Description

Description

We are delighted to share with you this custom guitar designed and created here at Ruach, for Declan Legge from Big Space Studios. In reference to the video below, this is the moment all of us at Ruach wait for, seeing the hard work and careful craftsmanship being enjoyed by YOU.

The Ruach Declan Legge Electric Guitar Custom

Suhr Coil Tapped Pickups

This Guitar was designed from the ground up by the Ruach team and Declan. And so, these pickups were chosen specifically for this guitar by Naomi.

Body Shape

We believe this new body we’ve designed is something quite special – something fresh, but not too diverse. This was developed over months in our workshop in Northern Ireland. Small, light and ready for some serious use.

Neck

We hand select each piece of wood for our necks to ensure they meet our strict requirements. The wood is stabilised using our in-house conditioning room, and we then cradle the necks over a 30 day manufacturing period; resulting in exceptionally strong and stable necks. We partnered up this guitar with a 25.5” scale, 22 medium sized frets and a maple neck and fretboard.

Hardware + Electronics 

This Guitar appropriately comes fitted with a Schaller Bridge, Schaller Machine Heads and a TUSQ Nut. CTS Pots are housed inside a Copper Faraday Cage to ensure no unwanted frequencies creep into your signal. All of this combined with the attention to detail throughout each and every production process leaves us with an instrument with immense sustain and tone.

Q&A with the Customer

1: Can you tell everyone a little bit about yourselves, who you are, your job, how you met one another in the music industry?

I’m a music producer and artist manager based in Newry, Co. Down. I currently manage Jealous of the Birds aka Naomi Hamilton, Lauren Ann, and co-manage Laytha. I also do a lot of Artist Development work and I am a consultant for the UK music charity, Help Musicians.

I first met Naomi when I invited her to my studio as I’d heard a demo that her cousin gave to me. I fell in love with her writing and her melodies immediately and knew I had to work with her. We recorded an album together over the summer of 2015 and I started managing her soon after. We signed to Canvasback/Atlantic records out of New York in 2018

2: Please tell us your thoughts on the guitar, the feel, the quality – your experience with it the past few months! How does it compare to other guitars you have played?

Since receiving the guitar I have played it almost exclusively on all my recordings. I have a lot of guitars and some do very specific things but this guitar is now my go-to and it sits on a stand right beside my studio desk so I can grab it when inspiration hits. It’s one of the best guitars I have ever played…the build quality is superb. Everything feels sturdy but extremely playable. It sounds exactly like I wanted it to with two Suhr coil-tapped pickups for humbucker and single coil sounds. I also wanted a bigger bodied guitar and this is the perfect size for me. It feels solid, has body contours for comfort and the neck is an amazing roasted maple that is a joy to play…. and it still has the roasted wood aroma!! The mahogany body sustains so well too. I love that it has a sprayed top (baby blue, as I had just had my first baby around the same time!), mahogany sides and back. It looks perfect!

3: Was there a certain desire you had for the guitar? What made you choose the design you did?

I wanted a really versatile guitar for the studio. I chose Suhr SSV+ for the bridge pickup and a matching SSV for the neck. I also asked for them to be coil tapped so I could get a wider range of tones. The single coil sound from these is amazing! I also wanted quality hardware and Conor and Stephen at Ruach were great at sourcing the Schaller tuners and bridge, the CTS pots and all the other bits I requested. I really wanted to design the body of the guitar myself as I had been playing mainly offset Fenders and large 335 style hollow bodies so I went for a kind of hybrid large bodied offset shape that I sketched out and Ruach so skilfully made a reality.

4: How does the guitar make you feel?

Honestly, I love playing this guitar. Every time I plug it in I just end up getting lost in playing and it feels like I used to feel when I was a kid, playing my Dad’s guitar for the first time, although I’m a little better now…It’s a really special experience knowing that I had a hand in designing it too.

5: What unique features does the guitar have that make it special compared to other guitars on the market?

I’ve never seen a guitar with this body shape. It isn’t a copy of anything  so it’s pretty unique in that respect. The roasted maple neck is also special. It gives the guitar a strong look and it plays incredibly well. The action is low and it is perfectly intonated so there’s never been any tuning problems. In fact I can play this guitar for ages and when I go to tune it, it’s still in tune! The most unique thing about it though is how it feels in your hands. It’s a player’s guitar.

6: Would you recommend Ruach’s Guitars for other artists?

Without a doubt. I think the two guitars that they made for myself and Naomi are both really extremely well made, high-end guitars and the care and attention to detail they applied to each of them was exemplary. I loved working with the guys at Ruach on these. It was a fantastic experience and I’m extremely grateful to them for the opportunity. Designing my own guitar and having it made has been a dream of mine since I was a child. I even bought one of their pedal boards when I was there picking up the guitar!