Resurrecting Res-O-Glas

Revisiting cutting-edge technology, circa 1960, is a big part of Supro’s revival. Guitarist paid a visit to the company’s HQ to find out more…

Guitarist is exhausted. We’ve only been at Supro HQ for an hour or so and the brand’s owner, and founder of futuristic pedal company Pigtronix, David Koltai, seems powered by something inhuman. He speed-talks, quite often in tech designer speak that we struggle to keep up with, let alone comprehend, before he plugs into his latest love child, the Supro Comet, and blasts out licks and riffs well in excess of 150bpm. But the motor-mouthin’ mainman, still a couple of years shy of his 40th birthday, has reason to celebrate: today, he’s tying up the orders for the first production run of Supro guitars to hit US stores, including mega-chains Guitar Center and Sweetwater. After a break of some 48 years, Supro is back in the guitar business.

In a project that has taken nearly four years of USA and Korean prototypes, Koltai sums up his aim: “We’re going for authentic Supro, but also very playable instruments with a unique voice.”

As we document in our review on the preceding pages, while the Island series is the modern incarnation of Supro, the Americana models centre on the original brand’s dalliance in the early 60s with fibreglass. “The Res-O-Glas guitars that Valco made under the National, Airline and Supro brands now command tremendous prices on the used market,” David tells us. “Like all vintage Valco-made guitars, they have a few less-than-ideal aspects of mechanical construction, you might say!

“But I think it was their effort to make something unique,” David continues. “The bodies themselves, they were able to create a form that had a very beautiful German carve to it without the expense of having to do that by hand. It also offered the means of making a semi-hollow instrument that did not need to be carved or bent in the same way as wood. They did two variations: ones that were entirely fibreglass front and back, then later with a wooden chambered back with a Res-O-Glas top, which is what we’ve taken and run with here. Trev Wilkinson has designed some instruments with this type of construction [Italia’s Mondial springs to mind], but we revisited the way that was done and re-tooled it to be much more resonant and lightweight, but have the same sonic properties as the original Supro guitars.”

A huge contributing factor to these “sonic properties” is the original Vista Tone pickup, which can be heard on

recordings by The White Stripes and The Black Keys. “Many of those vintage Supro [as well as National and Airline] guitars had this very cool pickup,” continues David. “It’s a single-coil pickup with a monstrous output and is very pedal-friendly. I would say it really has its own growling kinda sound; it’s got less noise than a P-90 and I would say a less nasal-y sound, if that’s the right word. It really is its own animal, but you’ve heard it before. It also really benefits from residing in a semi-hollow configuration that seems to bring out the best resonances in that pickup. Ours, with its Art Deco silk screen, is a pure replica of the original, right down to the plastic pickup surrounds. They’re not mounted like humbuckers and are adjusted up and down by the outside pole-pieces, just like the original ones.

“The two-bolt neck joint has also been re-engineered to be far more stable and robust than the original’s, but everything about this guitar – from the Art Deco trim and stairstep tailpiece to the original-style Supro tuners – all of it was done in the image of the originals.”

Although not available for review in this issue, the new White Holiday and the Martinique (“which Dan Auerbach has made quite famous,” says David) have a piezo in them. “The piezo sound on the originals is quite tremendous,” adds David. “It’s almost built right into the posts of the bridge: it’s a very hot, totally passive system. It doesn’t really sound like an acoustic guitar so much as a psychotic Dobro. It’s also very distortion-friendly and, just like the originals, you can blend the sound with the magnetic pickups and those Vista Tones blend beautifully with that piezo.

“Supro was also a brand that was at the cutting edge of what was going on back then,” David concludes. “They beat Fender to the punch by having reverb in a combo amp – by about six months! The Supro fibreglass guitars were way out there, and the pickups were way ahead of their time and were a major influence on what became the PAF humbucker. It’s a unique tone, all of its own and we were able to put them together, with Trev Wilkinson, in such a way that we can offer them for a fraction of the price of a vintage model yet offer a better playing experience.”

Historical reference: Palm Trees, Señoritas… And Rocket Ships! by Mark Makin, the definitive tome on all things Supro and Valco

1. This Supro White Holiday from 1964 is one of many original guitars that the new owners have procured to inform the new guitar ranges

2. The original headstock is again replicated on the Americana models, which also feature Kluson tuners with these large ‘butterfly’ buttons. Also note the original’s zero fret 3. The new Americana Series White Holiday is certainly a close cousin to...

4. Having created Pigtronix effects, not to mention the range of Supro amps and effects, and now Supro guitars, guitar-playing owner Dave Koltai is like a kid in his own sweetshop!

5. The two halves of a new Americana Series Black Holiday. The back (left) is mahogany; the top (right) is a moulded ABS plastic with a wooden centre block. The finish is conventionally sprayed on the outside, unlike the original Res-O-Glas guitars...