Aristides Guitars: “We Bring a unique resonance and playing experience”

In our Luthier Interview Series we dive into the world of electric guitar craftsmanship with the experts who bring these instruments to life. This time we feature an interview with Pascal Langelaar, CEO of Arisitides Guitars.

Aristides Guitars is a company based in Haarlem, The Netherlands. It is without exaggeration one of the most extraordinary guitar builders out there. Creating guitars out of materials like a mix of glass and carbon fiber instead of traditional wood is proof of that.

CEO Pascal was kind enough to give FretboardFrenzy.com an exclusive interview about the whys and hows of his unique company.

Let’s dive in!

Could you share the story behind the founding of Aristides Guitars? What inspired you to start this exciting journey?

I founded Aristides with my father back in 2007, it all started with us getting our hands on a strat copy from a brand called Catalyst. While the build quality wasn’t amazing and it didn’t look like anything special, it had an absolutely unique resonance to it.

The company that made these guitars wasn’t really that active anymore and with the help of a group of investors we managed to acquire the rights to the proprietary material that was used to build these guitars.

This material was developed in 1995 by a group of engineers at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands. The goal was to develop a man-made material that could emulate the properties of tonewoods and would be perfect for building (electric) guitars and basses out of.

This material is the basis of what we now call Arium, a mixture of multiple components (microscopic glass bubbles paired with several different resins) that resonate freely within an exoskeleton construction of glass and carbon fiber.

How did the collaboration with Technical University Delft influence the development of Arium, and what were the key breakthroughs in creating this material?

As mentioned in my answer above, the basis for the Arium material, we use was developed at the Technical University as a graduation project in 1995.

All further development to create the current Aristides building process was done in-house.

However, there has always been a connection to the TU. Our technical director, Erik, is a TU graduate engineer, and several guys who work here in R&D / Production Development are also TU graduates.

What makes Arium superior to traditional tonewoods in terms of acoustic properties and durability?

I never really like to use the word ‘superior’, but I can say that our Arium core construction is extremely resonant and provides a great base platform for electric guitars. It’s extremely consistent and stable, and the fact that it’s a one-piece construction makes for guitars with a ton of sustain.

In my opinion, sound is always a bit subjective and preference can come down to personal taste. But we are very happy to be able to offer something that gives our customers a unique resonance and playing experience for our clients.

What were the challenges and successes you experienced with the release of your first flagship model, the 010, in 2009?

Well, it was extremely hard to get things going initially. As you probably know, most of the guitar market is pretty conservative, so it wasn’t the easiest thing to put out a (fairly expensive) non-wood guitar that looked like a modern spaceship.

The 010 was designed to make an impact and for people to immediately see that it was something different. Because of its extreme design, it definitely wasn’t for everyone.

Also, the 010 wasn’t customizable at all and came with fixed specs that, in retrospect, probably weren’t completely in sync with the overall design.

Nevertheless, we got many orders for the 010, which was a great kickstart for Aristides as a company. Today, I would describe it as the concept car that paved the way for the current Aristides range.

How did working with legendary guitarist Adrian Vandenberg help shape the early years of Aristides Guitars?

Adrian’s involvement in the early days was extremely important to us. Not only did he provide input that helped shape the first Aristides guitars, but he also opened many doors for us by actively participating in trade shows and other events to introduce our guitars.

This all led to our first relationships with dealers and distributors (especially in Asia).

What were the key factors that contributed to the rapid growth and expansion of Aristides Guitars, particularly around the release of the 070 model?

In 2013, we reached a point where we were still struggling to find our place in the market. We made some drastic decisions that later turned out to be crucial for the development of Aristides as a company.

We decided to stop working with dealers and distributors and move to a direct model, where we would have full control over the entire customer experience.

We also went back to the drawing board and developed the 070 series, a semi-custom instrument with a ton of options in terms of bridges, pickups, colors, etc.

We unveiled the 070 at NAMM in 2014 and immediately received interest. After guys like Misha Mansoor (Periphery), Aaron Marshall (Intervals) and the guys from Monuments started using our guitars, things really started to take off.

We pride ourselves on our dedication to providing our customers with a top-quality instrument and a great experience when ordering and building it with us.

We are extremely grateful for the wonderful community of customers that we have built over the years, whose incredible support has allowed us to grow rapidly due to their incredible support. Word of mouth has been and continues to be, incredible for us as a company.

How did the introduction of the Standard Series, including the 060 and 080 models, impact your company’s position in the boutique guitar market?

After the success of the 070, we immediately introduced a 6-string version (060) and, a year later, also added an 8-string version (080) to the lineup.

Since most guitar players play 6 strings, the 060 became our most popular model. But we were also pleasantly surprised by the demand for our 080, and the 080S multiscale, which we added a year later.

What led to the switch to stainless steel frets and Richlite fretboards, and how have these materials enhanced your instruments?

Until the middle of 2014, we were still using wooden fretboards while we searched for an alternative material. After some serious testing, we were happy to replace everything with Richlite.

It looks and feels like your traditional wooden fretboards, but it’s a more stable option that’s great to work with.

We try to build tools for musicians that always deliver and are very durable. That’s why, around the same time, we started using stainless steel frets exclusively.

How does feedback from recording and touring artists influence the design and features of your guitars?

This has been very important to us over the years. We’re always striving to build the best instruments possible, and input from artists and customers is a huge help.

