DestroyAllGuitars Giffin Guitars

~ Giffin Guitars ~

Roger Giffin started Giffin Guitars in England, where it existed in various forms from the late 60's up until the mid 80's. During those years he was fortunate enough to hook up with a lot of very good musicians. This gave him the opportunity and encouragement to design and build guitars that became widely accepted in England at that time.

The workshop was located under a bridge by the river Thames in London, and it soon became a meeting place for many 'name' player of that time. It became the hotspot for people seeking great guitars and guitar service. Regular customers included Eric Clapton; Pete Townshend and John Entwhistle (The Who); Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits); Andy Summers (The Police); David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), and many more. Hundreds of quality, reasonably priced guitars were made at Giffin Guitars.

The Giffin Guitar workshop was in operation at this location for about 7 years, and the retail part of the workshop, which existed for about 3 years, was an outlet for Giffin Guitars as well as for other brand name guitars.

In the late '70s, Roger Giffin was designing a prototype guitar that became the Steinberger 'M' series. It was because of this guitar that he was offered the job to run Gibson's West Coast custom shop in Los Angeles. Giffin needed a change at that point, and jumped at this opportunity.

So, in 1988 Giffin moved to California. Once in L.A. and employed by Gibson he started building Gibson Custom instruments and fronting the Gibson West Coast repair shop. During this time, he built many different Gibson custom guitars, while the Giffin Guitars side of things was on a slow burner.

The client list during this time included names like Eddie Van Halen, Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Jimmy Page and Malcolm Young, among many others. Giffin ran the Gibson custom shop up until Dec. '93 together with his co-worker and good friend Gene Baker. At that point it was decided that the whole Gibson operation was to be moved to Nashville.

In early '94, Giffin and his partner Brett Allen started R&B instrument Services (on Sunset Blvd.). For the next three years they were kept very busy mainly on repairs and service. Then, in the spring of '97 Giffin branched out on his own again.

Giffin worked in Los Angeles up until June of 2004 building small quantities of hand made guitars from his home.

In July 2004, he moved once again, and is now operating from Portland, Oregon.

Roger Giffin continues to maintain, as always, the very highest hand built standards for his instruments. He feels that his hands-on approach to guitar building still gives him the greatest satisfaction, and it allows him to produce unique and individual instruments.

Giffin Standard Solid Body

Roger Giffin first came up with the Giffin Standard guitar in the late 70's at the request of a customer who wanted a "Strat meets Les Paul" type of instrument. The body shape that he ended up using evolved from guitars he had been building since back in the early 70's. It's not surprising to see that many other builders hit upon this type of design at about the same time. It was a very logical guitar that needed to be invented...

Giffin Standard Hollow Body

Body: Honduras Mahogany, Black Limba, Swamp Ash, Neck: Laminated Honduras Mahogany, Body top: S (standard) Figured Maple, Sitka or Englemann Spruce, Fingerboards: Indian Rosewood, South American Rosewood or Ebony..

Giffin Macro

The main constructional difference between the Giffin Macro and the Giffin Standard apart from it's obvious difference in design, is that the Macro is a neck-thru and the Standard is a set-neck. This gives the guitar a slightly different sound character...

Giffin Micro

The idea behind the Micro was to produce a very lightweight, compact guitar that performed like a full-sized instrument. Giffin started with a 24 3/4", 24 fret neck and designed the smallest practical body & head around it. The result was a highly playable, killer sounding guitar that weighed no more than 5-6 lbs. (This design also spawned the Steinberger 'M' series guitars.)..

Giffin Model T

Body: Philippine Mahogany, Honduras Mahogany or Black Limba, Neck: Laminated Honduras Mahogany or Black Limba
Top wood: (Drop-tops and Flat-tops only), Figured Maple, Fingerboards: Indian Rosewood...

Giffin 12-String

This guitar was really a labour of love! Having been a 12-string freak since "Walk right in" by The Rooftop Singers in the early '60s and the wonderful sound of The Byrds - Roger Giffin knew that he had to make the ultimate electric 12 string. It had to have a neck that you could actually play on! It had to have a big, ringing, jangly sound - which meant a hollow body. A hollow body, though, usually meant unwanted feedback, so Giffin designed his uncoupled, isolated bridge mount, which effectively cut out almost all unwanted feedback while retaining the full hollow body sound. The neck is not too big, not too thin, the string spacing is accurate and comfortable...