Let's Talk Guitars

Lauda Philosophy

The Mission

Precision and Soul. These are the two words to sum up our efforts to build an amazing guitar. If you have precision, you have all elements working in harmony with the others and responding in a musical way. If you have soul, you have built at every stage, with your heart, with your mind, you have cared about the instrument and the musician who will play it.

Tone: After many years of playing, modifying and repairing guitars, builder Chris Lau has built up an aesthetic that is strong and simple...first, a guitar should sound fantastic. His design decisions are based on hearing hundreds of models and builds with endless pickup choices and mods...and talking to guitarists every day.

Quality: Secondly, a guitar should 'work'. And by work we mean the usual stuff – not break strings, keep excellent intonation, only need minimal maintenance year after year – a guitar should be built to last, built to play. The neck should be straight. The nut slots should be the right height. The strings shouldn't pull off the edge of the board... you shouldn't need to tighten that truss rod all the way just to get it playable...You should be able to achieve a great action and keep it over the years. Sadly, we have all owned guitars, many we paid quite a bit for, that don't meet these standards, but every Lauda Guitar meets them.

Playability: The most frequent comment we get on a Lauda guitar is how playable it feels. The neck, it's finish, shape, the fretwork, have been obsessed over... and it really shows. These guitars feel great - fast, smooth, effortless. There are many things that contribute to great feel and playability - one of the important ones is the fretwork. As you can see from the close-up image, Lauda Guitars have every fret beautifully seated, crowned and polished - this takes time and attention. It is one of the things that can go under the radar with guitars built in their hundreds in huge factories...but the fretwork will be flawless in your Lauda, feeling smooth and easy to play while allowing the right action, long sustained bending and long-lasting frets.

And it is one of the things we are very proud of with our instruments.

Versatility: Lauda is also shooting for versatility. Most players need more than one sound. The ideas behind a Lauda guitar mean you can flick a pickup switch or tweak a tone knob and get a great tone, different from the one a moment ago, that isn't a compromise. That's why we have blues players and metal players buying the same model of guitar. A great sounding instrument will let you demand a variety of sounds – and shape your very own. This also makes Lauda guitars a fantastic choice for working musicians, adapting really well to a multiple of genres with ease and authority. No more wishing you could be bothered lugging three guitars around just to sound right...

Balance: A Lauda guitar is built to be fundamentally balanced – in weight, in tone, it needs to be comfortable standing or sitting, the bridge needs to be in the right spot for your right hand, the contours should fit, the volume and tone knobs need to be accessible...when you buy a good instrument, these – and lots more - are the things you pay for.
We have spent a lifetime working towards these guitars, and that's how long we want you to love yours. Make it Lauda!

Available exclusively online from Lauda Guitars.

What Is A Setup And Why Do I Care?

Well-built guitars are robust and can last you a lifetime, but all guitars are sensitive instruments undergoing constant change. The reason for this change is in their construction and materials – wood put under tension by taut metal or nylon strings, the whole structure then made to vibrate. And then there are all the metals to corrode over time with sweat, finger oils, beer, who knows! (Although I really hope you’re keeping spilling beer on your guitar to a minimum). With electric guitars, the most vulnerable area is the neck, this being long, narrow and pulled at both ends – like the bow from a bow and arrow. This is the reason in electrics (and steel string acoustics) that there is the ‘truss rod’ – a stiff metal bar running through the centre of the neck to keep it’s shape. Nylon string guitars are under a lot less tension due to the nylon strings, so the truss rod is usually omitted. This truss rod comes in several types, some more and some less adjustable, designed to help the neck achieve the correct amount of bow. Further, if you leave the neck ‘out of adjustment’ for too long, it will become permanently distorted, needing more costly intervention or even replacement. read more...

Dirt, Who Cares?