This Seven String 36 fret Yellow Gary Kramer R36 is a beast in yellow.

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Though this Gary Kramer R36 seven string guitar goes against a lot of what I believe in, I really kind of like it.

To me it looks like something that would have been made by Teuffel in his teen years, before he settled into a more mature style.

This particular one has had some modifications including the removal of frets 28, 30, 32, and 34 to make access easier for human-sized hands. This yellow beast was clearly designed for an alien so in it's intended hands it there would be no need for such a modification.

R.W. Haller

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One-off fretless baritone guitar with Kramer headless alu neck

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A fretless baritone / bass VI (depending on the strings you use - with a 78 cm scale, around 30 inches, you have the choice) is a challenging instrument, definitely one I'd love to try - though I'm really not sure I can get something good out of it! 

This one-off was built from a 1980s Kramer Duke short scale bass aluminium neck (with wooden inserts in the back and Ebonol fingerboard), modified for 6 strings, and has separate electronics and outputs for the different active and passive pickups.

Bertram D

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Kramer KL8 bass - aluminium neck and eight strings

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It always kind of annoyed me that no-one seriously took notice of Kramer guitars until Eddie Van Halen started using them, mainly because by this time - in my eyes - they had stopped being cool by abandoning the aluminium necks that made their early instruments so very interesting in the first place. The company was founded in the late 1970s by Dennis Berardi, Gary Kramer and Phillip J. Petillo and produced their first aluminium necked guitars in 1976 from a plant in Neptune, New Jersey. They switched to producing more generic wooden-necked guitars in 1981. Notably, Gary Kramer, had left the company by this point.

Unlike Travis Bean guitars and basses, Kramer's aluminium neck was basically a T-shape in cross section with a fillet of timber to either side so as the give warmth to the back of the neck against the player's hand. Kramer produced more basses in their early period of metal-necked instruments in a ratio of approximately 4:1, mainly because bassists for some reason seem to be more willing to experiment with new ideas than guitarists (which is something I have often complained about - c'mon guitarists, stop being so conservative!).

The above-pictured Kramer KL-8 bass is an 8-stringed beauty (OK, it's only strung with 4 strings in the photo, no need to point that out in the comments), has a pair of DiMarzio pickups and a whole bevy of switching options. Note the wooden inserts (looks to be walnut, maybe?) in the back of the neck. Note the four machine heads at the body end for the octave strings. This concept of tuners at both ends of the instrument was also used around the same time on 12-string guitars and 8-string basses built by the likes of Wasburn and BC Rich (also 10-string guitars in the latter case). Actually, speaking of BC Rich, the whole design is rather reminiscent of their guitars; only the forked headstock gives the game away that it's a Kramer.

The eBay seller has listed this bass as being from the 1980s, but I think it's more likely to be 1970s, although conceivably it may have been from the last year of production of aluminium necks in 1980.

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,500.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!

Left-handed Kramer Ferrington acoustic bass from 1987

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I'm always on the lookout for interesting guitars and basses for our left-handed friends, and reckon that this 1987 Kramer Ferrington acoustic bass isn't something that you see every day, let alone find as a left-handed model. These "electric-shaped" double-cutaway acoustics were designed by Nashville luthier Danny Ferrington, who in the early 1980s had been creating similar one-off designs for himself and a whole bunch of celebrities, before his designs were snapped up and put into mass production by Kramer thus giving Ferrington his 15 minutes of fame.

Well, I say "mass production" but according to our eBay seller here, this left-handed example of a Kramer Ferrington Bass is one of only two known to have been made. It is currently being auctioned sale on eBay with a very low starting price - it'll be interesting to see what it fetches when the auction finishes on the 27th of this month.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!

Believe it or not: 1980s Kramer Ripley stereo guitar

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At first glance you'd be forgiven for asking "Are there enough controls on that single pickup guitar?" However, of course, the Kramer Ripley is not a single pickup guitar as such, rather it is equipped with a Bartolini hex pickup which essentially consists of individual pickups for each of the six strings. The guitar features a stereo output and individual panning controls allowing each string to be assigned its own position within the stereo spectrum. This particular example is one of only three made that includes an on-board "Hex" distortion allowing levels to be individually set for each string, and it is also the same guitar that appeared on tracks on Mick Jagger's Primitive Cool album from 1987.

Eddie Van Halen is also known to have played a similar Kramer Ripley guitar, and its stereo effects can clearly be heard on the song "Top Jimmy" from Van Halen's 1984 album.

