Well it's been crazy since my last post, but we've made the move to Raleigh. This is the end of our first week in town and it's already beginning to feel like home. I'll be sharing a workshop with Howard and Gene of Guru Guitars and we've been working very hard to get the new shop set up. There's still plenty to do, but we're getting close to being functional in there. It's been really great to get to know the two guys a bit. We all have very different takes on guitar building and it's great to see their styles. It seems like the shop will be a really creative place for us all to work. After working alone for so long I'm looking forward to having people to share ideas with. I'll post some pictures of the progress in the next few days. As always if you are in town please stop by and see us!



















Workshop - Fresh off the Truck














Taking down a wall in the workshop.

Big Changes

It's been a long time since my last post, but lots of things have been happening. We are currently in the process of making some big changes. So...without further adieu... I am pleased to announce that Conner Guitars will be moving to Raleigh, NC. My friends at Guru Guitars (in Raleigh) have asked me to join their crew and I have accepted. I will be helping them out with their ever increasing load of repair work. Guru is a great little shop. It's a come in and hang out sort of place. The owners Howard and Gene are both guitar builders and we seem to have a lot in common. I'm looking forward to being part of their operation! Check out their website at www.guruguitarshop.com or better yet, if you are anywhere near Raleigh, please stop by and say Hi! I will, of course, still be building my own guitars. Any instruments which are currently on order will be delivered on time. We hope to be out in Raleigh by the end of October, so now the packing begins...

In other news, for those of you who haven't already seem it, I got a very nice write up on www.jazzguitarlife.com

http://www.jazzguitarlife.com/blog/meeting-clay-conner-of-conner-guitars/

Jazzguitarlife is a great site. It has lots of interesting reading, as well as lessons and gig/cd reviews. I'm really pleased to be involved with them. If you are interested check it out. They are planning to do an interview with me in the coming months so stay tuned for that.

That's about all for now. I'm up to my eyeballs in packing peanuts and tape. we'll be setting up the new shop over the next month or so and I'll post some photo of the progress.

until then see you in Raleigh!

Montreal and beyond

Hi everybody,

Well the Montreal guitar show was awesome! We met some great people and saw some beautiful instruments. The show was organized so well. There were sound proof rooms where prospective buyers could check out instruments and get to know them a bit. There were also mini concerts running almost all day featuring musicians playing luthiers instruments. The show was a lot more hands on than I thought it would be. I was very impressed. I am psyched that we were able to make it up there. I am looking forward to exhibiting there next year.

One of the highlights for me was meeting John Monteleone. He's one of the great archtop builders and a hero of mine. His work is especially amazing in person. I also got a chance to meet Jason Verlinde, publisher of my favorite guitar magazine The Fretboard Journal. He was great, and I can't say enough good things about the magazine. If you're a fan of guitars and musicians check it out.

I also had a very nice meeting with Lyle Robinson, the editor for www.jazzguitarlife.com. It was great to get to know him a bit and he seemed to really enjoy my guitar. I hope to do some advertising on his site at some point in the near future.

All in all it was a great trip. My guitars seem to stack up pretty well, of course there is always room for improvement but I am looking forward to taking part in the festivities next year.

Back at home, I've been re-grouping a bit, cleaning up the shop, and organizing. I bought a couple of new tools. finally a decent jointer and a good table-saw. It's starting to look like a real shop. the next projects are up in the air right now, I'm planning to use the down time to experiment with winding my own pickups. I also want to finish the acoustic prototype which has taken a back seat to more pressing work. That's about it for now, check out the photos of the finished 510 which I took to Montreal.

The Montreal 510


The Montreal 510 front



The Montreal 510 back.


The newish jointer,


And my newish tablesaw

Holy Cow - a Blog Update!!

Well I've been sadly neglecting my blogging duties...as all three of you following this blog know. But lots of things have been going on at Clay Conner Guitars. So here goes:

Probably the most exciting news is that we've purchased plane tickets to Montreal - to attend the Montreal Guitar Show over the 4th of July weekend. (Lucky for us it coincides with the Montreal Jazz Fest). This year is mostly a reconnaisance mission, as I've never been to the show before. I just want to see what the show is like in hopes of having a booth there next year. I have to say a wave of panic hit me when we bought the tickets - I'm finally going to be in a room with some of the best luthiers in the world. We will see how I stack up.

I've been burning the midnight oil trying to finish a new carved top 510 to take to Montreal (and to Nashville, see below). It's going well and I've attached a few pics of the guitar in progress below.

We're also planning on attending the NAMM show since it's so close - in Nashville. If you'd like to meet me or see one of my guitars at either of these shows shoot me an email at: clay@clayconnerguitars.com. Also, we've set up a fan page on Facebook - feel free to check that out and become a fan, or you can follow me on Twitter.

That's about it for this time. I'm sure as the shows approach you'll be hearing some philosophical ramblings from this direction - a by product of the inevitable soul searching that will happen.




