My guitar/pickup company - DAM deals (now with SALES!)

[chatmatt]

Hey everyone. We're not totally ready for launch on the guitar line and are working on a new site for the pickups right now - but I thought I'd give a bit of a sneak peek here to get some feedback (no pun intended).

I recently teamed up with a guy named Howard Ulyate (he was Bob Knarley in the band Dread Zeppelin, although he might not want you to know that.. ha ), who is a ridiculously talented bass and guitar maker. His pickups are really what caught my attention. After making me a few custom pieces for my guitars, we decided to partner up and really dig in and make something awesome.

In addition to his full woodshop and vintage Bobbineer pickup winder, he's now added a large laser cutting machine - meaning that we can make just about every part of the guitars from scratch. (still buying tuners and a few other metal parts) We've been experimenting with all sorts of magnet materials, wires, bobbin shapes materials and thicknesses etc for the pickups and they are all just fucking killing it. All the usual strat/PAF/tele/p90 stuff is doable.. but crazy is preferable :) We have all the usual casings to start with and then can put any pickups style/sound inside of them. Even Rickenbacker guitar/bass mountings!

I'll spare you the insane details of the guitar builds and just stick with the pickups for now. More info on the guitars is on the facebook page. It's a novel.
Check out our instagram for some pictures and stuff of the pickups. If anyone wants anything - let me know and we'll build it for you for fucking pennies. Like literally cost of materials and shipping. This is a DAM (and a few friends) deal only, so make sure you mention you're from here if you email or anything.

http://instagram.com/protoguitars

[Mr. Legit]

If you guys ever need any new hires around the shop let me know I live not too far from Orange County! Good luck with your business, the pickups and builds look killer! I like the Tele snakehead headstocks!

[chatmatt]

Thanks! When we have a few more guitars built up (in a month or so) you should swing by and play them in person. We're over in Tustin.

[HorseyBoy]

Stuff looks great, Matt. Congrats and good luck on the new venture. Big steps require big balls, so here's hoping you get big rewards (happiness/satisfaction always being worth more than money)

[chatmatt]

Thanks!!
Yes - there is zero profit in this business - but it's very fun. Our goal is to get really smart, good stuff in the hands of people who actually play it, and make enough money to make another one. I think the finished guitar builds will only be about $1,500 retail max for instance. And at about $800-ish in materials alone, not to mention the insane amount of time and all the money it took to buy an entire shop's worth of equipment.. this little venture wont exactly pay the bills. But luckily both of us have jobs and a love of making stuff.. and if no one buys anything, I still get to keep a pile of kick ass guitars! Pretty low risk :)

[Laservampire]

How much for a set of those gorgeous early 60s strat pickups?

[chatmatt]

Of course you picked the fanciest and most expensive set there is!! The strat set is $225 for all 3. They're time-consuming to make correctly.. but worth the trouble. Gotta do it right - formvar, black wax, cloth wrap..

Most of our other stuff (p90s etc) are about half that price for a matching set if direct through me.

[Laservampire]

$225 is still a great price for custom made strat pickups!

[redeyeflight]

Great looking stuff best of luck on the new venture!

[Hyphen Nation]

What kinds of guitars are you looking to make? Always interested in unique vision/oddball guitars...