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Hang Out with Preston Reed TONIGHT
by Caz | Jul 14, 2012 | !Bailey Guitars, Acoustic guitars, Artists, News and Events, Preston Reed Signature Editions
…at your own house live with www.hangcast.com
After his amazing performance at the recent TED lecture, Preston is taking the internet by storm with more cutting edge live performances – last month with his first on-line gig from his front room, and now with the fantastic Daria Musk. Daria has been breaking new ground, pushing the boundaries in music, tech and social media. A weekend of lugging her guitar amps through the rain and an invitation to Google+ sparked the idea to perform a live concert via Google+’s video chat feature, “Hangouts”.
An instant world-wide hit and inspiration to coders and engineers, Daria became the voice that launched a thousand lines of code and the model for major tech innovations and Google engineering evolutions including the new “Hangouts On Air” broadcasts by Google.
Although in its infancy, the appeal of on line, personal gigs streamed live into your room of choice, is massive – Daria already has 1,732,335 “circlers” and along with Preston will be playing a live gig TONIGHT in the US , whilst Preston will be here in Girvan, South Ayrshire.
Viewers can submit questions, and so the gigs take on a more intimate quality – like a cross between a small live venue, a TV interview and radio phone in (with comfier seats)
Here’s the first Hang Out Live to Air concert made in June.
And of course Preston will be playing his Bailey Signature guitar(s)
If you prefer to see your music live and in person you can see Preston at one of his many tour dates.
And for those in and around Ayrshire…you don’t have to wait for the pleasure –
Saturday, July 21 – 8pm at the Harbour Arts Centre Irvine, Scotland
the atmospheric surroundings of the North Parish Church, Girvan Scotland Thursday, July 26 – 8pm
Tickets Available from The Sweetie Shop or online £10 / £8 concession in advance, £12 on the door. Under 18’s £5
there will be a display of some our guitars, and you will hear at least two of them being played.
Build Your Own Custom Guitar – Charlie – BYO – 308
by Caz | Jul 13, 2012 | Build Your Own, Guitar Making Students
…This could be the start of something beautiful…
Charlie made this, his first guitar, in seven days on our build your own custom guitar course. He chose every detail and even designed his own shape during the design session on day 1.
All the guitars are made completely from scratch, there are no kits here, we start with rough blocks of wood.
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Yikes…
We don’t just run courses here! We also make our own unique range of Bailey guitars – If we can do this in seven days on a course, just imagine what we could build for you… or to put it another way – if you can imagine it, we can build it.
Contact us with your requirements or have a look at some guitars in our online shop.
Build Your Own Custom Guitar – Kevin – BYO – 307
by Caz | Jul 10, 2012 | Build Your Own, Guitar Making Students
…Kevin’s second guitar made here in the Bailey work shop on our build your own custom guitar course…
Kevin came on the course back in and made his first, a through neck custom guitar with ‘Naked Lady’ inlay. This time he wanted something less provocative and came up with this design during the first session on day one of the course.
Seven days later this is the result.
more courses | check course prices
cuh…
We don’t just run courses here! We also make our own unique range of Bailey guitars – If we can do this in seven days on a course, just imagine what we could build for you… or to put it another way – if you can imagine it, we can build it.
Contact us with your requirements or have a look at some guitars in our online shop.
Build Your Own Custom Guitar – Course in Progress – Conclusion
by Caz | Jul 9, 2012 | Build Your Own, Guitar Making Students
…I aint got time to bleed…
This is our Build Your Own ‘Custom’ Guitar course, so these instruments represent the highest end of course guitars. We have other courses for those who would like to start with something more basic and you can even build an acoustic if you want to invest a little more time.
This course was great fun with a top bunch of guys, but it is hard work making four guitars in eight days. As time was short, I thought it would be better to run the last few days together into one post (and I ran out of daft quotes for the titles!)
Sat 2pm – 6pm
Day 1 starts late to give people have a chance to travel from wherever they are coming from. This session is spent finalising the design by completing the working drawing which we use to build the guitar from.
Sun, Mon, Tue 10am – 6:30pm (approx)
Build days…we start with a load of wood and start cutting off all the bits of that don’t look like guitars…we aim to finish around 6:30 but there are targets to achieve each day so we carry on until these are met.
A day off
Wednesday…
…the guys go off and have fun around the local area. It gives us a chance to do any last minute ordering or make any patterns I may need for the last few days. I did actually find a little time to do some bleeding, but I also had a couple of guitars to check over before they could be sent out to their new homes after being sold in our online shop.
Day 5 and 6
Thurs, Fri 10am – 6:30pm (approx)
We continue to build, aiming by the end of day 6 to have the guitars ready for spraying. At this point Billy takes over and does the twilight shift to make sure the guitars are ready for assembling the next day.
