THE SOUND

The Walrus is an electric guitar. When plugged into an amplifier (even the cheapest one) its round and mellow tone is outstanding. Even with no effects at all the guitar is pleasant to play and to hear. That's because its natural overtones aren't lost with the usual excessive amount of wood. String vibrations are enriched by top flexibility, and pickups deal with a wider range of frequencies. The result is an extremely powerful instrument with impressive dynamics. Any note can range from very low volume up to very high without changing any knob control, just with picking strenght. It occurs even with high gain distortion: no flat bee buzzing, but a rich range of dynamic possibilities.

VERSATILITY

The result of augmented dynamics make The Walrus an extremely versatile instrument: blues, jazz, hard rock, rock'n'roll, reggae or british pop can be performed. The playing feeling is nice. I didn't want to make a swiss knife good for everything but great for nothing: I wanted a top-level guitar for many styles.

CONSTRUCTION

Since Les Paul built his first electric guitar during the 40es few things changed: they were mostly heavy axes with pickups on. It was the easiest way to avoid feedback, but the instrument had poor overtones and was quite a heavy tool to wear.

My idea was to delete the problem of feedback from its origin, so I created an instrument that doesn't allow resonancies inside the body. How? Opening the back of the instrument, so Larsen effect couldn't occur. The guitar is rich in dynamics because the top is free to vibrate, and it has pleasant overtones because strings vibration is highly augmented.

The whole instrument is light because of missing wood inside the body: it can be played for hours on a stage without any back bone stress.

This back opened guitar make any pickup, tone or volume control easy to replace. Simple changes can be done on the same instrument to achieve more different sounds. To get more jazzy guitar, pickups and bridge can be replaced properly. For a rock'n'roll sound, a Bigsby tailpiece and a different pickup configuration can do the work.

WOODS

Following my attitude for true luthery (paleolithic says someone), I handcraft each guitar individually, using high grade tonewoods. Flamed maple top and back, Indian Rosewood sides, fingerboard and pickup mounting rings, Ebony tailpiece and headstock are my preferred choice. Variations in wood choice can be an attractive option.

I use a 648 mm scale lenght, 24 frets, 43mm nut width.

Finish is natural: no polyurethans or nitrocellulose lacquers. I prefer the wood to transpire instead of accumulate moisture inside of it. And it's easily reparable too.

That's it. I hope the enthusiasm I put in planning and making this guitar will be contagious: new playing possibilities seem to confirm my efforts weren't wasted.

Keep up good playing,

Lukas

www.milaniguitars.com