I was recently approached by Taylor Guitars with an amazing proposition: to build my dream Taylor Double Cutaway SolidBody electric guitar using their online configurator. Taylor will then then build the guitar for me documenting the process along the way with photos to post up here on Guitar Noize until the guitar is finally delivered to me to review, demo and then use as one of my studio guitars!

I was naturally blown away by this offer, I was lucky enough to review a Taylor Single Cutaway SolidBody Classic earlier this year and was really impressed not only with the build quality and tone but by the ingenuity and innovation that Taylor apply to their guitar building process. Taylor is one of the few companies that manufacture every part of their guitars from the bridge to the pickups to the tuners, this ensures quality control not having to rely on 3rd parties.

So in the video above you can see my design process, as I mention I wanted a guitar that was in contrast to my current studio guitars so that I have a totally different tone to use in my gear demos. I already have a Suhr S4 which is a hot rod strat and a Suhr Modern which is a shred/metal guitar and both with floating trems so I wanted something that was more of a chunky rhythm machine, something with Les Paul style vintage tones. The first thing I did was to choose a chambered Mahogany body (the Standard) over the Swamp Ash body of the Classic for this very reason, it comes with an Ebony Fretboard too like Taylor’s acoustic guitars. I also wanted a Stoptail bridge to give the sound more body and vintage Alnico humbuckers. The hardest part for me was choosing a colour… I really love the Amber Edgeburst I think it is really classy especially with the beautiful figured Maple top but all my guitars have either a brown sunburst or root beer stain or natural oiled mahogany (my Patrick Eggle) so I decided to be bold and have a colour! I was tempted by the green and I’m sure the Red would be pretty cool too but eventually decided to go with the Balboa Blue.

So watch this space, the order is in and I will soon have an estimated delivery time. I will post any photos that Taylor send to me along the way too!

Peter from ‘I Heart Guitar‘ is also building his dream Taylor too and has posted his design process up on his site, check it out here http://iheartguitarblog.com/2011/08/the-taylor-project-follow-the-progress-of-my-gorgeous-new-custom-guitar.html

Now I suggest you go and have a play with Taylor’s online guitar configurator it’s very easy to use and fun to see what is possible – http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/electric/Models/SolidBody/