The Ultimate Guitar

There's an interesting story that goes with this guitar and how I first learned about MTD. I was at NAMM with Zon and I was really crazy about Bartolini Electronics. One of my favorite bassists - Tetsuya plays a Zon Legacy and he was the first person that I heard play Bartolini pickups and preamps. He has an older Zon Legacy with the Leo Quann "Badass Bridge," on a Walnut top and a Poplar body. It really has a unique sound, when paired with Joe's composite neck. When I got to the Bartolini Booth I saw this guitar sitting on a stand and thought " That looks awesome... Bartolini is in everything good!" I talked to Bill for a while -- I completely ignored the fact that the headstock said MTD. Apparently one of Mike Tobias' friends recommended that he build this guitar because Baritone guitars were popular at the time and they expected it to make a killing at the show. Well, it did. I later asked Mike if he could build a guitar that didn't really sound like a guitar. I told him that I didn't like the high tinny sound of a guitar and wasn't too fond of the string spacing. I told him I really wanted a guitar that sounded like a bass. Mike then said,  "I have this one guitar I built for NAMM..." He pulled out a case, opened it, and Jesus H. Cristo... This was IT! The greatest guitar I had ever laid eyes on. Everything about this guitar said ilán terrell. It was the right color, shape, and size. The hardware was classy and it said "sit down, and play something." 

Fast forward to 2015. I have played a couple of amazing tunes on it-- some of my own and now I am going to use it to learn and play the music of Hüseyin Kağıt. He plays the Turkish Saz, which uses only a piezo for a pickup. This instrument has a piezo as well and sounds quite cool, for this style of music. I'm working with someone in Turkey to get a Saz but things didn't work out with timing so I will begin studying the middle eastern scales on this bad boy. Words cannot express the feeling of this instrument - the sound it produces is in a class of its own.  It has a real bone nut, solid craftsmanship; a tight neck joint with flawless binding and book matching. Each time I take it out, I end up practicing and nitpicking over my deficiencies as a guitarist, instead of actually playing songs. MTD's make better players because when you play an MTD, you can definitely hear what you're doing right.