Greetings,
Thank you for visiting my web site! For the past 22 years I have been building custom instruments in San Luis Obispo in a small shop of 750sf. I now have an 1500sf shop in the mountains of Northern California, located about 16 miles northeast of Nevada City, and just a few hours from San Francisco, on 40 acres of forest with pine trees, cedar, oak, madrone, manzanita, and lots of wild life including bears. Visitors are welcome by appointment. At some point I'll post pictures of the new space and continue to update the rest of my web site as time permits. I also play music and will be dedicating more time for recording.

I began building electric guitars in high school in Redding, California. I built 3 guitars before I joined the Army as a cook for 2 years. After the Army I used the college fund to study electronic engineering, and continue building guitars. I built my first bass with Greg Coates who also was the bassist for our improv rock band called So What. Greg has been and still is an inspiration. Greg is currently touring with Bird 3.

In the summer of 1989 I moved to San Luis Obispo to attend Cal Poly State University. I started building the Gothic Angel guitar, and in 1991 produced my first printed catalog— officially beginning my career as a luthier.

I've been busy ever since. I've talked with thousands of musicians all over the world about their ideas. I've incorporated the best ideas into my designs and I'm continuing to build commissioned orders. Currently it takes 24 months or more to custom build orders depending on the complexity of the instrument's design. At some point in the future I plan to build a line of limited production instruments which I'll make available to folks who can't wait that long. For now we will all have to wait—sorry. Quality before quantity!!

Best wishes and peace everywhere to all!

Ken Bebensee