The recent 70th and 75th birthdays of the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster, respectively, have highlighted how little the electric guitar recipe has changed in the best part of a century.
Tosin Abasi, though, has been intent on shaking up the industry, masterminding a raft of boundary-pushing instruments that look to rethink what is possible with guitar design.
His namesake brand, Abasi Concepts, has proven to be both an industry disruptor and a trendsetter, with Ibanez’s Alpha series seemingly taking its cues from the future-minded, progressive Larada metal guitar.
Abasi also designed the weirdly wonderful Kaizen guitar with Ernie Ball Music Man, and with it, the Animals As Leaders guitarist wanted to swerve away from decades-old design features.
“We thought it would be cool to try something novel as opposed to the traditional sort of signature thing,” Abasi tells Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto of their collab. “It was an opportunity for me to make a Music Man that I felt didn’t exist.”
Naturally, that meant doing things differently, and Abasi is ready to fight pushback against its alien-like qualities.
“The guitar space is really interesting, ‘cause the most iconic instruments have been kind of crystallized since the ‘60s,” he says. “It’s a strange argument because a lot of guitar players get in their mind, like, ‘Oh, well, Jimmy Page was fine with that, so I guess I don’t need more fret access. I don’t need better balance.’
“It’s this very interesting balance of designing the guitar further to feel like you’re benefiting from the design without leaving behind the bones of what makes a guitar feel gratifying,” he adds.
There are plenty of radical specs on the Kaizen, from its ultra-thin body – because “it shouldn’t get in your way at all” – to its multi-scale, Infinity Radius fretboard for enhanced visibility. It flies in the face of traditionalism.
“The Infinity Radius prevents the need to tilt the guitar [to see the fretboard better],” Abasi says, crediting Music Man’s Drew Montell for the idea. “The strings fall a little bit more effortlessly where you want them.”
The multi-scale configuration also sees the bass side getting a standard 25.5” scale, but a shorter 24.75” scale for the treble end, making guitar solos and widespread legatos easier to nail.
It’s a lot of change, but Abasi believes they are all “subtle”, collectively pushing the traditional guitar design forward and only requiring a short adjustment to get used to.
In related news, Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto is launching an in-house guitar brand of his own – and he's hit back at the skeptics that have criticized his novel approach.
