the new Guild jumbo fretting (the latter alone surely representing a new peak in standard-production instruments), it stands proudly at the head of a new generation of solids. With this instrument Guild have not only surpassed their competition in the field of quantity-produced guitars, but rival the best that the top custom-builders can offer, with the advantage of high-output manufacturing facilities already in full swing. And all this at a price which competes with the latest Japanese disposables.

My own instrument at present is an S60 which I have customised with a set of Schaller machine heads and a single DiMarzio Super Distortion humbucker. It also has the traditional and distinctive Guild control knobs in place of the cheaper ones usually found on the S60. Guild recently attempted to change over to larger, less attractive control knobs throughout the new range. However, whereas it suited the bass guitars admirably, it ruined the appearance of the guitars, and they have reverted by popular demand to the original distinctive knobs. Alan Grant has been trying to persuade them to adopt Gibson-type speed knobs; I hope he is unsuccessful, purely as a matter of personal taste.

Certain shortcomings came to light on the S60 which I feel should be mentioned. Firstly, in my opinion, the action is unsatisfactory unless the nut slots are deepened. This not only creates better intonation when playing open chords, but makes fingering easier at this end of the neck. It also makes it possible, by improving the angle of the strings to the fingerboard, to lower the bridge, and thus the whole action of the guitar, to a level more appropriate to the high standard of fretting. Incidentally, even with a low action, the size of the frets enables bending of strings, pull-offs etc to be accomplished without hitch, as the fingers can still get 'under' the strings.

A further problem common to most Guild players is the loss of the little string support roller under the top E-string. If the string breaks during a gig, and you have to finish the number (or indeed the whole set) without it, you stand an excellent chance of losing the roller down a crack in the floorboards. Either carry spares, write pestering letters to the Guild factory in the States, or put a blob of something unpleasant on the end of the screw that the roller rolls off. Until the designers tackle this point the problem will continue. However, it has only happened to me once in about three years of using this type of bridge.

Conclusion

Despite these slight shortcomings, I would recommend the new Guilds to anyone, and the option of pickups makes my recommendation all the more confident. As long as their policy of using the best matured timber, solid brass parts and the finest mechanical and electrical components continues, I shall stick with them as a satisfied customer.

A final word regarding price. Although you can pay up to £1200 to own a Guild, the company does seem to do its utmost to keep prices at a reasonable level. For example, the new solids represented virtually no increase in price over the previous series. This was accomplished quite simply by abandoning the costlier block inlays featured on the neck of the S100, and introducing simple dots as position markers. The resultant saving enabled the new guitars to have the more expensive ebony fingerboards, and two full octaves of fat nickel-silver frets. A better instrument at the expense of a bit of cosmetic indulgence would seem to be a good deal. Furthermore, the margin between American and British prices is less with Guild than with other guitars imported from the US as Guild UK make genuine efforts to keep prices as low as possible. Lastly, British dealers usually know where they stand with Guild UK regarding those unavoidable increases in price which happen from time to time. The company assure me that no 'surprise' increases are sprung on the retailers before a new price list has been sent out to everyone.

It would seem that a sensible policy is being pursued by Guild; if you buy a Guild I think you buy honesty of intent on the part of both manufacturer and importer. I have found no misleading myths associated with Guild; just an excellent product, straightforward (almost to the point of modest) marketing, top-line service, and deserved success.

Roger Adams is guitarist with Krakatoa