称其为讽刺，也许是加拿大吉他制造商Tom Bartlett他对复古爆发的深厚热爱被他的第一个真实的失望所吸引Les Paul，但是它开始了。这就是巴特利特（Bartlett）追捕兔子洞的热情，除了精心制作了几个备受推崇，细节完美的复制品外，他长期以来一直在成功地销售零件和Luthier用品，以帮助其他业余爱好者做同样的事情。。然而，他自己的吉他制作的最高成就是将自己的原始转折赋予了这种风格。但这是一段时间的制作时间，要到达那里，他不得不在内外学习传奇。
巴特利特告诉我们：“我在安大略省长大，就在多伦多外面，一旦我接触音乐，实际上，作为一名独立的听众，这就是我所做的一切。永远，这就是我只戴着耳机走来走去，尽可能地吸收。尤其是过去的摇滚时代。这对我的影响很大，我立即想弹吉他，但根本无法弹。”
“我的一个朋友得到了一把电吉他，我们大概是10或12岁，我想，我立即听起来像Eddie Van Halen。I picked it up and just couldn’t make a sound out of it that was pleasing at all. It was terrible!”
不过，与许多人不同，巴特利特的痴迷使他坚持不懈。父母的低品质的原声吉他导致了一年坚定的演奏，并演奏了他做的一年，他的吉他承诺。
他回忆说：“我每天玩几个小时。”“然后，我花了几年和几年的时间试图建立足够的资金和资源来负担Gibson莱斯·保罗，你知道吗？那总是顶峰。这对我来说并不重要，这对我来说没有任何影响。直到我是一个独立的成年人，我才终于购买了我的第一个真正的品牌吉布森·莱斯·保罗（Gibson Les Paul）。但是，不幸的是，我对质量感到失望，而失望就是促使我制造第一把吉他的原因。”
“当时我是一名木工，我是一名橱柜制造商，吉他的质量控制也很差。我想，‘我敢打赌，我可以比这更好或更好。’”所以，我做到了。真的，那是最后的开始。建造第一把吉他后，我再也没有建造过另一个橱柜。这是一个非常快速的吉他制作的过渡。”
Calling Kalamazoo
对于Bartlett而言，这是任务的重要组成部分 - 最终涉及“正确”的部分 - 依靠50年代在Kalamazoo中所做的工作尽可能多地复制工作。不仅要维护周期纠正的规格和组件，而且还以相同的方式将它们放在一起。当然，诀窍是，尽管一个世纪中叶的主要吉他品牌有一个完整的工厂可以与之合作，而装配线生产的好处，但Bartlett本人是一家单人商店。
“Having been in the business now for about 12 years, I’ve learned to try not to be frustrated by the process,” Bartlett tells us, “But part of the struggle is that it’s difficult for one person to learn the 500 steps that it takes to build a guitar from a raw piece of lumber to closing the case and putting it in the box. I personally only do two batches of guitars per year, and it’s really hard to get good at doing 500 things when you only do them twice a year.”
“So, it’s a painful process, and a lot of my fastidiousness has come from the fact that I have to do these things with very little practice. I try to remove as much margin of error as I can by building accurate jigs, and creating machinery that gets me 95 per cent of the way there, and then the final five per cent is done with the finesse of somebody who has done it for a long time.”
Ultimately, however, the entire point is to re-create the vintage approach to making these guitars; to be all-encompassing in the effort of firing up that time machine to take Bartlett back to the construction methods and materials in use more than 60 years ago, so much as is possible. Which means a far more labour-intensive approach than many makers are taking, but that’s what the entire premise demands.
巴特利特说：“这些不是艺术家建造这些吉他。”“这是一条装配线。I just do all of those assembly line portions on my own, but I use the old methods because it results in guitars that are, each one’s a little unique, even as far as dimensions of the neck, you know, hand sanding takes its toll. And, I don’t know, there is some romance involved in that, but I wouldn’t say that it’s a far different result depending on which way you get there.”
None of which is to say there aren’t challenges in accurately reproducing the original formula to the best of your abilities, especially these 60-plus years later, when certain ingredients are notoriously difficult to come by.
巴特利特说：“我要说的是真正出色的吉他的两个最大因素是，首先是从木材上开始的，这是任何吉他制造商一生中最困难的部分，这是真正出色的木材。特别是老木材。
“然后第二部分是饰面，油漆。这两件事很难做到，因为它们并不容易获得。例如，漆很长一段时间后，我的头撞到墙上后，我终于去了一家漆制造商，并给了他们50年代时代的硝基纤维素漆的配方，并取出了增塑剂。现在，他们在一个单独的罐子里给了我增塑剂，这样我就可以将其添加回它，但是我从来没有这样做，因为我希望这些吉他看起来像现在在50年代建造的方式。
“It’s night and day when you compare the lacquer that’s on a modern Les Paul, the finish is something like eight times thicker than what it is on a 50s Les Paul. It’s not even close. It’s rubbery and plasticky. Try putting a rubber matt down on your snare drum and see how well it rings out, you know? It’s a totally different thing.”
复古火箭
Bartlett’s great leap forward came about 2012 or so when he decided the tricks and techniques he’d discovered while teaching himself to recreate a near-as-dammit original Burst could just as easily be used to create something entirely his own… or, rather, his own with the help of two valued friends and contributors.
