Vintage Jim Tyler Guitar | Random Guitar of the Day

I remember seeing a picture of Dann Huff in an article in Guitar World magazine in the late 80's.  It was a writeup about his band Giant, and in the accompanying pic he was brandishing an early Strat-headstocked JamesTyler guitar, with the then-obligatory Floyd Rose tremelo, and an assortment of mini-switches on the pickguard. 

I remember thinking, "What on earth is that thing?"

Reading further, Huff talked about how he gave his instruments to a certain Jim Tyler to be hot-rodded.  I came away thinking that Tyler was the guitar world's equivalent of some muscle car hotrod guru.  After all, these LA session cats wouldn't give their prized bread-and-butter instruments to just anyone to fool with right?

And check out that crazy headstock logo! 

Fast forward 20-something years later and one of these babies pops up. 

And there are a couple of distinguishing markings on the neck and body that are visible when this instrument is disassembled -- which might make it even more of collector's item. 

'Buzz 85' is pencilled in on the butt end of the neck just below the nut for truss rod adjustment, which leads to speculation that it may have been a custom instrument built for Buzz Feiten.  Before he made a name for himself as the creator of the Buzz Feiten Tuning System (BFTS), Buzzy was an LA session guitarist and a frequent visitor to Jim Tyler's workshop.

And another thing.  The body and neck for this particular guitar were made by luthier Phil Kubicki and not by Tyler himself.  Hmmm.  The plot thickens.  Maybe he was outsourcing in the early days. 

Pickups appear to be a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails in the neck, a Seymour Duncan Hot Stack in the middle and a Tyler full humbucker in the bridge position.  The Tyler humbucker shares a lot in common with the Tom Anderson and Schecter humbucker design, something which I talked about in this earlier post. 

In addition to the standard volume pot and 5-way switch, this guitar features 3 mini push/push button switches to split the coils of each pickup as well as a single mini-toggle switch, sometimes called a Blaster switch, which bypasses all 'pre-sets' and activates the bridge humbucker alone, in series.

Real effective for going from a chimey strat tone to an all-out, balls-to-wall crunch for that lead solo!  It's also interesting to note that this pickup switching system is one of several configurations which Tyler still features on some of his current models.  A 9-volt battery is needed to power the onboard Demeter preamp.

According to Tyler Guitars, they only switched to their current headstock design in 1987, which would make the '85 date marking on the neck period correct.  Unfortunately they weren't able to provide any information as to who this guitar was originally sold to.

The seller, acmeguitarworks has a 1009 star, 100% positive rating on eBay.  Check 'em out.

Tyler Psychedelic Vomit #5 On eBay!

Here's a rare axe sure to make any Tyler guitar fan reach subconsciously for his pocketbook.

This is an early Tyler Psychedelic Vomit #5, signed by Mike Landau.  (eBay Item #: 320488572980)

As the seller points out, the early Psychedelic Vomit's had a 'cloud-like' vibe to the color swirls in the finish.  And this one looks very similar, finish-wise, to Psychedelic Vomit #1 which I had the chance to check out when I visited Jim Tyler's shop in 2000.  The more recent PV's have swirl patterns with more defined edges.

As per Landau's specs at the time, this guitar features a Mamywo body (Tyler-speak for Malaysian Mystery Wood), maple neck with maple fingerboard and a 'block-saddle' Wilkinson VS100 tremelo bridge.

The electronics are pretty straightforward -- two Seymour Duncan Classic Stack pickups in the front and middle positions and a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails at the bridge with a standard 5-way selector switch.  On later editions, Jim Tyler went with custom-wound Seymour Duncan Little '59 stacked single-coil-sized humbuckers in the bridge position.

We'll probably not see another one of these early Tyler guitars for a very long time!

Jim Tyler's New Blog at Tyler Guitars Website

I just looked in on the Tyler Guitars website and was pleasantly surprised to see that Jim Tyler has started a blog.

And there are some major changes happening at the house of Tyler.

First off, he's announced that the Tyler Classic is being discontinued and that he is also thinking "long and hard about the Studio Elites."

The legion of Tyler fans out there will be staring at their computer screens in disbelief, with mouths hanging open, once they read this.

Of course it is all speculation at this point. But Jim's indication that he wants to get away from building super-strats just about gives us a good hint at the new direction he wants to take in the near future.

And here are a couple of glimpses at the Tyler set-neck prototypes.

Now if we could just get a sneak peek at the new headstock under that blue masking tape..

http://www.tylerguitars.com/

James Tyler Guitars And How They Make A New Guitar Feel Like It's Been Played For 25 Years

If you've ever picked up a well-played Strat from the '60s (or if you're lucky, the '50s) you would probably have noticed that some areas on the edge of the fingerboard have become naturally rounded due to wear from years of playing -- adding to the overall mojo and vibe of the instrument.




