Avishay Shabat macht bereits seit Jahren von sich reden. Er war maßgeblich am Erfolg von LsL Guitars beteiligt
und repariert die Instrumente der creme de la creme der kalifornischen Gitarrenszene. Wir freuen uns Avis eigenen Brand im Programm aufzunehmen. Lest warum Nürnberg für den Riesen aus LA eine besondere Bedeutung hat und erfahrt mehr über den Mann hinter „Shabat Guitars“.

In unserer Reihe „Meet the Builder“ stellen wir die Menschen hinter der Marke vor, reden über Musik und
Gitarren und stellen fragen zu heiß diskutierten Themen.

What made you want to become a luthier?
I was always a very technical guy from a very early age, I remember when I discovered the guitar I think I was 13 years old, it was magical.

After that I found a friend that had a multitrack tape recorder and was very fascinated with making music so I went and studied sound and became an engineer and made a great living doing that for a while.
At the time I was offered to do some guitar teching work and that made me figure out the guitar more.

In 2003 I decided to go to „Rock Im Park“ festival all by myself.
It was an amazing experience, while in Nuremberg I decided to check out a local music store in town (don’t remember the name but remember it had different floors for different musical departments)
I saw this cool Ibanez BTB 5 string bass played it and decided to buy it.
When I returned home I noticed the action was really high and truss rods couldn’t be adjusted. I was looking for a tech that can help me with this issue and found Jacob Algranati.

He mentioned that he’s about to start a Lutherie school and if I’m interested he can help me fix the bass on my own as a side project.
That sounded like a great opportunity for me to get involved in a new and exciting adventure so I signed up and was hooked right away.
It brought me back to when I was at wood shop as a kid and remembered how much I loved it.
That school year I build my first guitar and after that I was hooked so I started converting my recording studio into a small shop and didn’t stop working on guitars ever since.

If you think back to the early days, what was the moment you thought „I can actually do this for a living“?
I honestly never thought I could actually do this for a living full time, while working for LSL for over 3 years at the time I was still doing some repair work from home.
The turning point was when I felt like I got to the highest place that I could get with that company.
My wife saw my frustration and told me that it’s time for me to leave and start working on my own full time, we just bought a house at the time so it was a scary move but definitely one of the best decisions of my life.
After that I started my repair business that is still going strong today and Shabat guitars followed.

How many people work at your shop now?
Right now it’s me and two guys:
Brian our production manager/painter/social media guy and Ian doing woodworking and graphic design.
and me, I mostly do the wiring assembly frets, distressing, and of course quality control.

What was the most uncommon custom request you got?
With shabat guitars we try to keep it classy so we usually don’t get crazy custom requests.

With my repair business I did however get a lot of cool projects but just too many to remember.
I do remember putting together a 3d printed Les Paul body into a cool guitar with LED light shining from its core.
That was cool.

What’s your take and experience on the thermal treatment of woods?
Seems like the craze for roasted wood started a couple of years back.
At first I was against it since I don’t like to mess with nature’s way.
After getting a few requests for a build with roasted maple I decided to give it a try. Nowadays we use about %60 of roasted maple on our builds.
I think this stuff is amazing, it’s very sturdy and it’s not affected by weather and humidity as much as regular lumber and it’s really easy to work with.
I do feel it sounds just a bit brighter but the difference is very minimal.

Tell us about your favorite personal guitar, what brand and model is it and what makes it so special?
I remember when I just got into playing guitar and I was dying to get an electric after play classical for a few years.
What I love about my dad is if you nagg him enough times he’ll eventually cave 🙂
So after constant nagging, he said to me ok let’s go to the store and buy you a guitar.
It’s amazing that you have moments in your life that you can remember so clearly, I remember every second in that store.
I was gonna get the ESP Kirk Hammet model
Or the Joe Satriani model.
After learning that they ran out of these two models I tried the Ibanez Rev Beach signature model the Ibanez RBM
The weirdest guitar ever with mahogany body and rosewood neck.
But I love how it played and sounds
I still own this guitar and love what it symbolizes for me but I love the guitars that I make these days way more 🙂

What music do you listen to right now?
There’s not a lot of new stuff that catches my ears these days, I’m still stuck with my old grunge/prog rock/alternative playlist to list a few of my favorites here will give an idea:
Tool, Radiohead, Alice in Chains, faith no more, dire straights…