Brubaker K-4 Nashville Custom

2002 K-4 Nasville Custom, made in Maryland. 22 frets. Semi-hollow. 3 position pu select, 1 volume control, 1 tone control with push-pull pot for coil tap. 2 humbuckers, Duncan JB in bridge, Duncan '59 in neck. Mahogany body and top w/ tone chamber and very stylish, subtle f-hole. Ebony fretboard. Unique bolt-on/neck-thru design has neck 8" into body. Beautiful teaberry pink colour with smooth and fast satin finish on neck. Calling in a "thinline tele" style body doesn't really give it the credit it deserves, nor is it totally accurate, but that's the closest match. Beautiful carve on the top, a very stylish and unique design. This thing is a piece of art. Hardtail string-through-body bridge. Sperzel locking tuners. Great feeling neck, sort of a wider, flat feel with medium "chubby" factor; perfect compromise for complex fingerings, open chords, fast single note lines, and soloing. 25" scale length is right between a LP and a Strat, and it shows- the tightness of the strat, the wail and bendiness of the LP. Came with very nice custom Brukbaker/TLK form fit case and necessary wrenches. This guitar has every feature I've wanted, none that I don't, and is very straight forward and intuitive in terms of it's operation. A true work of art to look at, feels great and balanced on your body, and the neck/fretboard feel is unbeliveable. It's the most "cruise control" guitar i've ever owned- frankly, it makes you sound better than you are and takes a lot of the effort out of playing, letting you concentrate on WHAT your playing, not HOW. Good conduit for creativity, easy to nail the hard lines, and can comp for days effortlessly.

This is a pro guitar, and like a good pro session guy (not me) it can cover all the musical bases with minimal effort and just a little tweak from your equipment- definitely in the "swiss army" camp, but with a very distinct voice all it's own. The throaty semi-hollow sound and pu combination allow it to cover funk and twang (Meters style), clean country spank, jazz (great comp tones and bubbly soloing), american rock (think JCM and petty), zappa-style fusion, right up to the heavy stuff. Maybe not a guitar for the VAI's of the world, but let's not go down that path... There's not a whole lot you can't do with it, and you'll still sound like yourself. I'm using it with a Rivera Jake Studio combo, and various occasional pedals (not worth mentioning), no rack stuff or processing, with the exception of a dbx 160a for clean tones (mostly for rhythm). It's totally quiet with humbuckers, slightly noisey with the coils tapped (what would you expect?). Can be very bright at the right amp settings, can be dark at others- gives you the "steely dan" pallette of guitar tones and accuracy in the notes at every setting. You'd have to go out of your way to make it muddy or convoluted, even with the neck pu selected in a high gain channel. Even with the coils tapped it has a full, present tone. No real complaints here, but I might try a different bidge humbucker in the future- the JB has a slightly nasal quality that could possibly be improved upon.

This guitar came setup perfectly and is correctly made in every aspect. You can tell it was handmade, but not because something was done poorly or inconsistently- it's just a little more "organic". Action was set just right for the string gauge, and the only major adjustment I coud see would be a result of using lighter string gauge. PU's were adjusted in a very volume-balanced manner. I have yet to find any flaw in the finish, hardware, nut, etc., with two miniscule exceptions- frets poking just slightly out of the fretboard on the right side, and the cap for the pickup selector has a habit of flying off. Hard to complain! Basically, a guitar isn't going to show up at your door looking or feeling better than this from ANYWHERE- any luthier's shop, mass prod. facility, or anywhere in between.

This guitar feels totally solid strapped on, and i certainly have no misgivings about it in a live situation. Totally durable from finish to wiring to harware, has yet to do anything but make me play better. It's 100% all the time, and at this point I think I would have to purposely mistreat it to make it fail or withter with time. I gig with another guitar (a Hamer Artist Custom), but only because I like the totally difference in the guitars. I've yet to break a string mid-show!

Have yet to find it necessary to contact, but given the nature of Brubaker's business I would guess it to be good. The gentleman I purchased the guitar from was a close associate of Kevin's and nothing but good things to say about him.

This guitar is a godsend, and I feel lucky to even know about it, much less own it. Everyone who has played, listened to, or seen it has been blown away, and for good reason. It's a total original. It has a distinct tone, look, and feel to it not available on anything else I've tried. The neck-thru/bolt-on design is revolutionary, and really gives you the sustain and upper neck access you'd want. It really lets your character as a player come out through your amp, and definitely lets you do what ever you want effortlessly while reminding you that you need practice! I would love to order another one of these (post-recession), and I don't feel it lacks anything in one area or another. It will make you, if not a better player, a better sounding player, and you'll end up doing things you didn't think you could do. Huge sonic pallete, and feels great in any style.