New carved top 510.



510 carved back.


510 Carved Top.

New Guitar Photos

Well, I'm back from my trip to St. Louis. It was great to go home for a bit. I was able to catch up with a few of my friends who are still around, and just soak up the city for a bit. St. Louis has changed a lot since I last lived there. It seems to be more interesting now...or maybe I'm just older and can appreciated it more. I don't know. Anyway I had a friend of mine, who is a portrait photographer, snap a few photos of the new guitars while I was in town. If you are interested, you can checkout her website at www.hollisterthomas.com. She has a great eye and we got some really interesting photos. I thought I would post a few for everyone to see, first is a 504 solid body for Mojo's Rock Shoppe. And the other is a 510 Semi-hollow which is for sale. We are going to start building a For Sale page for the website in the near future, but for now just shoot me a email if you are interested in the guitar. That's about it. Talk soon.

The 504 for Mojo's

The 504

_________________________________________________
The 510 For Sale:

Features include:
Spruce top.
Padauk back and sides with a Mahogany centerblock.
Maple Neck with graphite re-inforcement.
Honduras Rosewood Fingerboard, using the fanned fret system.
Honduras Rosewood Bridge and Finger-rest.
Bartolini humbucking neck pickup.
Volume and Tone controls.

What's up with those frets???

This question has been coming up a lot lately, So I thought it might be an interesting subject for a blog post.

It's impossible to have a discussion about Fanned Frets with out mentioning Ralph Novak of Novax guitars. He is singlehandedly responsible for developing and implementing the Fanned Fret system.

Ralph introduced me to the idea when I went to work for him in the fall of 2001. I must admit I was a skeptic at first, but the more I worked on his instruments, the more I could see real benefits. By the end of my time at Novax I was hooked. So here's the theory behind the Fanned Fret system. I've done my best to explain it in simple terms which everyone can understand, but for those who must have charts and graph here's a link to Ralph Novak's site. http://www.novaxguitars.com/info/concept.html

None of us liked physics anyway...Am I right? So here we go...

If you look at a piano or a harp, the bass strings are larger and much longer than the treble strings. The reason for this is that the lower a pitch or note, the larger a string needs to be to sustain it. However, as the mass of a string increases so does the length needed to develop its full harmonic range. This is why the strings on a bass are bigger and longer than those of a regular guitar. So how does this relate? well, on a conventional guitar all of the strings are the same length, but by fanning out the frets, we are able to get a longer string on the bass side of the guitar,(Yay!) and a shorter string on the treble side, (also Yay!). The result is more of the bright sparkly harmonics which our ears translate as “clarity”or “sustain”. These are things which most guitar players like. The fanned fret system helps to bring more of that focused piano like tone to guitar. The result is that the guitar feels lively and exciting. I hope this helps explain the idea a bit.

I have a couple new guitars. I'll post some photos soon.

See Ya

Happy New Year

Hi everybody, Well it's been a long time since my last post, but with the holidays behind us I am now ready to resume my news relaying duties. A lot has been happening. I have been working on marketing the company a bit, which is always challenging for me. The process has led to a bit of soul searching. At times the guitar world seems so vast and I often wonder if the world needs another guitarmaker. A recent conversation I had with a fellow guitar-o-phile put some of these fears to rest. He asked me if I would make a Les Paul Jr. double cut-away style guitar. At first I said sure, but as I drove away from the shop I got thinking about his request. I realized that I had no desire to undertake the project. Why would I want to make another version of a guitar which has been, and continues to be, produced by the thousands. Guitar aficionados are a notoriously backward looking bunch. In someways I include myself in this group. I have a deep appreciation for history, and I love old guitars. There is something special about them. It has taken me a while to figure out what that magic is, but at the risk of sounding to new-agey, I think the magic is this: As a guitar is played and loved it begins to take on some of the spirit of it's owners. It grows a soul, a soul which cannot be replicated. I guess this is a very long-winded way of saying that what I find exciting about guitarmaking is not reproducing classic guitars, but exploring my own sense of what a guitar should be. After all, when ever you buy a custom guitar. you are getting that builder's ideas, a little piece of who that builder is. So I guess I realized that there will always be room for another guitarmaker, because guitarmaking (or any creative pursuit) at it's core is about ideas. Ok...enough...I must stop this rant...So from the sublime to the ridiculous (or possibly the other way around depending on your perspective). I finished a 504 solidbody which will be headed out to my friends at Guru Guitars In Raleigh, NC. Look for it there if you are in town. Additionally I am working on a prototype for a steel string acoustic. I hope to push it forward over the next few months. There is a new shop here in Knoxville called Mojo's Rock Shoppe. They have expressed interest in having some of my stuff in their shop. So I plan to focus on a couple guitars for them. Also look for our ad in the May issue of Just Jazz Guitar magazine. That's about all for now. Talk soon.

Clay


The 504


The 504 back


Steel String Prototype Top


Steel String Prototype Body