This particular guitar - which has been played by Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), Jeff Beck and Mick Jagger - is currently being offered for sale on eBay UK with a Buy It Now price of £1,800.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!

What's up, Doc?

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This guitar has a Kramer Baretta body married to a Custom Dreams neck (Custom Dreams being the name used by Garden State Music in New Jersey). It also features - as you may possibly have noticed - a Bugs Bunny graphic, possibly painted by Dennis Kline (who worked for both Kramer and Garden State Music) or possibly it's a copy of Kline's work; the seller isn't 100% certain. Unfortuately the finish is slightly marred by several surface cracks.

This guitar is currently listed on eBay with a starting bid of £999.99.

G L Wilson

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - 10 years and counting!

Kramer Ferrnington RT-3 Richard Thompson signature acoustic from the late 1980s

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Apologies for the lack of a Guitarz post yesterday; I was simply too busy to get to use the computer (these days I'm trying to get out and about a little more and actually play the guitar rather than just writing about it).

Moving swiftly on, the above-pictured guitar is a Kramer-made Ferrington RT-3, a signature acoustic guitar for the No.1 English fingerstyle and folk/rock guitarist Richard Thompson.

By the mid-1980s Nashville-based luthier Danny Ferrington had been building one-off guitars for himself and various celebrities. He was one of the first guys to seriously challenge the strict design templates in the Gibson and Martin mould for acoustic guitar that seemed to be adhered to by almost every guitar manufacturer. Obviously Ferrington wasn't the first to make an acoustic guitar with a cutaway, but his designs were exciting and had outlines that you would have expected to be the sole reserve of the electric guitar.

In 1985, Ferrington began working with Kramer who produced his designs mainly in Korea for the mass market. Suddenly Strat and Tele-shaped electro-acoustics became very popular; for me personally, some of those models looked a little tacky and were no doubt the reason that Fender jumped on the "electric-shaped acoustic" bandwagon issuing the (to my mind very cheap and nasty looking) Stratacoustic and Telecoustic models.

I can't say that I've ever been a fan of "electric-shaped" acoustics, but this Richard Thompson guitar is a glorious design. It has an offset-waist and a double cutaway design yet it still conveys visually that it is resolutely an acoustic guitar, and not an acoustic guitar masquerading as an electric. I particularly like the ovoid fretboard position markers which echo the the soundhole and offset waist. The "mandolin point" on the upper rear bout is also a very nice design touch.

It's interesting to see the Ferrington name on the guitar's headstock; later models had the Kramer logo instead.

This guitar is currently being auctioned on eBay with just over a day left before the finish of the auction and with bidding currently at $406 at the time of writing.

G L Wilson

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

11 on 11/11/11: #8 - 1987 Kramer Nightswan

OK, it's the 11th November 2011, that is 11/11/11, and as such today has been designated Nigel Tufnel Day. To celebrate this day of Maximum Elevenness, we here at Guitarz - for this day only - will be posting an unprecedented ELEVEN blog posts! So, keep tuned throughout the day for eleven weird and wonderful guitars!

Here's a guitar that I'm sure Nigel Tufnel would enjoy rocking out on. For many a Kramer collector the Kramer Nightswan is considered the Holy Grail. Quite why, it's hard for a non-Kramer collector to tell, but I'm told that these guitars are amazing players. On first impressions it's just another Superstrat, but you'll notice that the two humbuckers have a treble bias being positioned in the middle and at the bridge. The lower cutaway is also extended so that access to the top frets on the 24-fret neck is unhindered. Also in its favour is that it is a genuine Made in the USA guitar, and hasn't just been thrown together in the Far East.

It is what it is. A no-nonsense guitar built to widdle.

This particular example is located in France and is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of €1690.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Kramer Invader prototype, #1 of 1

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I started writing a piece about how I never "got" Kramer guitars, couldn't understand what all the fuss was about, etc, etc, but then noticed it was almost word for word the same as a blog post I'd written in 2009 about a certain Kramer Triax guitar. So, rather than make you all think you are experiencing déjà vu, let's take a look at the above-pictured crazy-looking axe.

It's a Kramer Invader and must surely be one that Kramer afficionados and collectors would dearly love to get their mitts on. Apparently it is a one-off prototype model "built in '82 or '83 for Floyd Rose himself". It's currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $7,500.