In an effort to duplicate some of these worn, played-for-years characterictics, Tyler Guitars 'rolls' the fingerboard edges on every guitar they make. In fact, this feature has become something of a company hallmark -- and they have certainly taken it to the nth degree. (see pic above of my Tyler Studio Elite Jimburst)

When viewed at a certain angle, the fingerboard edges, meticulously shaped by hand, appear to be almost scalloped, with a slight concave between each fret.

What this translates to is a very smooth playing neck, since all sharp angles have been painstakingly sanded out of the equation.

Mike Landau Owned Tyler Studio Elite

Here's a cool eBay find (220480641051) -- a Jim Tyler Studio Elite in BBQ Black, which according to the seller is a one-of-a-kind prototype matte finish and apparently, originally built for Mike Landau.

This guitar features a maple fingerboard on a maple neck , three Seymour Duncan mini-humbuckers, Wilkinson VS100 bridge and a Mamywo body.







Tyler generally eschews the Fender-style 'skunk stripe' method of installing trussrods into a maple neck. Instead, he glues his maple fingerboards onto his maple necks, just as he would a rosewood 'board.

'Mamywo' is a Tyler concoction meaning 'Malaysian Mystery Wood' aka jelutong which is a very light and resonant hardwood, commonly used for building houses in Asia (back in the day).

A VTT push/pull control on one of the tone pots enables the player to bring in the neck pickup into the mix, no matter if the selector switch is on the 3rd, 4th or 5th positions -- very similar to the mod I described here -- which is always great for wringing out a couple more tones out of any three-pickup guitar.

Also included is a certificate of authenticity signed by Jim.

Dinner with James Tyler of Tyler Guitars

I met Jim Tyler in 2000 when I and a friend attended the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) convention in Los Angeles. We were interested in becoming the Tyler guitar distributor for the region and so we arranged to pay him a visit at his small guitar facility on Sepulveda in Van Nuys.

Over the phone he had given us directions to look out for a certain burger joint and to make a turn down that road. It took us a while to find his shop.

Further up the road we were greeted with a small single-storey building with corrugated zinc walls and a small rather inconspicuous shop sign.

Jim graciously showed us around his facility. One of his workers was busy hand-sanding a newly routed body to the soundtrack of a Beastie Boys CD playing on the boombox, which was met with some consternation from Jim.

Much of the work at that time was being done by hand. Notably lacking was any kind of CNC machine or computerized router -- it was very much a jig and bandsaw operation. Jim spoke about the cost of investing in such a machine and how he would have to massively step up production from the current 20-odd guitars they were building every month, just to pay for the machine. (Although I gather the company has since made some investments in CNC armory.)

The wall over Jim's workbench was covered with pictures and autographed memorobilia. Including an old picture of himself in another incarnation as a long-haired Strat-wielding guitarist in a rock band. Meanwhile on the bench, a guitar on which he was dressing newly-installed frets, patiently awaited his return. Jim did a lot of the fretwork on the guitars himself.

I also had the opportunity to plug in and play a bit on the Tyler Psychedelic Vomit #1. The strings were really dead as it had been up on the shopwall for goodness-knows how long, but all the chimey, resonant characteristics were still there.

At 630pm we made the drive to a restaurant on Sunset in Jim's old Mercedes.

Over dinner Jim revealed much about the insider goings-on of the of the guitar manufacturing world. He spoke fondly of his days at Schecter in the 70s and early 80s where he and Tom Anderson both got their start before venturing out on their own.

I asked him about the Tyler Studio Elite that I owned, mentioning how the pickups seemed to be very similar to Anderson's design both in look and tone. He attributed that to the design commonalities he shared with Anderson, based on their time at Schecter. I also asked him about the unusually girthy neck on my guitar to which he humorously replied that it was probably a reaction from his chewing out one of his workers for carving several necks too thin.

He talked about his display booth at the NAMM show and how he had been chided(!) by one of his Japanese distributors over a new line he was planning on releasing -- a more modestly priced TG range with a new headstock logo he was intending to manufacture overseas. Although since then a Japanese-made Tyler line has appeared.

He became slightly animated on the topic of guitar endorsements, and mentioned how he adamantly never gave any guitars away for free. He mentioned artist endorsement fees and how some signature models were often not truly representative of the guitars the endorser actually played.

He also raised a sore point about how he had been approached several times by a well-known US guitar magazine who had asked him for a free guitar in exchange for a favourable review. It was also apparently the reason why his guitars, up to that point, had never been featured in a US guitar magazine. Or why, in his company's history, he had placed literally less than a handful of advertisements in these guitar publications. And, he reasoned, he wouldn't have been able to keep up with the orders anyway.

It was clearly not just about the numbers or the bottomline.

I walked away from that meeting feeling a little buzzed. It might have been the wine, or the fact that he had given us the dealership for his amazing guitars.
Most of all, what I did walk away with was that if one had a clear, uncompromising vision and a truly great product, the world will beat a path to your door. Marketing and publicity be damned. More power to you, Mr Tyler.