Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

These Pinball Guitars Are Incredible!

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·57m 29s·analyzed·Feb 26, 2026
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Sathara Guitars builds functional custom guitars from salvaged pinball playfields with impressive craftsmanship.

Summary

Josh Roop and Matt Scott from Loser Kid Pinball Podcast interview Paul Daniel Norm Clark of Sathara Guitars about custom guitars built from salvaged pinball machine playfields. The conversation covers the origins of the guitar company, the technical challenges of integrating playfield art into functional instruments, specific custom builds (Earthshaker, Silver Ball Mania), and upcoming projects. The Sathara team showcases their craftsmanship, custom inlays, color matching, and innovative solutions like recreating missing light inserts through UV printing.

Key Claims

  • Sathara has approximately 30 playfields in inventory and another 15+ not yet listed on their website

    high confidence · Paul Daniel discussing current inventory during the interview

  • Sathara received approximately 12 pre-orders from Pinball Expo with a six-month build time per guitar

    high confidence · Paul Daniel stating 'I think we got about 12 or so on the books from the show' and discussing wait times

  • Paul Daniel attended Lado School of Luthier for four months, five days a week, earning certification from the master craftsman

    high confidence · Paul Daniel explaining his training background

  • Sathara is currently pre-booked almost to the end of the year with fall delivery slots

    high confidence · Paul Daniel: 'right now we're pre-booked almost to the end of the year right now'

  • The Shark guitar from One Piece anime took approximately one and a half years to complete

    high confidence · Paul Daniel: 'it was it was a good year and a half Tee'd Off get this thing pulled together'

  • Sathara recreates missing light inserts using UV printing artwork pulled from official game artwork packages

    high confidence · Paul Daniel explaining how they restored the Silver Ball Mania playfield missing inserts

  • All Sathara guitars are built in-house from rough lumber through finishing and assembly

    high confidence · Paul Daniel: 'we are a full-fledged custom shop we build right from rough cut lumber through finishing and assembly. It's all done in-house.'

  • The Shark guitar project was initially discouraged due to scope and complexity before proceeding

    high confidence · Paul Daniel: 'we tried Tee'd Off sort of talk them out of it because we knew the scope of what this was going Tee'd Off be'

Notable Quotes

  • “these really are a guitar first and they're a custom shop guitar first and the play fields are an added little bonus on top”

    Paul Daniel Norm Clark @ not provided — Defines Sathara's core philosophy: playfield guitars must be functional instruments first, not just novelty showpieces

  • “there are so many play fields that are a second or they're a ding and dent and like we can't use them because they can't put them in the games um and you're more than welcome Tee'd Off them”

    Paul Daniel Norm Clark @ not provided — Explains the business model sourcing salvaged playfields from manufacturers; reveals that pinball manufacturers have significant inventory of unsaleable damaged playfields

  • “it's just Tee'd Off reach out. And then we kind of can guide you through the process from there”

    Paul Daniel Norm Clark @ not provided — Describes Sathara's customer acquisition process for custom projects

  • “if it's a pinball build, you can pretty much guarantee a six-month wait on it”

    Paul Daniel Norm Clark @ not provided — Sets customer expectations for delivery timelines

  • “Sathara is essentially greek for guitar”

    Paul Daniel Norm Clark @ not provided — Explains company name origin and Greek mythology branding strategy

Entities

Paul Daniel Norm ClarkpersonJosh RooppersonMatt ScottpersonSathara GuitarscompanyLoser Kid Pinball PodcastorganizationPinball ExpoeventCaseypersonLado School of Luthierorganization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Six-month build time with fall delivery slots indicate production capacity constraints limiting growth despite market demand and Pinball Expo success

    high · Paul Daniel: 'right now we're pre-booked almost to the end of the year right now. So most of the orders that are coming in now are slotted for the fall'

  • ?

    community_signal: Sathara increased Pinside presence and attended Pinball Expo to reach pinball enthusiast community; partnerships formed with manufacturers (Jersey Jack) and salvage networks

    high · Paul Daniel: 'we sort of became a little bit more active on Pinside. And then we thought, if we're going Tee'd Off try Tee'd Off take these guitars Tee'd Off market, let's take it Tee'd Off market...we were working with the guys from Jersey Jacks'

