Tools For The Job
Gary Levinson has always seen himself as a toolmaker. Here, we find out how he learned his trade – and introduced some standout features in the process
Contemporary guitar designers seem to fall into a couple of camps: those who create guitars for themselves with the hope that players will latch onto them; and those who create guitars as a result of what players actually want. There’s little doubt Gary Levinson falls into the latter camp. Yes, the dress of the original Blade might suggest it was created for a mid-80s video shoot, but the genesis of the Blade was all about the needs of the player.
Like so many, Gary learned his trade from fixing and repairing guitars, firstly as a hobby, then more seriously in 1968 while he studied at the University Of Illinois, and subsequently in Switzerland when he’d finished further studies.
“I’d started a repair shop [Guitars by Levinson] in 1977 in Basel after I finished
my Masters. I figured I’d take a year off to decide what to do when I grew up,” he laughs. “That year turned into 43!” So, how did the original Blade evolve? “It was sort of a logical progression of things. The first thing was that people were coming to my workshop with their guitars and they either weren’t happy with the sound, the playability… or they just weren’t happy with anything!
“You can remember this back in the mid80s: everyone was looking for this mythical beast called the ‘Paulcaster’. ‘How can I have all the rhythm chops, transparency and clarity of a Strat and then have that magical fat sound you’d associate with a Les Paul?’ One thing people were doing, of course, was to put a humbucker in bridge position – one place to go for fatness. Then there were more and more people using a vibrato. You see, there’d been a big change from the likes of Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour playing their ES-335s to Mark Knopfler playing Sultans Of Swing [which became a hit on its re-release in 1979]. When that came out everyone wanted a Strat again.”
Blazing A Trail
Gary certainly wasn’t alone in trying to cater to players’ needs while the large companies played catch-up.
“I went to my first trade show [the Frankfurt Musikmesse] in spring 1978. That’s where I met Rudy Schlacher, the head of Washburn, who I’d known back in Illinois when he was repairing guitars. Two years later I went to the NAMM show in Anaheim. That’s where I met John Carruthers and we sat around chewing the fat for hours. That’s how I knew what was going on in the LA scene at the time. I was just absorbed into this whole scene.”
While key design features such as the Falcon vibrato, adjustable string guide and the EZ Access truss rod adjustment answered practical problems, it was the Variable Spectrum Control (VSC) that back then – and even today – set Blade apart from the majority. Active circuits weren’t exactly commonplace.
“Well, Bill Bartolini [innovative pickup maker] had a small encapsulated preamp that you could wire up in something like 14 different ways – you could get a treble boost, a midrange boost. You couldn’t switch between them as such, but you could hook them up to pots and dial ’em in. There was a company in San Francisco,
“The ‘Superstrat’ sound is like the smile on your graphic equaliser: enhanced treble and bass, and you want fat sounds that are midrange, the ‘Boogie’ sound”
Stars Guitars, and Ron Armstrong who ran that came up with circuits that were hanging off a pot. They had something called the Star Grinder: it was basically a pot and a circuit that would allow you to dial in distortion; you’d overload the op-amp in it. Then there were Power Pots. I played with all of this stuff and was certainly into the idea of using it.
“But even back then, I didn’t want active pickups [EMG was pioneering this technology] because they have a preamp on the bottom of the pickup, so the coils of the pickups never ‘see’ each other, just the active circuitry. So when you combine an active [Strat’s] neck and middle or middle and bridge you don’t change the resonant frequency peak, which [with passive pickups] goes down by half when they’re combined. That classic Strat sound is dependent on those passive pickups
electronically seeing each other, so the pickups have to stay passive, and after the five-way switch and the volume control that’s where I threw in the circuit. I also said I need a [passive] bypass because the people using these are guitar players and they don’t carry around spare nine-volt batteries – the guitar always needs to work with and without the battery.
“Then it was, what sounds do we want? Well, [it was] the ‘Superstrat’ sound, which is like the smile on your graphic equaliser: enhanced treble and bass – again, think of Mark Knopfler – and you want fat sounds that are midrange, centred around 650Hz, the sort of the Boogie sound. Then, of course, you can’t predict what amp the player is using so that’s where the trimpots for the levels of the treble, bass and midrange came from, so every guitar player can tweak them for themselves. The VSC was born!”
“Even back [in the 80s], I didn’t want active pickups because they have a preamp on the bottom, so the coils of the pickups never ‘see’ each other”
Production Matters
The Blade made a mark when it was launched back in the late 80s, but many thought it was made in Switzerland, not Japan. So, where is the guitar we have on review made today?
“In the Czech Republic,” replies Gary. “I started the European production around two and a half years ago with all the prototyping and stuff, so we’ve been producing there for the past two years. We make the RH-4, the RH-3 and the Steve Rothery signature model there. The ash we use is all weight-graded, either twopiece centre-matched or one-piece, so you will not get a heavy guitar; we only buy in selected ash. Same thing for the bodies of the RH-3: all centre-matched, two-piece bodies, all North American alder. It goes back to the original concept I had back in ’86/’87 [where] I’m going to take the two tonal characteristics of woods – a ’57 and a ’62 Strat, light ash and alder.”
Aside from the ultra-exclusive £3k Private Reserve models, “we don’t build anything in numbers in Japan any more”, Gary tells us, “nor the Japanese-owned Philippines factory that we used for many years. But we have started working with a very small company in Korea and from there we’ve reintroduced the R-1/RH-1 and, of course, the R-2/RH-2 has been out forever and that’s the same concept. The R-1/RH-1 is alder and the R-2/RH-2 is swamp ash – originally, we’d used Sen ash, of course. Again, we only use weight-graded wood – it’s more expensive, but it rings better and doesn’t break your back.
“For this year, we now have what I refer to as the Custom Shop where we can do quilted or spalted maple tops. It’s in Korea and it’s all new. Also, there’s a new RH-15, which has a mahogany body with a spalted maple top. We also make the [Tele-inspired] Deltas there – the Pro, Pro Custom and Classic.” These guitars will retail between £999 and £1,199.
“We also use a Chinese factory where we’ve made the Durangos, the Daytons and the X-Fires for years. We’re making the lower-end Texas and Deltas there, too. We’re also reintroducing the thinline Delta again from there. That’s going to have an American pine body. There will also be a pine-body Texas [Deluxe], both of which are feather-light with a very sweet top-end. I’m also doing a mahogany body twin-humbucker Delta Queen – a darkersounding guitar but with super-charged PAF-like humbuckers and a VSC – that’s like playing a Tele-Paul.”
These guitars primarily range from £649 to £799. Gary declares that he doesn’t want to play ball in the lower-cost entry-level market: “There can’t be anything Blade about it – and I still take a great deal of pride in what I do.”