| a brilliant blend of technology... | ||
| The beginning …
Chris Griffiths was 12 years old when he first picked up a guitar. His professional interest in the guitar industry began at the age of 17, when he was trying to make a living as an amateur guitar repairman at a local music store. As a means of securing future employment within the industry, Chris apprenticed at the Gallop Guitar Hospital in Big Rapids, Michigan. Unfortunately, his professional education in guitar building did not equal the slowing local economy and Chris soon found himself out of a job. Equipped with the formal training and talent required to build guitars, he jumped feet first into the guitar industry... In 1993, at the ripe old age of 19, Chris started his first company in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Griffiths Guitar Works had a simple mission, to defy the recession by selling high end, custom built acoustic and electric guitars at a time when his home province was pegged as the poorest in Canada. Unbelievably, it worked! Griffiths Guitar Works has grown from a one-man repair shop to the largest custom guitar store in Atlantic Canada. The Birth of Garrison Guitars... Long before the plant, the employees or the processes... Garrison Guitars was a dream and the Griffiths Active Bracing System™ a rough sketch on an airline napkin. In just over six years, that first crude design has evolved into a more intelligent way to build acoustic guitars. Our new technology had to be tested, re-tested and yes... tested some more! Garrison Guitars unveiled its prototype guitars and the revolutionary Griffiths Active Bracing System™ at Winter NAMM 2000 in Los Angeles. The response was incredible. Compliments were received from manufacturers, distributors, dealers and guitar enthusiasts worldwide. Having proven its market acceptance, all that was needed was the space, tools and people to make Garrison Guitars a reality... The factory... In just six months Garrison Guitars has evolved from an empty warehouse to one of the largest acoustic guitar manufacturing companies in Canada... no small accomplishment. Tooled with the latest robotics, laser cutting, cnc milling and UV finishing, this is not your grandfathers workshop. Our new 20,000 sq. ft. factory will be busy... with orders in place for its entire first year's production for distribution to markets in North America, Australia, the U.K., Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, China and Japan. In addition to the successful sales and verbal compliments we have been receiving, Garrison Guitars was also awarded a "Golden Axe Award" for Best Value by the industry's most popular web site, Harmony Central. Harmony Central®: 2000 Golden Axe Awards - Guitar Best Value. Every Garrison Guitars is crafted using the latest technologies and innovations … The Griffiths Active Bracing System™ is a revolutionary method of guitar construction that took over 6 years to perfect. Our entire company is built on this more intelligent way to build guitars. By integrating the binding, kerfing, bridge plate and all the braces into one glass fibre component, the top is activated by having all parts vibrate in unison. It also provides enhanced structural stability that would normally take hours to construct using traditional production techniques. We do it in just 45 seconds by employing unique projection molding technologies. The technology is not designed to cut corners, but add value. A single-unit brace means no matter where you create a vibration inside your guitar, the resonance has an uninterrupted path to travel throughout the instrument. The Griffiths Active Bracing System™ and other innovations improve overall sound quality, but also vastly reduce our production costs. That’s right; we can produce a high quality acoustic guitar at a lower overall cost! We pass these efficiencies on to you allowing us to use SOLID WOOD on every Garrison Guitar we manufacture. We use many traditional and non-traditional tone woods such as East Indian Rosewood, Sapele, Western Red Cedar, Englemann Spruce, Sitka Spruce and Canadian birch. In addition, every Garrison Guitar comes with the Buzz Feiten Tuning System, D'addario Strings, TUSQ nuts and saddles and optional Fishman Electronics. |
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