Roger Giffin started Giffin Guitars in England, where it existed in various forms from the late 60's up until the mid 80's. During those years he was fortunate enough to hook up with a lot of very good musicians. This gave him the opportunity and encouragement to design and build guitars that became widely accepted in England at that time.
The workshop was located under a bridge by the river Thames in London, and it soon became a meeting place for many 'name' player of that time. It became the hotspot for people seeking great guitars and guitar service. Regular customers included Eric Clapton; Pete Townshend and John Entwhistle (The Who); Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits); Andy Summers (The Police); David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), and many more. Hundreds of quality, reasonably priced guitars were made at Giffin Guitars.
The Giffin Guitar workshop was in operation at this location for about 7 years, and the retail part of the workshop, which existed for about 3 years, was an outlet for Giffin Guitars as well as for other brand name guitars.
In the late '70s, Roger Giffin was designing a prototype guitar that became the Steinberger 'M' series. It was because of this guitar that he was offered the job to run Gibson's West Coast custom shop in Los Angeles. Giffin needed a change at that point, and jumped at this opportunity.
So, in 1988 Giffin moved to California. Once in L.A. and employed by Gibson he started building Gibson Custom instruments and fronting the Gibson West Coast repair shop. During this time, he built many different Gibson custom guitars, while the Giffin Guitars side of things was on a slow burner.
The client list during this time included names like Eddie Van Halen, Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Jimmy Page and Malcolm Young, among many others. Giffin ran the Gibson custom shop up until Dec. '93 together with his co-worker and good friend Gene Baker. At that point it was decided that the whole Gibson operation was to be moved to Nashville.
In early '94, Giffin and his partner Brett Allen started R&B instrument Services (on Sunset Blvd.). For the next three years they were kept very busy mainly on repairs and service. Then, in the spring of '97 Giffin branched out on his own again.
Giffin worked in Los Angeles up until June of 2004 building small quantities of hand made guitars from his home.
In July 2004, he moved once again, and is now operating from Portland, Oregon.
Roger Giffin continues to maintain, as always, the very highest hand built standards for his instruments. He feels that his hands-on approach to guitar building still gives him the greatest satisfaction, and it allows him to produce unique and individual instruments.
Body: Honduras Mahogany Top: Sitka Spruce Neck: Laminated Honduras Mahogany Fingerboard: Ebony Binding: Multiple black and white, throughout Scale length: 24 3/4 inches Inlay: Standard M.O.P lines Head Veneer: Ebony Hardware: Gold Bridge: Wilkinson Tuners: Grover Rotomatic Pickups: PAF style Finish: Tobacco burst
Giffin Standard Hollow Body
General specifications for most Standard 6-string Hollow Bodies:
Woods: Body: Honduras Mahogany, Black Limba, Swamp Ash Neck: Laminated Honduras Mahogany Body top: S (standard) Figured Maple, Sitka or Englemann Spruce Fingerboards: Indian Rosewood, South American Rosewood or Ebony
Neck dimensions: Scale Length: 24 3/4 inches Width at nut: 1 11/16 inches, width at 22nd fret: 2 1/4 inches. Neck thickness at first fret: .890 inches to .910 inches. Thickness at 12th fret: .990 inches to 1.000 inches. General neck shape is based on a 50's Gibson which is a 'C' shape at the body end tapering down to a slight 'V' shape at the nut end. Neck/body joint: Neck joins body at 20th fret. Heel is cut away to an unobtrusive but safe minimum Inlay options: Standard vertical lines, pearl dots
price, basic model: $4,200
Additional options at extra cost:
Body and neck wood: White Limba (Korina) - Add $250, Black Limba - Add $150 Neck material: 5-ply Curly or Bird's Eye Maple - Add $100 Body top materials available: UG (upgrade) - UG+ (upgrade plus) Maple - curly, quilt or Bird's eye, Redwood burl, Redwood curl, Figured Walnut, Curly Bubinga, Curly Koa - Add $125 - $450, please call for quote Optional Fingerboards: Madagascar Rosewood, Macassar Ebony - Add $50, Brazilian Rosewood - Add $300 Optional fingerboard inlays: Butterflies - Add $400, Teardrops - Add $100, Snowflakes - Add $75 Abalone Pearl binding: Guitar fully bound with multiple laminates and Abalone Pearl - Add $600
Features:
Purchased 2007 , Giffin hollow body with spruce top. Strat scale 25.5 inches. The guitar is see through black, Zebra Voodoo 59 pickups , Gotoh 510 gold/ebony tuners, wrap around bridge, coil tap. The frets are Roger's standard slightly bigger than normal. Controls are volume and tone and 3 way selector. The body is hollowed out mahogany with laminated mahogany neck, striped ebony fingerboard and head plate, spruce top. The spruce top is quite thick approx 4mm and the guitar is best described as a semi hollowbody. A good layer of shielding prevents feedback.
