Interviews

When one considers the electric guitar, it seems obvious that there is scope for development: new pickup designs, solid guitars with pseudo-acoustic electronics, Gibson’s robotic guitar and so on. But when one turns to the acoustic guitar, the opportunities for innovation and development are much less apparent; after all, it’s just a matter of wood, isn’t it? And yet, the reality is that over the years, and particularly in the last decade or two, the acoustic guitar has enjoyed considerable innovation, with companies such as Taylor and Breedlove developing new approaches to aspects of both design and manufacture. Equally significant is the development of a whole culture of individual luthiers, each with their own distinctive approaches. Some of the names may well be familiar to you – Ervin Somogyi, Michael Greenfield, Jeff Traugott – and here in the UK, Stefan Sobell, Roger Bucknall and George Lowden, to name just a few. Rapidly making a name for himself is California-based luthier Michael Baranik. Richard Thomas caught up with him on his second visit to the UK this year, at the London Acoustic Guitar Show.

As with so many of his fellow luthiers, Mike started out as a player, with no real thought of making a guitar. His original ambition was to attend the famous Guitar Institute of Technology, now the Musicians Institute, in California. However, he felt that he did not have enough talent to make a career as a musician and floated around California for a while. Eventually he saw an advertisement for the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery and, finding the idea attractive, moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to take up a place at the school. ‘I knew immediately that it was what I was meant to do,’ he says. ‘It was a four-month course, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. I stayed for almost two years as a teaching assistant and used the time to improve my skills.’ For a time Mike was more involved in making electric guitars but attributes his move into making acoustics, in part, to his friend and fellow guitar maker Kent Hamblin. ‘I applied for a teaching post at the Roberto-Venn School. Kent also applied and we ended up sharing the post. Kent was a big early influence. He had more experience of working with acoustic guitars and I learned a lot from him.’

For around a year, Mike worked (along with Kent Hamblin) at the Phoenix Guitar Company, which not only allowed him to practise his skills further, but also gave him some insight into the business aspects of making guitars. At this point his career took a detour when he took a job as workshop foreman in a woodworking business that also sold exotic hardwoods. ‘I bought a lot of the wood myself,’ he says with a smile. A further period of woodworking experience saw him work for a custom furniture maker, who allowed him full access to the workshop for his own use. ‘This was a really useful experience for me,’ he comments. ‘I learned a lot of new skills, especially for finishing.’

At this point Mike started to focus particularly on acoustic guitars, with his early instruments being, essentially, Martin copies. In 1997 he decided to go to the Healdsburg Guitar Show. He smiles at his naivety at this point. ‘I hadn’t even booked a stand,’ he says. ‘I just turned up with two guitars in cases and set myself up near the front door. Laurence Juber came up and played my OM and gave me really good feedback. I also got really helpful feedback from John Greven and Jeff Traugott. That was a really great learning experience.’

Mike attended the Acoustic Guitar Magazine show in San Rafael the following year. ‘It was really stressful getting everything ready for the show, but I sold guitars there and took some orders. It was a real confirmation of my direction,’ he says. ‘In fact, the Healdsburg shows have been really important for me and have really helped me to succeed as a guitar maker.’

With the confidence gained from these experiences, Mike established his own workshop in Arizona and started placing guitars with dealers such as the well-known Guitar Gallery in Nashville. Not satisfied with just making guitars that were, essentially, copies of classic Martin designs, he began to work on more original designs and developed a small range of three instruments – the PX (roughly OO in size, with a 13th-fret neck joint), the CX (slightly larger and more curvaceous than an OM) and the JX (a small jumbo). These guitars had a distinctive common feature – a slight asymmetry in the body, which means that the player is no longer reaching over the widest point of the guitar to access the strings, making for a much more comfortable instrument. ‘When I started designing the PX, CX and JX in 2001 I wanted to do something a little different,’ Mike explains. ‘I always noticed that certain guitars were more comfortable to play, and after thinking about playing the guitar in the sitting position I decided to change the treble side of the guitar. I shifted the waist on the treble side towards the neck; this allows the guitar to slide further down your leg, which increases comfort and also brings the nut closer to you. I then shifted the bass lower-bout width so it increases the air cavity.’

In addition to developing new guitar designs, Mike began to develop his own workshop equipment from surplus equipment purchases and second-hand items. ‘My customers often talk about GAS – guitar acquisition syndrome. I had TAS – tool acquisition syndrome,’ he quips.‘When I moved workshop I had to move an amazing amount of stuff that I’d acquired.’

In 2006 Mike moved to California, where he opened a new workshop in a building shared with National Reso-Phonic Guitars, Ron Saul (ukulele luthier) and Highlander pickups. Not content with resting on his laurels, he continued to evolve his guitar designs with the introduction of the astonishing Meridian, with its adjustable neck. ‘The Meridian was a progression of [the CX] design and I made it even more asymmetrical. I also decreased the waist and upper-bout width in comparison to the lower bout, which makes the guitar sit further down in your lap. The adjustable neck is an attempt to make the Meridian more user-friendly. Customers can make slight action adjustments themselves. It also keeps the saddle exactly how I fit it to the bridge, making sure it is seated and squared properly and at the optimal height. It allows the player to dial in action for a certain playing style, or change it in between songs if required for a different attack. As it is completely adjustable, if the guitar, after years of tension, shifts at all, the neck’s pivot points can be lengthened to compensate the intonation if needed.’

I asked Mike what his key values are as a luthier. ‘To make the best possible guitar, which is as versatile as possible and has my creative footprint clearly on it.’

Another key aspect of his approach is to work closely with customers to gain an understanding of what they need and to involve them closely in the creative process. I have first-hand experience of his good nature and endless patience, and I have witnessed his considerable enthusiasm for trying new things, a prime example being the fan-fretted, ebony/blue spruce Meridian that he recently delivered to a customer of The Acoustic Music Company. This interactivity results in greater creativity, he maintains, and features developed in working with individual customers frequently become incorporated as standard design features – his trademark headstocks, for example.

In addition to innovations like the adjustable neck and flawless woodwork, Baranik guitars tend to have very straight necks, with a very small amount of relief and very comfortable profiles. Mike says that while he wants his guitars to be as versatile as possible, they tend to be particularly suited to modern fingerpicking, with a little more attack and a more focused sound, rather than being awash with lush overtones.

Despite the success of the Meridian, Mike has introduced two further new models – the Retreux Parlor, deceptively small in size, with surprising volume and tonal resources, and the OOM, a short-scaled model, roughly OM in size, with a Matsuda-style scoop instead of a cutaway.

It’s not only new guitar designs that occupy Mike’s mind, however. He is at the forefront in the drive to find alternative tonewoods to the increasingly scarce and sometimes dubiously sourced Brazilian and Madagascar rosewoods. An example is his recent use of manchinga, from Peru. ‘It was just being used as blanks for bowls,’ he says. ‘I thought that was such a waste. It makes great guitars and it’s fair trade and legally imported. It’s really important to pioneer new tonewoods and I want to help drive this forward.’

I can’t think of two words I would associate more with Mike Baranik than ‘pioneering’ and ‘drive’. If the past is anything to go by, I think we can expect to see a lot more of both from the Baranik workshop in the future.

Richard Thomas

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