We are fortunate to have a wonderful community surrounding the brand, filled with experienced musicians who are happy to share their feedback with us.

This has helped us develop new options and tweaks to our building process. Another example is all the crazy finishes we can offer these days.

How challenging is it to persuade guitarists to move away from tonewoods and try a guitar made of synthetic materials?

Especially in the beginning, this was a huge challenge; a lot of people are reluctant to move away from traditional guitars, which is very understandable, but we’ve seen that getting the guitars into people’s hands and the reputation we’ve built up over the years has definitely helped.

Currently, we’re doing really well in the more progressive guitar market, especially the more metal-oriented market, where many guitarists are open to new things.

Could you discuss the development and reception of the Raw models with their unique colored exoskeleton and nano coating?

In 2017, we sought ways to offer guitars that didn’t have to go through the entire painting process so they could be built a little faster and available at a slightly lower price.

After a few different approaches, we found we could achieve a great result by coloring the exoskeleton during the molding process, then hand sanding and coating it with a special nanocoating.

The raws immediately became a big hit with our customers for their feel and durability. Today, more than half of the guitars we produce are raw guitars.

What inspired the creation of the T/0 T-Style 6 string model, and how does it blend traditional design with modern innovation?

As mentioned above, our modern Super Strat-style designs have become very popular in the modern guitar community, but we have also received many requests for more traditional designs that would still be built in a modern way with all the features people know from Aristides.

The T/0 is the first model that ticks all those boxes. It’s basically our ‘modern’ Aristides take on the classic Tele design. Because of its customizability, people can spec it out like a classic Tele with a pickguard and Tele bridge/pickups, but they can also make it into a modern guitar with two humbuckers and an Evertune bridge.

We are very excited to be able to offer this model and look forward to adding more models like it in the near future. 😉

How has the expansion of your paint department and custom inlay work contributed to the uniqueness of Aristides guitars?

It certainly played a big part; our customers like to go crazy and push us to the limit with their requests for custom inlay designs and beautiful custom finishes. We have seen that inspire others to come to us with their ideas.

It’s an amazing feeling to walk through the factory and see all the different colors and whatnot on all the guitars. Our website has a gallery with pictures of about 2000 guitars. I still find myself going through the custom finishes from time to time. I definitely recommend scrolling through there!

What were the biggest challenges and innovations involved in developing the H/0 Headless series, including the 9-string model?

Our community had been asking for a headless series for years when we finally released the H/0 series in 2020, we really wanted to take the time to design something from scratch with ergonomics in mind instead of just making a headless version of our 060 model.

We took our time to create something that we felt would really add something to the headless market, and we were very happy with the result. The H/0 series was an instant hit; many of our guitars are headless.

One of the biggest challenges was the hardware. We wanted hardware that fit our design, and we ended up with Hantug from Turkey. Hantug produces top quality hardware and was happy to work on custom parts for us.

With the introduction of the headless, we designed a custom multiscale headless tremolo that Hantug produces for us. This is now also an option on our multiscale S-series models!

How has the implementation of a robot arm and new fret preparation methods improved the efficiency and precision of your production process?

The past years we’ve been investing a lot in the development of our production process, with the goal to take away some of the (hard/repetitive) manual labor that goes into each guitar and create more consistency across the board.

One of our focus points has been the implementation of robot arms into our production process. It took quite some time and effort, but our robots are now already contributing to the sanding process and take on a huge portion of the routing process, which helps a ton!

The fret preparation is a similar story, instead of having to cut the (stainless steel) frets for each individual guitar, we were able to develop a system where we can pre route and radius all individual frets for each guitar and stock these, causing for more efficiency and consistency across the board.

We are dedicated to build the best possible guitars and would like to keep doing that in our production facility here in The Netherlands. This means that to be able to grow, we constantly need to improve and innovate our production systems.

Can you tell us more about the development of the multiscale EverTune bridge and its significance for Aristides Guitars?

Yeah, this was definitely a fun project that turned out amazingly well. A former artist of ours, Mike Stringer (Spiritbox), has been using our guitars with Evertune for a while now, but his favorite Aristides is the multiscale 070S, which was not available with Evertune. It has become an essential tool for him when playing live.

At some point, we talked to Mike and agreed to see what we could do to make a multiscale version of the Evertune made. Evertune couldn’t do it, but they were kind enough to let us develop it ourselves.

We designed the custom parts and built a prototype Mike tested for us. After that, we were able to make it a standard option for all of our customers.

It’s become extremely popular, and we’re still thrilled to be able to offer it!

How does Aristides Guitars approach sustainability in its manufacturing processes and material choices?

We always strive for sustainability in our processes and material choices, trying to make our processes efficient with as little waste as possible.

What advice would you give to new guitarists who are just starting out and looking to find their first high-quality instrument?

I would advise you first to determine what you want to get out of the instrument. This is very important to find out the basic specs of the instrument. For example, if you plan to do a lot of live playing and recording in a particular tuning, Evertune is a wonderful tool.

But if you’re going to be changing tunings a lot and can live without ‘always being perfectly in tune’ all the time, the Hipshot Hardtail would be the bridge for you.

A lot of it comes down to personal preference and budget. I would definitely recommend trying a few different things before taking the plunge.

That is also why we are always open to anyone who would like to visit our factory to try out some different guitars and learn about the options available.