Michael Spalt Hybrid Guitar

EDITOR'S NOTE: Informal interview with Michael Spalt via. Ola Strandberg. Spalt's hybrid electric travel guitar is lightweight, comfortable, and features weight saving aesthetic choices including Lace Alumitone pickups and Ola Strandberg's EGS hardware bridge system.

"I started making the hybrids in the late 90's and have made about a hundred or so by now. I started with guitars, but they found no acceptance — the vintage craze was just taking off. However the guitars had a very nice bell-like bottom end with great definition, so I decided to try some basses. I also counted on the fact that bassists are a bit less conservative than guitarists; I might find more acceptance among them. It seemed to work better and I made quite a few hybrid basses until years later guitarists started asking for a "guitar like that". Originally I made the hybrids under the "Spaltbasses" moniker. Now I make more guitars than basses — there seems to be an opening lately for non-traditional designs, with people simply looking for high performance and good tone rather than just the same old thing.

"The hybrids are hand machined and cut and shaped from a plate of 6061 Aluminum, then polished or anodized. The wood parts allow me to use a lot of exotic and smaller pieces of wood, since they have no noticeable impact on the tone (determined by the triad of neck wood/aluminum and pickup/hardware). In general the hybrids have a very warm even tone with good transparency and a lot of punch and sustain. The tonal color can be influenced by a choice of neck wood and electronics.

"This hybrid was designed as a light travel guitar. Weight was the main consideration in the choice of pickups for instance. The client supplied the wood — he was particular about the specific piece he wanted — I worked with him on the specs. It is a walnut burl with open inclusions and pores finished with a tung-oil finish. It has a bird's-eye Maple neck that was shaped after his favorite guitar neck, with a pronounced V and a 9"-12" compound radius with a 25 1/2" scale length. The fingerboard is Ziricote. The headpiece is from ETS hardware in Germany — it was a block of brass which I shaped according to the neck contour. The Strandberg tuners obviously contributed a lot to the light weight and to the looks. A 6-way rotary switch offers various tonal combinations along with a single volume control (no tone).

"The owner has some reservations as to the tone of the pickups (as have I), but loves the guitar and it's ergonomic qualities.

"I'm currently not set up with a fully functioning workshop, so any orders would entail quite a bit of lead time — around 6 months or so. The options are numerous — a lot of them are also included in the base price since I make every instrument from scratch and to the client's specs. Things like neck shape/scale etc., most wood choices and some pickup/bridge choices are included. I haven't quite figured out what the European pricing will be, but it's probably going to be in the neighborhood of 3800 Euros." [Michael Spalt]

Comments

[Rick Toone]

Beautiful work, Michael.

[Eric]

That's a beautiful instrument...

[Ola Strandberg]

I would just like to say that it is an honor to have my work be featured on this fine guitar. It represents a lot of the things I try to keep high on my list of priorities, like light weight, aesthetics, innovativeness (is that a word?). It feels like a great match.

[Ola Strandberg]

No, unfortunately not... It would have been very interesting to have done so.

[Rick Toone]

Ola — did you get a chance to play the guitar? If so, what were your impressions?

[Rick Toone]

I'd predict it has unusual tonal properties due to the aluminum framework. The solid "pods" cantilevered off the central core would also shape the tonal properties by damping oscillation...mass of the "pods" partially determining influence. Experimentation would be interesting.

[Chris Johnson]

How do I get one of these?

[Rob Irizarry]

Chris — See the last paragraph of the article.

[Ola Strandberg]

Hi Chris,
Michael has a web-site at http://www.spaltinstruments.com/. He has a contact page and an e-mail link there.

All the best,
Ola

[typondis]

On 'exploration': just for some baselines, I bet working up some simulations of various components, etc, would be a good idea. Anyways, yeah, beautiful. The upper body piece makes me think of a lung. I'd also like to know more about the 'reservations' regarding the pickups, cos I'm thinking of getting one of those alumitone humbuckers.

[Ola Strandberg]

I find that the Alumitones are definitely voiced like humbuckers but have more clarity on the high end, and especially when played with a lot of distortion, the result is not as "tight". But I think this is an advantage in a recording or live situation where you need the sound to reach in front of other instruments.
Someone commented that it's like a built-in Tube Screamer that cuts some bottom off as well (but I haven't owned a Tube Screamer in 20 years so can't comment from personal experience)

And for me personally (and for this build) the low weight is a huge benefit.

There are several sound samples of Alumitones in my EGS guitar on my home page and YouTube channel.

Cheers,
Ola