Action, Fit, & Finish:
What is the difference between a BMW or a Lexus and other cars ? Well it's the same with this guitar. The look is extremely classy. The style is probably timeless and it is different enough to stand out. Everything on these guitars is the same as say a PRS but the total of all the small details puts it into a different league. These guitars are not so much more expensive than a PRS but come with an attitude that seems to say " Let's Play'. The whole guitar is made by a guy who puts his heart into his work. These are Roger's guitars and although he has been head of Gibson Custom shop it is way different to a Gibson. Many of these differences are like elite cars and are subtle. The guitar is almost perfectly balanced at the neck joint. The fret access is great all the way to fret 22 The guitar is not flimsy like some hollow bodies. It sits in close to your body and doesn't move around. The binding is perfection and he has a great choice of exotic timbers for fingerboards and headstocks. These are lifetime guitars.
Sound Quality:
This guitar will become more and more popular as people find out about them. The sound is extremely versatile and I believe far exceeds the maple top so commonly used on other hollow bodies.The secret if there is one seems to lie in the basic construction. This is not a spruce top guitar in jazz style with the 'boink boink' sound. I believe it comes the closest to a true semi acoustic sound. While the sound is darker than maple this is bliss to all blues players. The feel and tone from this guitar is awesome. It will put the emotion back into your music in a similar way that a straight up acoustic does. I purchased this guitar originally to emulate the Robben Ford tones (Robben uses a spruce top 'Baker Guitar'). This guitar does that in spades and then some. It is extremely versatile in this way. I find it is bright enough to play with gained up amps and Roger's construction prevents almost all feedback. I can't speak highly enough of the Voodoo 59 pickups in this guitar. I chose a strat scale of 25.5 inches . This when coil tapped gives the closest approx. to a real strat. I believe the longer scale really assists in this. The Voodoo pickups give the real PAF sound and are fat with some top end. I believe this type of guitar shines with these pickups. I also play a lot of finger style guitar . This guitar is so good for this type of music I actually have purchased 3 of them. If you buy one for this purpose get the pickups without covers as the thumb pick taps on the pickup covers. I have mentioned that I own several of these and would call it my main guitar. There is a slight variation in brightness from one to another . They all are very phat in tone. They also seem to love the Barber'Burn Unit EQ' with a fender style amp. This gives even more variation as the burn unit changes the tone again slightly and takes you to an awesome blusey place.
Reliability/Durability:
Great build quality provides reliability. All the hardware and timbers are best in class. The laminated neck keeps the neck straight and the guitar is almost always in tune. A straight pull headstock makes bending a breeze with the bone nut the guitar is almost impossible to pull out of tune.
Giffin Standard Hollowbody
Giffin Standard Hollowbody - Sitka Spruce and Mahogany
Roger Giffin first came up with the design for the Giffin Standard in the late 70's, at the request of a customer who wanted a "Strat meets Les Paul" type of instrument. As Roger explains on his web site, "The body shape that I ended up using evolved from guitars I had been building since back in the early 70's. It's not surprising to see that many other builders hit upon this type of design at about the same time. It was a very logical guitar that needed to be invented."
The Giffin Standard Hollowbody takes the hybrid design of the Standard and moves it into the hollowbody realm. It's not a completely hollow body - the Honduran Mahogany body is carved out to leave a solid block of material down the center, so this guitar could perhaps best be described as a semi-hollowbody.
The top of this guitar is made with solid Sitka Spruce. If I may quote Roger again, "in my opinion, Spruce is an excellent material to use on a semi hollow electric guitar. It does give the guitar a very unique sound... a softer and more mellow overall tone than the Maple tops but with a really interesting 'snap' to the sound."
The neck is laminated Honduras Mahogany, with a fingerboard of Ebony inlaid with Roger's vertical line markers in MOP. Multiple layers of black and white purfling are used on the body and neck. Scale length is 24 3/4". Wilkinson bridge, WSC "PAF-style" pickups. The finish is Tobacco burst.
This instrument was originally purchased a couple of years ago by a good friend of mine. As Roger had just moved to Portland at the time, I went to pick up the guitar for my friend, and had the chance to meet Roger personally, and get a tour of his shop. In addition to being a tremendously talented builder with some amazing credentials, Mr. Giffin is also a very nice chap. I ended up spending a month with this guitar before sending it off to my friend, and loved every minute of it. When he decided to sell it as part of a larger downsizing, I got to spend another month with it. But alas, the time has come when I must put it up for sale. Now, it's your chance to pick up a very special Giffin original.
Includes original hardshell case. Guitar is in near-mint condition. Original retail price was $3,650.
