Don Reed

C.F. Martin Instruments:

• Custom 15: This is basically a prototype HD28 made in 1983 by C.F. Martin. It has snowflake fretboard inlay, shaved bracing, custom tortoise pickgaurd, Bourgeois dual pickup system, small vintage style tuners and a whole lot more~!
• D28L: My baby. It’s a ’65 Brazilian stock. Kinda sad as it really stays in it’s case more than I’d like, though lately, I’ve been gigging again with her more. I slapped a Fishman Rare Earth pickup in and it really sounds cool. Kinda like a Sunrise for alot less.

Gibson-Epiphone Instruments:

• Epiphone Les Paul: Next is the Joe Perry Boneyard w/photo flame tiger stripe top, a Bigsby vibrato and burstbuckers. Pretty cool and way cheaper than the Gibson.
• Epiphone 335 Dot Neck: This is a red baby with all stock parts except black chicken head control knobs. Very nice axe and low $.
  Epiphone “Howard Roberts” Model – Wine red finish w/gold plated metal parts. Neck mounted pickup and very jazzy. Dig it!
  Epiphone Mandobird – A very cool little guy styled after the Thunderbird/Firebird axes. It’s a 4 string electric and really rocks!

Fender Instruments:

• Stratocaster: Very liberal term here. I worked for Fender for about a month in the late 70′s. No wonder that era turned out crap! This has some the components from my beloved ’72 (guts, hardware..).  It has a nice vintage 2-color sunburst body. It’s a player and I love it. The neck has super wide frets and the rosewood feels just right. Oh yeah, it screams!
• Stratocaster:- This is a Jap with a rosewood neck with a mish mash of components. Black super distressed body.
• Stratocaster: OK. I see a trend here with the Fenders. This is a no name body & neck, elecs, hardware. It’s see-through green finished.
• Telecaster: Well…..this guy is natural medium brown stained. Very nice sounding axe and it’s REAL heavy!
• Telecaster: This is an eBay basket case Tele body with parts that I brought back to life. Some guy had painted it flat black with white large circles all over it. Very funky. The actual paint job was butterscotch. Well, a week of careful sanding the butterscotch came back! Nice Jap body and parts for little or no money. It now has the original finish, with some relic effects thrown in for good measure, a black pickguard and a Squire maple neck with relic effects on the fingerboard. Pretty cool psuedo 50′s butterscotch for $100 investment.
• Fender acoustic natural and black: Loved the black one so much I got the natural. Great Fishman elecs and easy to play. Main axes for teaching and performing.

All The Rest (favorites):

• DonMo: 2000 Tricone metal body. This is a custom axe that I had made from a picture on a website. The luthier, Don Morrison, is in Australia. I am VERY trusting. For those of you that are not familiar with metal bodied guitars, this is much like the National brand made in the 20′s-30′s and beyond. It’s super heavy and sounds just amazing. It also has a Highlander pickup system that sounds transparent. My brother, Dennis, turned me on to this guy and also suggested that we have him engrave our recently deceased parent’s names on it. Good idea as every time I look down on the upper bout, I think of them. Please take a look at DonMo’s instruments. You’ll be glad you did!
• Taylor: Here’s their koa wood acoustic w/the expression system electrics. Expression is now removed (hated it). Has a Baggs Anthem right now. Very beautiful axe with a great acoustic and electric sound.
  Gitane: This is their gypsy model guitar, styled after the Macafferri guitar made famous by Django Reinhardt. It has rosewood back and sides with a close grained spruce top. Has the large D soundhole with amazing action, projection and sound. This replaced my beloved Dell Arte’ guitar that initiated my friendship with Alain Cola of Dell Arte’ Guitars. Alain is a wonderful man and is one of the foremost proponents of Gypsy Jazz. Contact him if you would like to see one of his amazing guitars. I also can’t exclude the luthier, John Kinnard of Dell Arte’. His work covers all the bases including mandolins, Gibson style guitars and much more. Very talented.
• Grayson: The luthier of this one is an automotive body and fender guy by day and does instruments by night! This is an aged copy of a Gibson “F” style mandolin. Now not just ANY mandolin, but the Father of Bluegrasses mandolin: Bill Monroe. This thing looks and sounds the part down to the cracked off scroll piece on the headstock. Fishman bridge pickup. A wonderful axe and is my main mandolin.
• Chandler: Lap steel. Nice Weisenborn body shape. Solid w/mahogany top and Charlie Christian style pickup. This is a regular in my top 5 stable for gigs.
• Luthier Unknown Octave Mandolin: A very cool piece picked up from eBay. My first octave. Tuned a step down from a conventional mandolin, it sounds very “old world”. Will use this as flavor and imagine will go to some shows, sessions. It’s quite beautiful with an antique sunburst finish, abalone binding, bone nut and saddle and lot’s more.
• Schecter C1 Semi Hollowbody: This is an interesting axe that I have been looking at for some time now. I had been looking at the reviews on Harmony Central and they all screamed BUY ME. Well I did. I love this guitar. It bridges the gap between a Fender Strat, a Gibson humbucker and an acoustic guitar! It has a piezo bridge system that you can roll into the classic humbucker sound or use on its own. It even has 2 discrete outs for running the acoustic sound into a board or acoustic amp. Very cool job Schecter.
• Godin: Mandolin. Solid body chambered w/spruce top, mahogany b&s. Piezo pickups. In the top 5 gig axes. Very nice instrument. Main mano these days.
• Wechter “Rob Ickes” Model Resonator: This is a very nice dobro with the coveted Shertler pickup system. Another one in the top 5 gig tools.
• Line 6 Variaxe: This is the entry-level red solid body. I love it! Sanded all of the red off and finished in natural.
• Heritage: This is their ES175 model. Honey sunburst, great hand wound pickups. Love it!

The rest of the rest:

Lastly, there’s a mahogany uke, a Lanikai elec uke, Framus banjo, Harmony banjo, Dean 1/2 size acoustic for the road, Rogue mahogany cutaway with Fishman electronics, Rogue F style mandolin with a K & K PU, Johnson metal body, Gold Tone Weisenborn copy with Baggs, Whew! I THINK that’s it.