The Birdfish from Teuffel Guitars

The Birdfish

March 11, 1998 -- There's usually one or two very unique (or just plain wacky) looking products at every trade show. My personal favorite from MusikMesse is the Birdfish Guitar from Teuffel Guitars. Some guitars on display are purely for artistic purposes, but the Birdfish combines art with function. If you're always making modifications to your guitar to try and find that elusive tone, the Birdfish will provide you with endless possibilities for shaping your sound.

The Birdfish starts with a hand cast, polished aluminum frame (matte and chrome options available) with a birds eye maple neck (no headstock) featuring 22 jumbo frets, an adjustable Gotoh bridge, and a custom tuning mechanism. What's a guitar without body resonance? The Birdfish provides this with its tubular resonators. Four are included - two blue and two red. The blue are a more percussive tonewood with good attack (swamp ash) and the red are softer sounding with more sustain (maple.) Up to two can be placed on the guitar's frame at once.

To finish things off, five pickups are provided - a pair of single coils and three humbuckers with varying gain characteristics. All the pickups are hand wound. Not only can you select which pickups to mount on the guitar, but you can slide the pickups along the mounting rack to the precise location you want. As if that's not enough, you can even twist the pickups and adjust the angle they cross the strings!

The Birdfish, all its components, and a tool kit come with a padded soft leather carrying case. The Birdfish doesn't come easy - it's price ranges from $4558 to $5389, depending on finish - but if you're fanatical about tone and tweaking, it may be the ultimate guitar. Only 500 will be made, so if you've gotta have it, don't wait too long.

Teuffel Guitars is also working on another model, the Coco. It's pretty traditional compared to the Birdfish, but definitely not your ordinary guitar. The core of the body is pearwood, which is then surrounded with a composite material. As with the Birdfish, it boasts a 22 fret birds eye maple neck. The neck sits in an aluminum mounting block and is supported by a steel truss rod.

The Coco sports a trio of hum canceling pickups. Each can be loosened and moved to offer some tonal variety. Other hardware includes a Wilkinson Tremolo and bridge, LSR roller nut and tuners. There is a 5-position pickup selector, but it also features a lead bypass button which will automatically select the bridge pickup with the coils tapped. The Coco is available with an orange or sapphire blue finish, and carries a list price of $3551.