Click to expand.The fire was around 89-90 (est.). They were in Van nuys at the time and making hand made guitars. Great quality. After the fire they could never get really solvent and they sold the business to Samick in the early nineties.
The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element often made of spruce, cedar, or mahogany. The back and sides are typically made from mahogany, sapele, rosewood, or maple. Some acoustic guitars have pickups and electronics in case you need to plug into an amp or PA to get more volume or want to add effects with pedals. Jan 24, 2019- Explore Ricci Peyroux's board 'Valley Arts Guitars', followed by 734 people on Pinterest. See more ideas about Electric guitars, Guitars and Instruments.
As production was moved from Van Nuys to City of Industry, there was a period where the guitars were known as transitional guitars. THey were under the Samick banner but many of the parts were from Van Nuys. After that, they were either made in Samick's City of Industry (CA) custom shop or Korea.
The City of Industry ones obviously said 'made in America' (though most of the bodies, necks, and parts came from Korea). Around 2000, Gibson bought them and and they're now made (I think) in Nashville (?). I've heard they're not doing to well and I'm not sure if Gibson is looking to unload them. Hope this helps. I believe that is true.
Also, Dudley Gimpel (Music Man), and of course Mike McGuire was the main dude (president and founder I believe), (now with the Gibson Custom Shop). Some very distinguished luthiers have worked there.I'm a huge fan of the Valley Arts Larry Carlton signature model guitars. Brilliant design.Hey James - good to hear from you.
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How about adding two more VA's LC's to your collection? I think I'm going to see a few guitars soon.You'd own 5% of all Larry Carlton Signatures ever produced!
The Valley Arts story I've heard is that they used a mix of Warmoth and in-house parts - some of the necks were done in-house, some were just finished, and some (the Standard Pro necks from Godin, etc.) were just shipped in.Don Grosh did work there pre-fire (or at least pre-sale to Samick) and was doing the in-house necks for a couple of years. Im pretty sure he said in an old interview that he kept his own garage-type shop on the side during his 1 or 2-year Valley Arts tenure. However, he didn't ramp up to full production until after he left Valley Arts.Dudley Gimple I believe just did the design work for Valley Arts - he is likely responsible for work on the designs and 'down-sizing' the templates to the 7/8 sized 24 3/4' scale versions. He has been with Ernie Ball since circa late 1984/early 1985 - coming on board pretty soon after EB bought the Music Man name (and designs). His first designs with EBMM were the Silhouette guitar and the Steve Morse Signature, which were released in 1986. I don't know about others but the guys at Valley Arts did all the finish work on this one. It was pictured on the cover of Guitar Player magazine in Dec of 85 and was originally designated to be Steve Lukather's spare until my friend Lyle Workman saw it and told me I should see if it was for sale.
I call Valley Arts, they check with Lukather, he says if he wants another he'll have them build him one so I bought this one. 45 coats of hand rubbed nitrocellulose lacquer, Steve wanted the neck shape to be like his 59 Les Paul, 25 1/2 inch scale length, quilted maple body, densely figured bird-eye neck, ebony fingerboard. It's still a beautiful guitar to look at and play.