他开始说：“如您所知，在老式吉他市场上有一个兔子洞。很难摆脱这种漩涡，但是我意识到它可以将所有这些原则应用于我可以自由营销，享受和开发的新吉他。因此，逆转录CEROSPEC实际上是这项努力的结果。”
According to Bartlett, however, the project never would have got off the ground without the urging and input from a notable Burst enthusiast who’s otherwise better known for his obsession with the real thing. In addition to dealing in many actual vintage parts, as well as highly regarded vintage-spec replacement components, Kim LaFleur has long been the proprietor of the Florida-based Historic Makeovers, an acclaimed refinishing and refurbishing service that specialises in makeovers of recent Gibson Custom Shop Les Pauls, given them period-correct neck and top carves, nitrocellulose finishes, and hand-ageing. LaFleur, it’s worth noting, is the craftsman Joe Bonamassa turned to for the restoration of the badly refinished ’59 Les Paul he acquired the year before last, now known as Lazarus for the way LaFleur helped it raise from the dead.
“金是煽动新设计的人，”巴特利特说。“他很长一段时间在莱斯保罗市场，他来找我说，‘让我们制造一把很酷的吉他。一种独特的新吉他风格。’实际上，他在Photoshop和其他内容中给了我一些小型模型。
“而且我已经在瑞典的[产品设计师] Magnus Melkersson工作了很长时间，那是我来到Magnus并说，‘Kim和我真的很想做这项新设计。您会帮助我们使用技术图纸吗？’他是一个怪物。每两分钟来回来回，他的想法向我飞了。与他一起工作真是太棒了。我仍然和他一起工作很多。”
In the Retrospec’s case, though, the veracity of the design is definitely more than skin deep. Which is to say, sure, it might look a little like a reconfigured Burst from the outside – with slightly different lower-bout contours, a more pronounced upper-bout protrusion, and of course a different headstock shape – but get the weights-and-measures brigade on it and the depth of that effort is fully revealed.
“We used the same amount of mahogany as a Burst,” says Bartlett, “and the same amount of maple as a Burst; it’s all the same cubic centimetres of wood. The hardware is in exactly the same spot as a Burst. If you play a Burst and switch to the Retrospec, it’ll feel like a Les Paul, and when you reach for the switch it will be right where you think it’s going to be. It’s all very deliberate.”
No better mousetrap
在构建Optimal ’59风格的，固定的颈，单切吉他时，Bartlett非常是原始主义者。也就是说，当最终目标是对许多玩家来说，最有价值，最有价值且最可取的电吉他是有史以来最有价值的电吉他的一种炼金术实现时，不需要解释，重新发明或改进。长椅。
As Bartlett puts it: “There were a few people that came out with their own designs and said, ‘Well, this is an improved Les Paul,’ and I always thought, ‘That’s well and good, there are a lot of people who are improving on the Les Paul in their own minds. But an improvement could be a lateral move for someone else, or it could be a detriment to another person.’ To me, I wasn’t looking for an improvement, I was looking to replicate the perfection that is a Burst, in a new suit, you know?”
Examined more closely, it’s clear that a lot of these efforts – however noble their intentions, and whatever perceived ‘flaws’ they seek to address – risk taking the results further from the ideal, which already exists in the guitar exactly as it was made circa 1959.
巴特利特说：“很多人会改变莱斯·保罗（Les Paul）上的经典弱点，桁架杆和可怕的脖子断裂。”“他们会说，‘让我们尝试通过更改设计本身来减轻这种情况，但现在您从根本上改变了吉他的设计。这对此有影响。这完全没有错，但是这是意图吗？是否打算改变吉他的音调？因为那是你所做的。”
这并不是说，受到50年代后期莱斯·保罗（Les Paul）启发的修改，重新设计和“改进”吉他的好地方。那是Bartlett Stable的最新模型进来的地方，它在他的阵容中占据了一个非常有效的位置，但这并不应该被认为是代替对爆发的时期的敬意。
巴特利特补充说：“那条路将您带到复古的MK2和包裹，所有这些变化。”“您可以为订购自定义吉他的特定客户而更改事物以改进它。我并不是说我不会偏离该公式，但这对我来说是一种偏离，为什么要修复没有破坏的东西？”
“When a customer says to me, ‘Oh, I’ve owned several Les Pauls and none of them really do it for me. I want you to make one that is going to work for me, and these are the shortcomings that I’ve found over the years.’ That’s what makes them a custom guitar. But you don’t have to deviate from using a different type of glue, for instance, or change how you access the truss rod. But these minor differences – when really it comes down to customising a guitar for that customer, right from selecting the best tonewoods that you can – it really starts from the ground up.”
On your marks
The folding-in of some of Bartlett’s own notes on reinventing the wheel recently delivered the Retro Mk2, a guitar built to the same shape and dimensions as the original Retrospec, but using alternative woods and hardware options, along with simpler satin and solid-colour paint jobs.
“The Mk2 was sort of my personal beliefs of what I wanted in a guitar, at that moment,” he explains. “And korina is such a wonderful tonewood – so under-utilised, but such a wonderful tonewood. People who don’t use it, or would like to use it more, say that they don’t use it because it’s so hard to get in good quality. And that is very true, it’s very difficult to find high-quality material. But the payment is so great on it.”
“For the Mk2 I offer an internal tone chamber, that is like ribbons of wood that are tuned, which is kind of interesting, but the side effect is some weight relief as well. And that is optional. Most of them are solidbodies.”
In addition, the Mk2 offers a more immediate means of skirting round CITES issues that can more and more be a pain in the neck for travelling guitarists. Costing somewhat less than the fancier Retrospec, it eschews that flagship model’s Brazilian rosewood fingerboard, for example, for timber that doesn’t require its own passport.
“It’s a non-CITES, easily travelled guitar,” says Bartlett. “There’s nothing about it that needs a special permit. There’s no pearl inlay, even the Honduran mahogany is listed on CITES Appendix 2, there’s no Brazilian rosewood, it’s all above-board, non-CITES wood. So that has staying power, in my mind.”
访问bartlettguitars.com更多。