LsL Saticoy SA “Janina”

LSL guitars are completely hand made strat and tele homages. They are very organic and soulful instruments. Over the last few years Lance Lerman and LSL Instruments has been quietly building a tremendous reputation among players of strat and tele style instruments, and for good reason. Most strat and tele slyle guitars in the LSL price range are assembled from parts, but Lance builds all his instruments from raw wood, no CNC machines, no blanks. We are very excited to now be carrying these amazing instruments.

All Metal Parts are Manually Aged For a Truly Incomparable Vintage Look and Feel. Fingerboard edges are hand rounded for a silky-smooth feel. Vintage style, slot-head screws are used on the pickguards, control plate, tuners and string tree. Phillips head screws are used elsewhere. Lightly aged, set-up, signed, numbered and named with a unique female name (this one was named "Janina" at the LSL shop).

Among the guitars I treasure, there is one I will always keep. It's a '56 Strat that I bought nearly 40 years ago, and was my main instrument for much of my working career. It has a fantastic neck, and through that  indescribable karma that sometimes happens, it sounds like no other Strat I've ever played. It's my holy grail Strat.

I asked Lance Lerman  of LSL Guitars.to make me an instrument that would not just capture that "vintage vibe" that so many makers are going for these days, but also to see if he could somehow capture the amazing neck of my '56.  Here's the fantastic part.  I told Lance it was a soft "V", and I gave him the neck depth measurements at the third and twelfth fret. That's it. No micrometer increments. I didn't want to see if he could make a perfect copy. I wanted to see if he could capture the vibe and soul of that great neck on my '56.

He did. I am just blown away.  LSL has got it figured out, starting with the raw wood and an inbred feel for making great instruments. They fully understand how important grain orientation is to the final outcome of the instrument.

This RC red Satacoy feels like a piece of history, very comfortable, broken in. Lance Lerman, owner and builder at LSL, has really mastered the art of building relic guitars. It's not just about creating wear, but about making the guitar 'feel' like it has been loved and played, and LSL guitars definitely arrive in your hands feeling just right. This guitar is lightly aged, so it feels like it has been broken in and is ready for serious playing.

The tone of this guitar is powerful and clear, capable of the vintage chime of a great strat, a spunkiness, or you can dig deep into a heavy overdrive. The neck feels wonderful, balanced across the entire fretboard and fast. A truly great Blues guitar, you can bend like crazy, or fingerpick with tremendous articulation. The hand wound LSL pick ups are very sensitive, and its easy to get your tone exactly where you want it, whether playing solo or with a band.

It's really incredible that Lance can produce this level of quality for such a reasonable price.

From my point of view, there really isn't a better 'modern vintage' strat or tele out there, which is why we now carry them at CR Guitars.

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.

ABOUT LsL GUITARS
The LSL Guitars motto is, "Never sell a guitar you don't want to keep." It all started when Lance Lerman experienced an eBay scam where he paid for a '73 Tele that never arrived. At that stage in his career Lance had had at least two stints as a builder/repairman of instruments and had generated 25 years of professional woodworking experience, running multiple large woodworking companies in the US and China. In response to his eBay experience Lance took it upon himself to build a Tele from scratch. With some dread he brought it to the amazing guitar guru, Tommy Kay, handed it over and let him play it. Tommy said, "YOU made this?" "Yeah, I made it" was the reply. Tommy: "You made the body?" And again the answer was "Yes." "You made the neck?" "Yes, I made the whole thing, all of it, except the metal parts, from lumber - planks of wood." Tommy's answer: "I'm blown away!, I'm totally blown away!" Then the question that started a guitar company: "Can you make more of these?" From that point forward, Lance started turning out guitars which kept selling immediately - sometimes within hours. This continued until it became apparent that this was the job Lance was really looking for. A job he felt passionate about, loved doing and quite possibly was one of the few things one could still make in the US successfully. So LSL Instruments was born, and they are finding success with the delivery of every instrument.