McPherson Guitar

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Lexington, Kentucky was known throughout the nation as the "Athens of the West," for its cultural and educational benefits.  Sparta, Wisconsin is known for its hard working and intelligent manufacturing centers, and happens to be home to two of Matt McPherson's companies, Mathews Bows and McPherson Guitars.  Thousands of years ago in Ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta were bitter rivals.  Today the two namesakes come together to bring you the very finest creations of innovative and aesthetically pleasing guitars.

McPherson guitars is the brainchild of Matt McPherson, a design guru with more patents to his name than Imelda Marcos has shoes in her closet.  His incredible ear and unrestricted design ideas have opened up new possibilities for guitars as well as a plethora of other products he is involved with.  He has all the latest CNC, laser, and analytical tools, but his guitars still must play and sound right to his ear.  The fact that he has many renowned performers coming through his studios and trying out the newest creations certainly helps the validity of his design choices.

McPherson guitars are made to have the most stable neck in the business and can travel--in the supplied custom made Ameritage case--from Alaska to Brazil with no movement in action or tone.  The body uses a cantilevered neck design that never touches the top, allowing it to vibrate freely.  The bracing pattern is unique in that it utilizes a pattern with no touching cross braces and paper thin diagonal spruce reinforcement.  The offset soundhole is also a step away from tradition, creating an increased flexible surface area on the central part of the instrument.  Each guitar also comes with three hand fitted bone saddles, each filed for the compensated Buzz Feiten intonation system, and each with different heights, so that you can keep your action fairly consistent when changing string gauge.  These are not generic saddles--they are made and set up for that specific guitar!

Matt's attention to detail is simply incredible.  Even the tiniest areas of his guitars, such as the point between the top of the "P" on the headstock is the original piece of wood from that exact spot of the peg head veneer!  Other manufactures would most commonly fill these gaps around the logo inlay with colored glue or putty.  The inside of every McPherson Guitar is carefully inspected with a tiny TV camera to make sure that there are no glue stains, wood chips or splinters, or markings of any type.   

And who would notice, right?  Matt would.

"In days of old, craftsmen wrought with greatest care, each unknown and unseen part, for God sees everywhere."