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From Stradivari to Steinway, the great names have focused on the popular, creating instruments that appeal to the contemporary musician. In the second half of the last century that role was played by Fender and Gibson – but the electric guitar has evolved for the new century.
The brainchild of Ravi Sawhney, president-CEO of leading US creative firm RKS Design, and Rock ’n’ Roll Hall-of-Famer Dave Mason, RKS Guitars has dragged the electric guitar into the future.
RKS features the finest materials expected in a guitar designed for the connoisseur: rosewood fingerboard, a maple and alder core, aircraft aluminium ribs. But in a departure from convention, RKS eschews the traditional mahogany body for Eastman's Tenite™ cellulose plastic.
“The combination of Tenite™ and our open architecture solid core creates a resonance that is sustained and spectacular,” explains Sawhney. “It takes a professional musician and makes him a better musician. It takes an amateur musician and makes him a better musician. Everyone does more with our guitars than they’ve ever done before. It’s amazing to see.”
Whether it’s the stunning Darkstar or the translucent Ruby Red, the guitars created by RKS certainly look spectacular. But describing them as objects of beauty would be wrong. The sensation is much more primal than that. They're objects of lust. "These are definitely not your father’s guitar," Sawhney says.
Called 'The Natural Polymer' because it's made from wood pulp, Tenite® is a favorite with designers creating products that we regard as 'personal' – things that we want to feel pleasurable: everything from screwdriver handles to contemporary wrap-around sunglasses.
Feel is very important to RKS. “We really cheated ergonomically," Sawhney says. "We contoured the back of the guitar so that it leans against your body. It has less movement, which releases your attention a little bit. So when it lies against your body, all of a sudden you’re not thinking about holding the guitar.
“Every little thing that we’ve done allows you to play better. But we’re not telling you why you play better. One of the reasons is that you’re not thinking about balancing the guitar and keeping the guitar from moving. The guitar just nestles against you. And that way you have more coordination and dexterity left to play. People love it. We’ve heard musicians say that because it lays against them when they’re on stage, they feel the guitar singing to them." As for the sound, Sawhney says, "You can't quite put a finger on the tone of our guitars. But they have an incredible ability to just reach out and grab you."
In recognizing RKS guitars as one of the best product designs for 2005, BusinessWeek praised the bold, colorful design for doing more with less. The magazine also - and we love them for this - champions the disruptive influence of great design, calling the RKS open architecture "the most radical change in electric guitars in almost 50 years."
“Can our guitar be a poster child for plastics?" asks Sawhney. "We’d love it to be. It already feels like it may be the poster child for design.”
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