The Modern Art of the Guitar Luthier

Keeping with their Americana Roots, Taylor Guitar continues to build high quality acoustic guitars. With all of the craftsmanship, and the well thought out designs, Taylor builds em strong, with a full body sound. They continue to innovate while supporting the community with their roadshows.

Taylor Guitars is an El Cajon, California‐based luthier, specializing in acoustic guitars, as well as semi-hollow and solidbody electric guitars. A second plant has been opened 40 miles away in Tecate, Mexico where the entry-level guitars of the Taylor line (the Baby, Big Baby, and 100-200 series) are made along with the Taylor guitar cases.

lu·thi·er   [loo-tee-er]

a maker of stringed instruments, such as violins or guitars.

In 1972, at age 18, Bob Taylor began working at American Dream, a guitar making shop owned by Sam Radding, where Kurt Listug was already an employee.When Radding decided to sell the business in 1974, a triumvirate of Taylor, Listug, and Schemmer bought American Dream and renamed it the Westland Music Company. Listug became the businessman of the partnership while Taylor was responsible on design and production. Now, this guitar maker is simply “Taylor Guitars.”

Taylor also produced their famous “pallet guitar”, a guitar made from old pallets demonstrating the importance of construction over expensive, exotic woods.

 

Taylor’s proprietary pickup system, the Expression System, consists of a humbucking induction pickup mounted in the neck and a pair of dynamic soundboard transducers wired to an on board preamplifier designed by Rupert Neve. Starting in 2007 the electronics started to use a 9-volt battery similarly to common piezoelectric and microphonic pickup systems in other guitars. Prior to that, they used AA batteries.

Taylor guitars are made with a patented bolt-on neck; the NT neck (new technology). The NT neck fits into a pocket on the top of the guitar body with the desired angle being achieved by small, accurately milled neck spacers (shims) The standard practice is to support the fretboard up to the fourteenth fret with the unsupported portion being glued to the constantly moving soundboard.