Project Overview

We wanted to create an extreme guitar design but which can appeal to majority of players. It had to be classical yet original. The guitar had to be retro but with a great confort found on modern guitars. The design is a mix of retro/vintage and futuristic concept inspired by 50's american cars.
The Blackout was exhibited for the first time at the 2014 NAMM show in Los Angeles. American press, artists and visitors really liked the design. It has been featured in many magasines after the show and recurring comments were that guitar looked "original yet classical". Japan press and distributors were really interested too. Terry Burrows, biggest selling guitar writers in the world, is in love with the design and will feature it in the next "1001 guitars you must play before you die" book.

Organisation

Custom77

Team

Jb Debiais
Jérôme Rabetaud

Project Brief

This guitar could have been designed in the 50's or in 2020 but is totally original and looks like no other on the market. The body shape really fit to the musician body with easy access to the top frets and a great equilibrium when guitar being worn. Selection of wood materials and neck construction offer long sustain notes. Selection of best quality hardware on the market offer reliability for touring artists. And handwounded pickups offer the highest sound quality available. The purpose was to create a guitar that could fit in many different musical style like rock, blues, metal, funk, etc.... Making the Blackout a really contemporary tool with an avant-gardist design.

Project Innovation/Need

Our way was to design something original while inspired by old design instead of beeing to much contemporary. All major guitar companies try to design modern shapes and fail. Their customers always ask for their 50's design. But they never try to design something inspired by their eraliest catalog while this is what customers want. We focus on that and this is a new approcah in this industry. While it's been used in many other industries for years.

Design Challenge

Guitarists are really conservative. It's really hard to bring something trully original. Today's best selling guitars are 50's designs. All the new guitar designs that have came up the last decades were really contemporary. And when a guitar design is too much grounded in today's trend, it doesn't last more than 5 or 10 years before it goes outfashioned. Another issue is the different kind of guitar players : blues, rock, metal, funk, etc... But we didn't want to limit this guitar to one musical style. Trying to appeal to a large audience might lead to design an aseptic guitar. Removing all particular elements and erasing every piece of identity. The final challenge is that we have to stay on classical specifications. Many new technologies were adapted to guitars: electronics effects in the 70's, carbon fiber for the bodies and necks in the 80's, digital emulation in the 2000's. But guitar players always come bacl to guitars made of wood with wounded pickups.

Sustainability

An electric guitar could last for decades. The first guitars made in the 50's are still playable. The guitar just need to be checked from time to time by a luthier to control neck relief and to be set-up. We used really standard hardware and pickups format so people could change parts easily during the life of the guitar. To modify it or to just to maintain its performance.