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack) are aware of and supportive of secondary playfield salvage and repurposing market; damaged/second-quality playfields represent untapped resource for aftermarket

    high · Paul Daniel: 'all of the manufacturers that were there all kind of had caught wind that we were going Tee'd Off be there...they all said Tee'd Off us like there are so many play fields that are a second or they're a ding and dent'

  • ?

    announcement: Sathara Guitars officially debuted at Pinball Expo with pinball playfield guitars, generating significant market interest and securing 12 pre-orders from the show

    high · Paul Daniel: 'Pinball Expo this year. So this year was sort of like our big launch of these guitars' and 'I think we got about 12 or so on the books from the show'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.172

0:00
thanks for tuning into loser kid pinball podcast i am josh roop with me my co-captain scott larson and scott it's been kind of a crazy time for pinball and it's been pretty awesome and if you want a pokemon who are you calling yeah call zach and call many a flipping out pinball and definitely i think the le's are gone but uh if you want to get a pro or premium it does look fantastic. This is a huge license, and I'm actually really excited to get this game, because it looks like a great entry-level game for people who have never played pinball before to get into the hobby. And with Tanya, it's going to have deep code too, so even if you're an elite player, it's going to be great. So, Zach and Nicole, flip it out pinball, also your accessories, and if you want used games too, reach them out. Definitely. Go check out their Facebook page, and they have a whole list of everything that have an inventory right now and zach confirmed on pinball show that the whole first run is sold out for pokemon and the second run in june is starting to uh sell out as well so yeah i i may need to get on the list i i'm actually looking at getting a premium so i i need to i need to put my name in but we want to make sure you guys are taken care of first so reach out to that kind of call definitely we have an amazing guest on today uh i met this man a couple years ago and we had this brilliant idea of making a loser kid guitar and i was so excited about this because i come from a music background and so i reached out to him and he was all gung ho for this and he's made these insane guitars out of play fields of pinball machines and so i want to welcome onto the show daniel clark how you doing daniel i'm good guys thanks so much for having me this is great i almost messed that up and said daniel sathara where did okay yeah yeah that's what i want to get into yeah yeah yeah no problem tell me about tell me about the guitar company that you have and tell me about the origin of the name yeah so sathara is essentially greek for guitar oh in in yeah in a nutshell so lots of um builders and smaller shops will always use sort of their name or an abbreviation of their name, Taylor and Fender and, you know, Gibson and stuff like that. There were... PRS, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. They all typically do.
2:29
When I was looking to start the shop, there were a few other sort of smaller shops or other custom shops that had my name or an abbreviation of my name or were using my initials too. and I thought, gosh, this is going to be challenging, even just to get a website and just to kind of get that space online when you're already fighting for domains. So I put it out on Facebook, actually, and I said, if anybody has any suggestions, I'm sort of all ears. And a buddy of mine from college actually came up with the idea and he said, this is sort of what it is, this is what it means.
Mohawk College
organization
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
CPRcompany
Fendercompany
Taylorcompany
Gibsoncompany
PRScompany
Earthshakergame
Silver Ball Maniagame
Guns N' Rosesgame
Evil Knievelgame
Grade 37game
Knight Ridergame
One Piecemedia
Fathomgame

product_strategy: Sathara developed custom controller boards and learned wire routing/proximity management techniques to minimize electromagnetic interference in playfield-integrated guitars

high · Paul Daniel: 'we've gone through many different iterations of our controller boards...we know that we can only be within a certain proximity to the pickups because if not we get interference'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Sathara developed proprietary UV printing and light insert recreation technology to overcome playfield limitations, enabling wider range of playfield sources

    high · Paul Daniel explaining recreation of missing Silver Ball Mania light inserts: 'we have inserts that we can replace for broken inserts. So we created all of the missing artwork and then it's UV printed onto the lights'

