About the project
This is probably my most unique project in all respects.
Let’s start with the fact that during the time I worked on it I managed to make about 40 instruments! This project was three years of fascinating work. This is the case when the process is no less important than the result. Almost the entire instrument was made in the presence, and sometimes with the active participation, of the customer. That’s why it took so long.
The customer was Vladislav Mazurkevich, who is a composer, arranger, teacher, and guitarist of the Presidential Orchestra of the Republic of Belarus. As they say, a talented person is talented in everything. Thanks to Vlad’s good taste and artistic talent, we ended up with very harmonious and stylish instrument.
The idea of creating such a guitar did not come about by chance. Vlad does a lot of recording and therefore he needs to constantly select diverse instruments. However, he has neither the time nor the desire to have a collection of guitars. Moreover, a company called “Line 6” already took care of us and released the guitar processor “Variax”, which replaces 26 different instruments, starting from the classic Telecaster and ending with the sitar. The possibilities of this device can be found on the official website of the manufacturer.
Vlad bought a broken guitar with these features on Ebay and came to me to discuss its future destiny.
We searched through the warehouse and found a pre-made guitar body from padauk in Suhr Modern style. The shape fell suited perfectly, most importantly in size – as the processor had impressive dimensions.
And then the creativity began! I felt very comfortable working with Vlad. He tossed ideas around, and I adapted them to our project. If something was dubious, he never insisted on it – and so we had an excellent collaboration.
On the body, Vlad drew a wavy line and said that he would like to somehow divide the guitar visually into two parts. I in turn suggested doing this by means of a plane drop. Then came the idea to have a cyborg theme by making the bottom part straight, rigid, in the style of a metal case that covers the living matter, which in turn is represented by the upper part with soft volumetric forms.
Vlad came up with the idea of an inlaid female eye on the fret markers on his journey to my house. Inspired by this thought, he even stepped off the bus early to mull over this idea. I didn’t really like it at first, as I couldn’t quite understand how this eye would fit in with the overall concept. But over a cup of coffee and sandwiches everything grew together. Vlad came up with the name – Cyber EVE – a mega modern creature with the name of the biblical figure. So, the design got closely intertwined with philosophy. In the contours of the case, the evolution of musical instruments is ciphered – a soft violin archtop with f-hole smoothly passes into the contour of an electric guitar with a pickup, and all this is hidden under the armor of modernity with its digital technologies. To further push the concept robot tuning keys were installed.
Vlad himself developed all the small details of the design with all his pedantry. And I am praising him for that! ?
And as they would say in Odessa:
“Would you look at that! That’s not a guitar – that’s Alain Delon!!!”
