Kevin Pederson Custom Koa Drea Armani

The Pederson Drea Armani arch top guitar is a 15" lower bout jazz/rock hollow body guitar. This guitar is constructed much like an acoustic with bent sides, a head block, a tail block and a separate back and top plate. The Drea Armani back is specifically engineered to be active and responsive in its output. The Drea Armani top is carved to specifications that allow maximum tonality, sustain and resonance.

The Drea has a new engineered tailpiece and new US Patent no. 8,748,718 adjustable bone saddles. With the new bridge and bone saddles there will be improved sustain, resonance and tone. The new bone saddles balance the string pressure out at two points on the saddle producing a real 'organic' and woody tone. There is improved tone across the low, mid and high frequencies. You can now have both the boutique bone tone and adjust the saddles (for intonation) during seasonal adjustments, or for desired action changes and different string gauges.

There are bespoke guitars and then there are BESPOKE GUITARS - guitars that are built with such a high level of artistry and craft that they could belong in a museum, if it weren't for the fact that they are extremely wonderful to play and a complete joy to own. The Perderson Custom Koa Drea Armani is truly a work of art; an artistic guitar that can produce tones and musicality to match any level of player. It's a one of a kind piece, an instrument for the most picky of collectors.

Since this awesome preowned beauty has a story that goes along with it, here are some thoughts shared by the original owner:

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"I was looking for a totally custom build featuring a thin body, archtop style construction, but with a little 'pizzaz' along the way in sound and looks. After scoping several builders out, I landed on Kevin Pederson, a very, very talented, still 'young' builder of all kinds of guitars including some really awesome looking and sounding acoustics. Kevin is gaining more and more recognition for his work at various luthier shows and has even pioneered several refinements and improvements in bridge construction and interior bracing systems within his acoustic guitar works. He is also becoming a VERY well respected hand cut inlay artist.

"I wanted to work with Kevin on selecting all the various wood combinations and appointments in hopes of coming up with a great guitar. In many, many ways this guitar is an outstanding instrument. First and foremost was the selection of a simply unbelievable piece of curly koa that will just knock anyone's socks off when they see it! Kevin contacted several suppliers of super-duper select Koa and located one of the best of the best pieces on the market. It was a very large board and one that would yield enough of this highly figured Koa for him to make several guitars (I also own a solid body, Les Paul type Drea using the same koa). Once I saw this board I had to have this specific Koa. Kevin agreed and away the build started!

"All kinds of high quality, high artistic value appointments were constructed into the guitar; selection of BRW bindings, purflings, inlay work, frets, tuners, neck woods, fingerboard wood. All were merged into this totally custom build of the Pederson Drea Archtop.

"I've always had an artistic interest in peacocks and peacock feathers; the coloration of the male birds, etc. For this guitar I took an artistic stab at requesting a wild peacock feather inlay for the headstock and for the fret markers. I wanted Kevin to create a peacock feather's "eye" for the markers. Only a master could have produced the results you see.

"For the electronics on this guitar I wanted to capture as much flexibility as possible. So the guitar is equipped with humbuckers that can have their coils split AND it has a piezo pickup as well. The pickups can be blended between full piezo, mixed with the humbuckers, or full humbuckers and/or humbuckers with split coil, totally up to the player and the sound they are seeking. Very flexible.

"The neck shape is directly from a Paul Reed Smith pattern named "wide fat." It is very comfortable in the hand, very ergonomic, substantial but not overly so.

"Lots of Macassar ebony is used on this guitar for the fingerboard, tuner knobs, tailpiece and bridge pickup covers.

"To round out this description here is an article about Kevin Pederson, written when he was the owner of Abyss Guitars. It sheds a good deal of light on his track record and history:"

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/out-of-the-abyss-the-story-of-abyss-rise-to-kevin-l-pederson-guitars-1

If you'd like to find out more about this item, just call or e-mail me. It would be my pleasure to talk to you about it.