History of Larrivee Electric Guitars And Basses
In 1982, Jean Larrivee closed his shop in Victoria,BC and
moved his operation to North Vancouver. Acoustic guitar sales were at
low ebb industry-wide, and Jean was faced with some decisions. He could
have laid off his staff and continued by himself, or with a very small
staff, continued producing only acoustic guitars. With almost 20 years
worth of equipment, he could have made a very good living. The market
was soft, but not dead and Jean had distributors who could have
absorbed what he could have produced with a small operation. However,
he had "been there, done that", and he was not interested in covering
old ground. The market for electric guitars was healthy, and for the
first time in years, companies other than Gibson and Fender were having
some success in the high quality, high end of the market.
Jean was intrigued by the challenge of learning to manufacture electric
guitars. He had a excellent dealer and distributor base from acoustic
guitars, good woodworking equipment, and knew a lot about guitars. He
also knew a lot of musicians who were willing to help steer him in the
right direction. He decided to go for it.
The very first Larrivee Electric was made in Victoria, BC in 1982 and
was a double cutaway “Strat†like guitar. When the
shop moved in 1983, production began almost immediately. The first
electrics were bolt-on necks.
Models
The electric guitars underwent many changes over the seven years that
we produced them. There are two main branches to the model tree:
bolt-on necks and neck-thru-bodies. Bolt-on neck guitars had model
names beginning with "L" (for Larrivee) and neck-thru-body
designs had names beginning with "R" (for a reason that seemed logical
at the time, but which no one still here can remember). Numbers were
used to designate pickup configuration, as follows:
1 - Single humbucker in bridge position
2 - Double humbuckers
3 - Three single coils
4 - Two single coils plus a humbucker in
the bridge position
Thus, an LS-3 was a bolt on neck design with 3 single coil pickups. An
RS-2 would be a neck-thru-body design with 2 humbuckers. Body designs
were not copies, exactly, but they were certainly derivative. The "S"
in LS-3 stood for Strat* derived body (Larrivee Strat*-style
-3 pickup), while an LT-2 would have been a Tele* derived body. Basses
were called LB-2 and RB-2. Most had a Jazz Bass* type pickup in the
bridge position and a P-Bass* style in the neck position.
It should be noted the the current model RS-4 does not follow this
naming path and that we have started over from scratch with names.
While the LS-, LT-, and RS- guitars, and the LB-2 and RB-2 basses,
accounted for the bulk of electric production, there were other models
as well. The middle period of electric production coincided with a
brief return to fashion of wild body shapes. Flying V designs and Randy
Rhodes style guitars were in style, and so we made some. It was also
the time Eddie Van Halen burst onto the scene with his guitar painted
with crossed lines. Suddenly graphics were hot, and so we created those
too. It was liberating in a way. With acoustic guitars we had strong
opinions – prejudices if you prefer - about design and
aesthetics. There was a right way to do things and if the market didn't
like it, the market needed educating. We didn't have the same emotional
investment with solid bodies. Whatever the market wanted we were more
than happy to build.
Graphics? You got it. Absurd body designs? No problem. Kahler Tremelos
with locking nuts? Sure. Oh, now they have to be Floyd Rose trems? We
can do that, too. Banana headstocks? Day-Glo finishes? Why not.
While we cared a lot about building quality instruments, doing good
woodworking, and installing quality hardware, we really didn't care
whether the guitars looked conservative or 21st century, Rolls-Royce*
or Corvette*.
The final stage in the evolution of Larrivee electrics
before the electric market dried up was the carved top series. These
were very beautiful, very functional guitars, proof that we had learned
a lot of lessons. They were RS-4's, neck-thru-body guitars with highly
figured carved maple tops. Because one of the other companies was
claiming trademark on the banana style headstock, and because the
fashion wheel was turning away from that look anyway, we abandoned it
for a three-on-a-side set up. The carved tops were offered in several
translucent colors, as well as sunburst. They had Larrivee
pickups, which by then had evolved into a very good product, and either
hard tails or Floyd Rose* licensed locking tremolo systems.
Though made in 1987, the original RS-2 and RS-4 designs are actually
pretty close in design to the modern PRS guitars of today. The neck
thru body’s made during the late 80’s with the
carve tops are the most valuable use Larrivee Electrics.
Pickups
Most basses came stock with EMG active pickups. They were the hottest
bass pickup on the market at the time, and they were licensed to only a
few manufacturers and we felt very fortunate to be one of them. The
early six strings also had EMG pickups.
Later Jean built a pickup winding machine (From scratch) and produced
his own pickups. Including magnetizing his own magnets! Once the
Larrivee pickup was available, it became the stock pickup
for six strings, while the EMGs were offered as an extra cost option.
There was quite a bit of competition among pickup manufacturers in
those days. Replacement pickups were big business and there were quite
a few companies fighting for their share of the pie. Some of them are
still in business today. We received many samples from companies trying
to get our OEM business (OEM stands for "Original Equipment
Manufacture". It's a shorthand way of saying what comes stock on an
instrument.) Those pickups were usually tried on guitars, and if they
had acceptable performance, the test guitars were sold with them
installed. So you could find a Larrivée electric with
pickups other than Larrivee or EMG. It wouldn't necessarily
mean the pickups had been replaced. We shipped a fair number of basses
with pickups from Bill Bartolini. His pickups were great, but they were
hard to get, and they had so many wiring possibilities you didn't quite
know what to do with them.
Materials
Many people have asked what woods their Larrivée electric
are made from. The answers are short and simple.
• All bolt-on necks were made
of a single piece of eastern maple.
• All fingerboards were ebony.
• Bodies for bolt-on necks were
alder
• Body wings for neck-thrus
were alder
• The core of the neck-thru
designs were laminated eastern maple.
Other Brand Names
Larrivee guitars produced some solid body instruments with brand names
other than Larrivee. Schon Guitars and Signature Guitars were produced
under contract to other companies, as were some Kramer guitars.
Scorpion Guitars was an in-house brand. A few prototypes were built for
Robin Guitars and Tobias basses, but those never went into production.
Schon Guitars - Neil Schon, the great electric guitar player from the
band Journey, had a dream to market his own line of guitars. He wanted
to design the guitars, and have his people control marketing and
distribution, but he was smart enough to not want to manufacture them.
Originally he approached Jackson Guitars, and they produced the first
Schons. For whatever reason the business relationship didn't work out,
and Neil approached Jean Larrivee and asked him to build the guitars.
Jean had already gone through the worst of a steep learning curve and
was feeling confident of his ability to build the guitars. Sales of
Larrivee electrics had been good in Canada and in Europe, but had never
really got off the ground in the US. Jean felt the association with a
famous and respected guitar player like Schon could only help his own
credibility in the electric guitar world, so he agreed to take on the
contract. Perhaps at some future time I'll collect more details on this
production for this space. It was a few hundred instruments. The whole
project was a little too far behind the curve. By the time it really
got going the whole market was changing. Electric guitar sales were
weakening for everybody. The project lost its reason to exist and just
petered out.
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