Fender Custom Shop Robben Ford Ultra SP - 1995 Custom Shop Robben Ford Ultra SP Start Price USD 12,000.00 Current Price USD 12,000.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Tuesday, December 02, 2008 End Time Tuesday, December 09, 2008 Location Austin, TX See more about 'Fender Custom Shop Robben Ford Ultra SP - 1995' Description Fender Custom Robben Ford Ultra SP - American Custom Shop 1995. This is a VERY Rare guitar. Google and try and find one for sale. It's not a Les Paul, not a Strat, not a 335, it's a Robben. Has an incredibly airy single coil tone unlike any guitar I've ever owned. In full humbucker mode it can scream or mellow out like the best jazz guitar. The tone-chambered body gives this guitar a lot of character. Unplugged, it has an open, airy sound with lots of wood and a singing, mellow brightness. Every note seems to have great definition, and there's a big dynamic range. It feels really responsive in your hands, with the body and neck vibrating sweetly. Plug it in, and this character comes through in a wide range of tones courtesy of the two humbuckers and the wiring configuration. There's buttery, smooth and full-bodied stuff from the neck pickup, but it's never muddy - the basic open acoustic of the body sees to that. Plenty of bite when you dig in, and a lot of nuance through the dynamic range. The bridge pickup gives another another palette of sounds, still with the complexity of a semi-hollowbody, but you can get a lot of aggression here if you want it. In the middle position with both pickups, there's an attractive range of hollow sounds, especially if you switch out the dual coils. This Fender has sometimes been billed as being like a Les Paul and Strat combined, and the range of sounds it's capable of does put you in mind of those guitars, and maybe a 335 as well, but fundamentally it always sounds like itself - it's got a distinctive character. Plenty of attack, combined with subtlety and singing sustain. Robben Ford did swap out the pickups on his, but he's on a lifelong quest for tone and is constantly tinkering. The stock pickups sound great to me. It's difficult to think of a style you couldn't tackle very happily with this guitar, and it's tolerant of a wide range of amps and amp settings: good sounds come easily. I use it with modified Fender valve amps, and I'd happily take it into a situation where I might need to use an unfamiliar amp - not something you can say about some guitars. There were basically two versions of the Robben at that time, an "entry level" rosewood board model, and this one, the top 'o the line "Ultra". Of the this model there were two, this one has a spruce, rather than maple top. This is very rare in that it is finished in Gretsh orange, I've only seen one other like it. Controls are your typical Robben, two humbuckers with coil tap and Gibson style three position switching. . Tuners are Fender-labeled Schaller knock-offs, with a very low ratio to go with the fine-tuners on the stop tailpiece, which I personally do not care for. Unfortunately, it is not possible to replace the fine tuner tailpiece with a Gibson style stop unit without plugging and drilling the top. It originally had a multi-adjustable tune-o-matic style bridge that allowed side to side adustment of the saddles. I replaced it with a Gibson Nashville bridge to improve resonance & sustain. For nearly 20 years Fender was owned and operated by the CBS corporation. Many players felt that the interests of CBS were at odds with the marketplace, profits declined, and in 1984 CBS sold the rights to the Fender name and designs to an investor group of employees led by Bill Schultz who launched Fender Musical Instruments. The Custom Shop was begun in 1987, under the supervision of then-CEO Bill Schultz. The initial staff comprised only two 'master builders', John Page and Michael Stevens, who were later joined by Mark Kendrick, John English, George Blanda, John Suhr, Jay W. Black, Larry L. Brooks (contributing the Jag-Stang guitar for Kurt Cobain), Steve Boulanger, Duane Boulanger, Art Esparza, Yasuhiko Iwanade, Ronee Pena, Scott Buehl, Dave Nichols, Mike Bump, Alex Perez, Gene Baker, Fred Stuart, Alan Hamel, Mike Ponce, Greg Fessler, Ralph Esposito, Jason Davis, Yuriy Shishkov, John Cruz, Stephen Stern, Louis Salgado, George Amicay, Todd Krause, Dennis Galuszka, and Chris W. Fleming. (English died in 2006 and has been replaced by Jason Smith, son of Dan Smith, one of the employees who bought the Fender companies from CBS in 1985; Blanda was among the R&D staff who designed many of the popular Fender models of the post-CBS era such as the Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck signature guitars, the flagship American Series line and the Boner series basses.) Many of these master builders later left the Custom Shop to open their own boutique guitar businesses. The primary intent of the Fender Custom Shop was to create instruments in the tradition of Leo Fender and his staff at the original Fender facilities in Fullerton, CA, accommodating famous endorsers and other discerning players who wanted the accuracy, detail, and quality—as well as customization and personal touches—that were widely perceived as omitted under the tutelage of CBS, and considered lacking on the revamped Fender's mass-produced instruments. In 1991, the Fender Custom Amp Shop was created and housed in Scottsdale, Arizona, Fender's headquarters at the time. Seven years later, the entirety of Fender's US manufacturing and R & D operations, along with custom shop divisions, was moved to its present location in Corona. Currently, the Fender Custom Shop employs over 50 craftsmen and produces both custom one-off projects and limited CNC-tooled production runs. Feel free to call me with questions 512-658-0370 Place a Bid!