    • 3:11
    And I thought it was kind of neat. So with it sort of being of a Greek origin, we first sort of started making models after Greek gods and goddesses, and we kind of pulled in the Greek mythology into the whole sort of theme of the company. So we've made a Poseidon and a Hades model, an Aphrodite and a Zeus.
    3:34
    Our telly line is sort of named the Pegasus line. And the logo for the company is a Pegasus as well too. I found that the name is hard for people to kind of get under their tongue initially. and it's a little hard for them to remember it but they always remember the logo so they'll always sort of remember the pegasus logo and then the name kind of follows suit after that so tell me how did you decide first off i am taking a pinball machine and i'm chopping it up and turning into a guitar and did you always decide you want to be in guitar making or did you kind of fall into it Hmm. Guitar had always been a part of my life. I played guitar since I was about six years old, I think. I started to take lessons, always as a hobby and a pastime, never really as a profession.
    4:37
    I was originally thinking of going to school for architecture and design. Loved home building, I had always done growing up out in the country you're always kind of working on stuff and building things and I can know code, can build decks can sort of build whatever but my struggle was with the math and the physics I couldn't get them quick enough and I was always struggling with the theoretical part of it and I thought this is going to be challenging if I'm needing to get tutored this much and all this extra help to understand the concept to go into a profession like this this could be challenging and I don't know why I thought of it but I thought I could look at music and I could look at guitar and sort of seeing what that might hold so so I ended up going to school for music I was a guitar a guitar student with the intention of sort of getting into studio work and doing recording studio stuff and being a session player.
    5:47
    And while I was at school, I discovered the whole world of custom guitar making and hot rodding and modding guitars. I had done stuff to my guitars here and there, but nothing of any substance. But then I kind of found this industry and I was like, oh, this could be really cool, sort of combining the love of the instrument, but then you have the design work, you have the building, you have the carpentry, you have the woodworking.
    6:20
    So once I had finished my time, Mohawk College is where I went. Once I had finished my time there, I looked for building schools, Like they're sort of independent sort of private type schools that you can get your certification as a builder. And the term is a luthier. It's sort of like the trade, I guess. So I finished my time at the college.
    6:45
    I took a couple of business courses as well while I was there. And then I went to the Lado School of Luthier. And Lado guitars were really big in the 70s and 80s. More of a Canadian brand. um sort of like big hair big rock like iron maiden honeymoon suite platinum blonde that kind of stuff um and he was a master craftsman from vienna or trained in vienna from croatia so he had developed a program in a school to train builders and to sort of certify luthier sort of under his umbrella of a company and of his name. So that was about four months or so that I was there with him and we were five days a week, nine to five, building, repairing. And I sort of got my certificate and stamp of approval from him and then went to go start my own shop. And I've since, I'm a fender technician, a tailor technician. So we're a warranty service shop for all of the big U.S. brands here in Canada as well. So that's sort of how I sort of got into the industry. As for the pinball guitars, this idea was brought to us by a client who has since become a really good friend of ours. And you guys met him at the expo too. He was there with me at the booth, Casey. and he had an old fathom playfield that he had had for years and years uh that he had done a playfield swap on and he was a guitar player too or is a guitar player too and he said hey do you think this is something that we could do uh i was like oh man we need to try because this could be really cool so we did the first one with him and that was sort of our prototype to figure out if we could do it and and it came out really well um obviously a few things we wanted to work on and sort of um to work the kinks out on so from there we kind of took four years to develop them to what you guys have behind you um we were doing a few here and there um but not pushing it anywhere near to the way that we are are now so um yeah that's sort of how we how we got into this there's a guy and there's another small builder that's doing some stuff and fender did one too um they did a one-off one but nobody's really doing them the way that we're we're doing them so josh why don't you uh so now this is going to be a little visual so we're going to post links uh to okay remind me how to pronounce it sithara sithara yeah so there so we'll we'll show the guitars but i want josh to actually pull out so josh got an earth shaker guitar and so i want him to show it off and and try to uh to show exactly why he chose earth shaker and and and what cool things he did to it so like it's earth shaker why why wouldn't you want an earth shaker pinball guitar you know it's um if you know anything about classic guitars like this blue slash like seafoam green is you know it's just classic guitar color and it matched so well i know daniel and i worked closely on trying to match kind of the the aesthetic of what the the art was and the funny part is one of the reasons i landed on earthshaker is because if you look here in the center it has a gentleman with a black hair and then the girl that's blonde and they're right now in paint cadillac and my wife's like that's kind of like us and so it just kind of stuck either from the other funny part who says flip out as the license plate but i mean it's just i saw this and i've always wanted less paul and i was like this just looks screams less paul to me and when i reached out to daniel he's like yes 100 like that's and even at one point i think we bounce a little bit i was