Day 7
Assembly and setup! This is it, they are done. Four new tasty toys fresh from the Bailey workshop – Isn’t it amazing what can be achieved in a week?
Day 8
Tinkering Time! We have added an extra half day (or as long as it takes) to give us time to thoroughly check over the set up and put any little problems right that may have arisen. It also gives me a chance to take some pictures of the finished instruments (to follow!)
Usman Riaz and Preston Reed: A young guitarist meets his hero
by Caz | Jul 9, 2012 | !Bailey Guitars, Acoustic guitars, Artists, Baritone, News and Events, Preston Reed Signature Editions, Reviews
Preston is getting some use out of his Signature Bailey Baritone!
This is awesome! It really kicks off about half way through when they both play together – then the jam at the end is met with a standing ovation.
From ted.com:
Usman Riaz is a 21-year-old whiz at the percussive guitar, a style he learned to play by watching his heroes on YouTube. The TED Fellow plays onstage at TEDGlobal 2012 — followed by a jaw dropping solo from the master of percussive guitar, Preston Reed. And watch these two guitarists take on a very spur-of-the-moment improv.
Preston Reed’s hands have an otherworldly coordination. The fingers, nails, thumbs, and palms of both left and right dance, pluck, strum, and slap his guitar, which bursts with a full sound. Full bio »
Young guitarist Usman Riaz pulls a rich, swirling sound out of the acoustic guitar. Full bio »
Build Your Own Custom Guitar – Course in Progress – Day 4
by Caz | Jul 4, 2012 | Build Your Own, Guitar Making Students
…Sometimes…there’s so much beauty in the world…I feel like I can’t take it. (cough)
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3
Day 4 – 10am till 8:30pm
Half way there!
Four days ago these were just piles of rough-sawn timber – in another four these guys will be stringing up and playing their guitars for the first time.
Mark has glued on the wings for his body but it is not cut out yet. He managed to get his shape drawn on and remove the clamps just before he left at about 6:30pm. The others stayed a while longer – Phil had to get his fretboard glued on to be on target for finishing in time. While he was busy doing that Kevin squeezed in an extra inlay on his headstock and Charlie made a good start on his body.
You…Yes, You!
You could build your own guitar on one of our courses, but if that is not for you why not check out our unique range of guitars, all handmade in the UK using ONLY renewably energy.
Build Your Own Custom Guitar – Course in Progress – Day 3
by Caz | Jul 2, 2012 | Build Your Own, Guitar Making Students
Five out of four people have trouble with fractions.
Day 1 | Day 2
Day 3 – 10am till 6-30pm
Great progress today…Priority is still the neck, but there was time to start prep on the bodies. Kevin, Mark, and Charlie all have carved their necks and are ready for fretting tomorrow.
Phil’s build is quite complicated – he still cannot glue on his fretboard yet as he is making a neck thru body with a spalted maple cap which will go right across the front of the body. In this case we glue the cap on first so it goes underneath the fretboard.
Tomorrow our attention will switch to the bodies so by the end of the day everyone should have something roughly resembling a guitar…practice your rock poses now folks…
Check prices and availability | more courses
Resistance is futile…
Check out our unique range of guitars, all handmade using only renewable energy.
Our DVD – ‘Guitar Magic‘ is a great introduction to guitarmaking and an incredibly useful visual guide to the processes involved in building a guitar by hand.
Build Your Own Custom Guitar – Course in Progress – Day 2
by Caz | Jul 1, 2012 | Build Your Own, Guitar Making Students
…The world needs a wake up call…and were phoning it in…
Day 2 – 10am till 6pm
Phil, Mark, Kevin, and Charlie are all on our course building their own custom guitars.
On day 1 we made drawings, chose wood, and firmed up the details… now the build really begins…
We also started the fretboards yesterday so all that was left to do was radius them before commencing work on the neck blanks. The priority for the first few days will be the neck.
We always begin by routing the truss rod slot, before cutting out the neck. Then the headstock is routed to thickness and the tuner holes are drilled. After that, Kevin and Charlie were ready to glue their fretboards on, which was their last job today..
Mark and Phil are making thru neck instruments so they have some extra jobs to do tomorrow before they can glue theirs. While the others were gluing their fretboards Phil jointed his Spalted Maple cap and Mark played around with the design for his 12th fret inlay…more tomorrow!
Check prices and availability | more courses
Go on, go on, go on, go on…
Check out our unique range of guitars, all handmade using only renewable energy.
Our DVD – ‘Guitar Magic‘ is a great introduction to guitarmaking and an incredibly useful visual guide to the processes involved in building a guitar by hand.















































