“We determined, ‘Boy, with that checked finish, the acoustic guitar – which is a box that vibrates – really rings’”: Gibson's Tom Murphy on how Murphy Lab acoustics are taking aged guitars into new sonic territory

Tom Murphy.

In the space of a few decades, pre-aged guitars have gone from industry joke to high art. A large part of that turnaround has been down to the work of Tom Murphy, whose work has elevated what was once a (quite literally) scattergun process into something more akin to historical restoration. 

Murphy operated independently for many years, but as of 2020 was chosen to head up Gibson’s specially created Murphy Lab, sharing his innovative tools and techniques with a small crew of hand-picked employees.