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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

SPECIAL REPORT: Avi Shabat

Avi Shabat operates a guitar manufacturing and repair business out of the garage of his west San Fernando Valley home. With a staff of two employees, he makes hand-crafted instruments for rock and blues musicians using swamp ash and alder for the bodies and quarter-sawn maple and rosewood for the necks. Last year, the startup produced about 40 guitars. Owner Shabat Guitar West Hills Why are there so many guitar makers in the Valley? I think there is more space. It is still L.A., and L.A. is such a mecca for musicians, and it’s a good place to be. The weather is incredible. These are the best conditions to do this. How did you start making guitars? I started as a sound engineer. I was always playing bass and guitar and at some point, I got a bad guitar and I stumbled upon this guy who was starting a luthier school in Israel, where I’m from. I decided to take that year course to learn how to build guitars and to fix them. After that course was done, I was hooked. I started building my own shop and collecting tools. I then decided to move here (in 2007) and pursue this as a career. What makes your guitars unique? A combination of a lot of things. Wood selection is very important to us. You cannot be cheap on that part. You have to get the right stuff and get it cut the right way with the right weight. What else? A lot of attention to detail. We handshape all of our necks so the feel is more organic, the way we dress the frets, the radius on our fingerboards, the pickups that we use, the finish that we use and all the care and love we give to it. How do you sell your guitars? It started with direct word-of-mouth sales. It picked up and now we have a few dealers, some in the U.S., some in Japan. We have dealers in Sweden. This is where it is going right now. Who are your customers? Working musicians. This is where I am aiming for, anyway. I want these guitars to be these tools for the job that needs to be done. When I buy a tool, I buy the best that I can buy and know that it won’t break. Have any big names bought your guitars? My friend, the reason I am here, Sean Hurwitz, he started playing with Smash Mouth and then moved to playing with Enrique Iglesias. He’s made a big name for himself. I actually sold one guitar to Walter Becker of Steely Dan. Irwin Thomas is another one. And Chris Traynor from Bush. He’s one of my best friends and customers. Are celebrity endorsements important? Yes, definitely. It’s important for everybody, on the artist side and on our side. Do people buy guitars for the sound quality of the look? A combination of both. If it looks the way you want it to look and draws you in, and then the sound and the feel feels right, you are sold. I think it’s why people end up with so many guitars. They are pretty to look at and hang on the wall. They are irresistible. What is the price of your guitars? About $3,000. What is your vision for your company? To make as many great instruments as we can for playing musicians. I have no intent to compromise quality for quantity ever. We’ll try to make them faster but just as good. We are at the point where we know exactly how we want a guitar to come out and how to do it. The vision is to get to a point where the team we have right now can make a good living doing what they are doing and pick it up from there. How do you plan on expanding your business? I started this as a repair shop and then bought tools to make guitars. I was never into taking a big loan. I saw other manufacturers and how that worked for them. I think it is better to create a name for yourself, start small, without taking any loans or any risks and to grow organically. That is how we are doing it. If the demand is there, we will adjust accordingly.

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