This review is for a K4-Nashville Custom guitar hand made at the end of 2001 by Kevin Brubaker in Westminster, Maryland. He has a small operation that turns out about 10 guitars and basses per month, each built to his own personal standards (which are very exacting and very high). It is 1 of 3 "Brus" I own.

This guitar is a 6 string, 22 fret, tone monster with a AAA or AAAA grade quilted top on a semi-hollow (with graceful f-hole) mahogany body. The body shape is single cutaway, reminiscent of a Thinline Telecaster. The body has a very tasteful carve and the artful headstock carve is a thing of beauty with 3 on a side gold Sperzel locking tuners. The top is dyed green (great 3D effect) and the body is naturally finished in a flawless thin urethane type finish. The maple neck is thin and fast, satin finished, with a cocabola rosewood fretboard and abalone dot inlays. The neck joint is called a neck thru bolt on. It's hard to describe so it's best just to visit his website at www.brubakerguitars.com to see what it is. The neck basically disappears 7 inches into the body of the guitar and is bolted in with 4 large countersunk gold screws.

The bridge is a gold "The Point Classic" tremolo with 2 massive compression springs in the mount rather than the vintage style mount which "stretches" multiple springs. The pickups are 3 Joe Barden S-Deluxe 'single coils' with a push pull tone knob which splits the rails on the bridge and neck position pickups. Even the shielded control cavity and trem cavity show off Kevins attention to meticulous detailing.

It came with a custom fitted hardshell case and neck adjustment tool.

The range of tones in this particular guitar covers Telecaster, Stratocaster and it's own native Bru voicings. The combination of the K4 design and the S-Deluxe pickups provides a great platform for classic rock, Texas blues and country. I don't play metal, but since this thing can absolutely scream, I imagine it'll do that just fine too. I absolutely love the sound of this guitar.

My rig generally consists of a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, TS-9 Tube Screamer (modified to TS-808 spec) and Morley Bad Horsie wah, though now I've added a Dano Cool Cat chorus into the mix and I run a second amp, a Vox AD60VT, out of the stereo out.

The action and pickups required no adjustment at all (after all, he set it up for my spec, fairly low but high enough to get a good bend) and I've spent literally hours just drowning in that bookmatched quilt top, the natural taped binding and the gorgeous headstock and haven't found a flaw.

As for the finish, it's as lustrous and fine as I've seen. I have a 3 year old Brubaker B-1 and the finish still looks just as good, but no, I don't know how long it'll last for sure. I have no doubts about it anyway.

Kevin's guitars are built very solidly. No one would fear to gig with one on that account. The strap buttons are oversized like a PRS, so they'll hold your strap real well without slipping out. The finish is hard but thin so as not affect the tone. My B-1 which has the same finish has a couple of dents and no cracking of the finish resulted.

Customer support? That's easy. I haven't needed it and I doubt I will unless it's to swap some pickups. One of my friends has a couple Brubaker guitars and has pickups swapped and action and trem adjustments (because he's always in a mad search of the ever elusive perfect tone and setup) and Kevin cheerfully obliges.

Kevin is very available. I've visited his shop a fair number of times and he will work with you on all the details to make sure you get exactly what you want. He says "Customer satisfaction is priority one." and the thing is, he really means it. If you can't get him on the phone, he'll call you right back. He answers email within a day. He is terrific to work with and is an honest and dedicated craftsman.

I honestly can't find a thing to bring down the rating. Is it perfect? I don't know, I'm not a luthier; but I can't see what could be improved, let me say it that way. With Kevin that's a fairly easy rating to get since you get what you want, you can work directly with somebody who is as interested in giving you what you really want as you are, who truly wants you to love it to death and he's building it to his standard of excellence and not production line standards.

Incredible bang for the buck in my opinion. Easily PRS Private Stock value for thousands less.

I have been playing for 20 years and this guitar sits in the company of a Brubaker B-1, a Brubaker B-2, a Warrior Soldier, a Custom Shop Setneck Strat and a custom made Warmoth guitar. Would I replace it? Sure, in fact I'm already planning my next one.

One other comment, the only difference that I can see between the Custom models (which all of mine are) and Xtremes is off-the-scale grade tops and special fretboard effects (colors and inlays). The top notch craftmanship, materials and attention to detail is the same for all of Kevin's guitars.