I believe that Roland's G-707 guitar synth controller (which may or may not have been made by Greco in Japan) was introduced in 1984, so would have just been pipped at the post by this prototype Kramer for a guitar with a bar connecting the body to headstock. (I'm sure there are earlier precedents; list examples in the comments if you like!) I think here, though, it is purely cosmetic, whereas on the Roland it was supposed to eliminate deadspots on the neck and thus improve synth tracking.

And I don't know about you, but I always get nervous when I see pictures of expensive guitars standing by the side of a swimming pool!

(Thanks to Greg Cadman for pointing this one out to us!)

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Vaccaro X-Ray V2 with an aluminium neck

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You probably think that you've seen the characteristic V-shaped metallic headstock of this Vaccaro X-Ray V2 before - you're right, that's the Kramer one, from the time - back in the 1970s - they were making alu neck guitars. Mr Vaccaro is actually one of the founders of Kramer Guitars, and together with his son bought the patent for the necks and headstocks after Kramer crushed, and after upgrading them created the eponymous but short-lived company that released this guitar.

Bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1977 Kramer 450G with alu neck

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Here is an early Kramer 450G ; the Kramer series of guitars with experimental aluminium + wood necks and charateristic forked headstocks lasted from 1976 to 1985, together with the rise of Heavy Metal, and was the must-have guitar for plenty of hairy guys.

I could make a developed post about it but I would just paraphrase this site - so if you want to know more, pay them a visit! And if you're interested in metal necks and big sustain, check this post about Travis Bean and Sunn O))).

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Kramer Gorky Park

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I could have sworn I'd previously featured the Kramer Gorky Park guitar on this blog, but a quick search through the archives tells me that this isn't the case. This particular guitar is currently for sale on eBay and has a Buy It Now price of £1,499.00 which, to me, seems very steep for a jokey-looking instrument created for the band Gorky Park. (I'd never heard of them and had to look up on Wikipedia. I was amazed to learn they were active from 1987 to 2001. Perhaps they simply never made an impact here in the UK. But then again this eBay auction is in the UK, so someone over here must have known about them.)

Kramer fans, it seems, are a particularly rabid bunch when it comes to collecting guitars from their favourite brand. I personally never saw the appeal, other than for their early aluminium-necked instruments. Yeah, Eddie Van Halen played Kramers for a while, but I still don't get it. (No abusive comments or emails please - if you're a Kramer fan get in touch and tell us here at Guitarz what makes Kramer guitars so great!)

The Gorky Park model was based on the shape of the Russian balalaika - a three-string triangular-bodied folk instrument. Somehow the pointy Kramer headstock spoils this metaphor, as do the over-the-top graphics with band logo, USSR and USA flags, and signatures of the band members. (The signatures are reproductions and are part of the design). In fact, the top of that little triangular body is so busy that perhaps it's a good idea that the guitar sports just a single humbucker and a lone volume control.

G L Wilson

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Kramer Triax

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Someone just shelled out $3,500 for this Kramer Triax on eBay. I never really got Kramers and could never see what all the fuss was about, but I know that there are some pretty rabid Kramer fans out there with huge collections. Yeah yeah, I know Eddie Van Halen used to use them in the 1980s, but so what? They just never appealed to me. I thought the original aluminium-necked guitars and basses were interesting but after that I kind of lost interest. (Kramer fans, you are welcome to respond and tell us why you love them. I'm open to hearing your side of the story.)

Anyway, this Triax... What's the deal with the shape? It looks like a Klingon spaceship from out of Star Trek. Or something. I can't imagine it fares very well in the ergonomics department, and that headstock design is just silly. Isn't it?

I guess it's just the designer having some fun. And why not? We like wacky guitars here on this blog!

Anyway, for those who want to know about the guitar, it's from 1986, is Floyd Rose equipped as was de rigueur in those days, and apparently only about 10 of these exist. This particular example is in pristine condition. I can imagine that if used for heavy gigging those outer-body pointy bits would be subject to damage.

G L Wilson

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Kramer / American Showster 'the Biker'

No this Kramer / American Showster guitar is not meant to look like an ice pop or a chili pepper like I thought first, but it's inspired by a Harley Davidson motorbike tank - I can't identify all the American icons at first sight but I can tell a cow-boy hat from a Bowler...

Anyway, if you don't have to believe that this guitar shape is cool a priori and if you don't mind about ergonomics, it's a good looking one, and I particularly like the headstock.

Looks like a tongue too...

bertram