BluGuitar `61 Masterbuilt – Thomas Blugs Signature Guitar

FEATURES



With the ‘61 Masterbuilt finally comes a guitar built with the finest materials to the ultimate specifications for a limited group of Strat® Connoisseurs, all conceived by Thomas Blug.
The first edition of the BluGuitar ’61 Masterbuilt is initially limited to just 61 guitars. This exclusive guitar is crafted by the renowned luthier Trevor Wilkinson, with much of the work done by hand. The pickups are supplied by pickup guru Andreas Kloppmann, a long-standing friend of Thomas Blug.

As a professional guitar player, Thomas has played a 1961 Fender Stratocaster for almost a lifetime, using it on stage and in countless studios around the world. Nevertheless, the original qualities of the guitar weren’t enough for the tireless “tinkerer” and Thomas was intent on optimizing his favourite guitar.
The frets were filed to a compound radius, compensating the typical buzzing which often accompanied bendings in the higher frets. This helps to maintain the authentic vintage Radius playability whilst making large bendings with a good action possible. The unpleasant humming, especially noticeable with overdrive-sounds, is sizeably reduced by a dummy coil which can be turned on and off at will. Hi Gain and glassy treble sounds are just as good as the authentic clean sounds typical for ST. The tuning-stability was optimized using a special string tree and a vibrato setting with just 5 screws. Thanks to a special “no-treble-loss” capacitor above the volume pot, the BluGuitar ‘61 maintains its beautiful treble even when the volume is turned down on the guitar. That’s the Thomas sound secret – if there is one that doesn’t come out of his fingers ;)

The BluGuitar ’61 Masterbuilt offers many of the qualities of Thomas’s original ’61 Strat®, but naturally it also includes the legendary modifications Thomas has made to optimise the sound and operation of his classic instrument. In order to achieve this, Trevor Wilkinson, Andreas Kloppmann and Thomas Blug had to use all their know-how and wealth of experience to create the special qualities that belong to such a dream guitar, meeting Thomas’ high expectations.
To aid this, Trevor Wilkinson developed some new hardware, which uses cold rolled steel with shallow holes in the vibrato block. The bridge plate of the BluGuitar ’61 Masterbuilt is strongly reinforced by heat treating. The bridge saddles are as closely modeled as possible on the parts found on the original guitar. Only carefully selected pieces of wood, which authentically replicate the character of the original ’61 Strat®, are used for the neck and body.
Andreas Kloppmann and Thomas Blug have developed a special pickup set for this guitar, in order to achieve the ultimate in tone. To succeed in this quest, they compared the tone of the new BluGuitar ’61 Masterbuilt with that of the old ’61 pickups over and over again – until they were a perfect match.
The BluGuitar ’61 Masterbuilt naturally includes all of the other special features found on Thomas’s original ’61. These include the “BUKKA™” Switch, a selectable Dummy Coil, and the “Treble Condenser” on the Volume Pot, which keeps the trebles intact when the volume is reduced. Replicating the tone of Thomas Blug’s original guitar – preserving the extraordinary qualities of this special instrument that has “matured” over decades – and making it accessible to other guitarists with the BluGuitar ’61 Masterbuilt has been a great success.

The BluGuitar ’61 Masterbuilt naturally includes all of the other special features found on Thomas’s original ’61. These include the “BUKKA™” Switch, a selectable Dummy Coil, and the “Treble Condenser” on the Volume Pot, which keeps the trebles intact when the volume is reduced. Replicating the tone of Thomas Blug’s original guitar – preserving the extraordinary qualities of this special instrument that has “matured” over decades – and making it accessible to other guitarists with the BluGuitar ’61 Masterbuilt has been a great success.

Of course, you can also hear and feel the character of the three “chefs” who cooked up this instrument: Trevor Wilkinson, Andreas Kloppmann and Thomas Blug!

BLUGUITAR 61 FEATURES