like really do you think a telly would be better you're like no no this is meant to be a less paul you know yeah and some certainly definitely lend themselves to certain body styles and and that was a less paul same same with same with yourself scott yeah yeah so i'll show mine off uh go finish up josh no so so we kind of kept all the old vintagey of it um with the the posts that you know the playfield stale stayed rough and whatnot uh but the i love how much you were willing to customize this because i wanted i come from more of a punk slash metal background and so i wanted the humbuckers but also i still wanted a split coil to get that that that feel of maybe like a a stratocaster or whatever on at the bridge and you were like yeah not a big deal like we can whatever you want to do and you know um it just i know it came out great it sounds wonderful the other thing i love about too is it like the weight of it is good too i uh one thing i do get i don't i don't know how many people listening have played with s pauls but they can be kind of heavy and chunky and this doesn't feel like that at all and then you guys were nice enough too you got pat waller beside the back of it too next to his name i mean you guys did such a just an amazing job on this guitar all the way around it just feels so professional so well i mean you guys are professionals i mean this just this is amazing it really truly is you guys did a great job with it thanks and i think like a big thing that we're really proud of um with those guitars is that they like we are a custom shop through and through we are we are a full-fledged custom shop we build right from rough cut lumber through to finishing and assembly. It's all done in-house. It's all custom spec to what the client is looking for. And these pinball guitars, they're no different.
    13:02
    I always remember, I used to, and I still do watch, like Orange County Choppers and stuff like that, where they would do those bikes for companies, and they looked awesome, and they're really cool, and they do the big display and stuff. I heard a lot of the times there were always issues with them like they they were sort of falling apart or they weren't really road worthy they were definitely more of a showpiece and I never wanted that for these guitars like these really are a guitar first and they're a custom shop guitar first and the play fields are an added little bonus on top like it yeah they so we build them out how guys want them. Same with the inlays on the fingerboard there. We'll do the custom inlay work and that's of the logo of the podcast too.
    13:59
    There's a shot of it right there and I was over the moon when you guys said, yeah, we could do that. First off, you said, let me see if I can do it because you're like, you don't want to make any promises but it came out, it just came out so perfect. Yeah, it's so cool. Yeah and to me I grew up in 2000s rock and stuff like that So that was kind of when they started doing fret work like this right like having the custom inlay and i always remember like ryan from a store of the year he had like heart done across his and i was like it would always be cool to have a custom guitar with a custom inlay like that so when you said yeah let's do it i was like really like you sealed the deal it was wonderful yeah yeah i know they're so they're so cool and even with the color too like we try to pick a color that complements the play field or that's that's from the play field um and that blue was great because it was it's prominent but it's not overpowering like the green or or that even that darker blue that's there um because sometimes through that takes away from the guitar when the color is like a little bit too overpowering um and we mix all the colors like it is yeah it's a i guess kind of like a daphne blue but it's a it's a custom color because we tinted it and and sort of tweaked it a little bit to get it as close as we could to what was on that that play field there yeah and and you matched it great i think it turned out even it's hard to see in the video but like it's on the back you kind of antiqued it and so it has more of a crackly feel to it you know yeah because and that's that's all intentionally done because the play fields that we get are all salvaged they're all from games that have been uh re-topped or had play field swaps done to them so they've got years and years of gameplay on them and like scott's especially like scott's is is warm um you can show them there i'm going to show you mine now and the thing i do love about it is it is silver ball mania and i love the art it's very 70s pinball over the top um it is interesting because my even when my wife saw it she's like what's with the naked people on there i'm like no they're silver people so that's why she kept she let me keep it but if you look at it it's worn here it It looks so amazing, and it has the lights that you – now, the cool thing about these lights, talk about that because you have – like mine actually cycles through it. I think mine had more inserts than you typically work with. Mine says Silver Ball Mania, and it cycles through Silver Ball Mania, 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X, and then when lit. And there's even just a lot of awesome things. the the back part is is really cool it's also part of the play field and you can see these little touches that are amazing and yes mine does have the the loser kid logo right there too yeah a really cool thing about your um play field was that we got it and it didn't have any of the light inserts yeah they were all blank um so we looked at lots of different ways of what like how we could fix this or if it was to find another play field that had more lights in it um what we ended up doing in the end was recreating all of the artwork for those lights so So all of the letters and all of the graphics are pulled from an artwork package that you can get for the game. And then we have inserts that we can replace for broken inserts. So we created all of the missing artwork and then it's UV printed onto the lights. And then we've aged and relicked the plastic and the printing on it so that it matches kind of the patina that's on the play field already. Because you can have brand new lights in there.
    18:24
    So that it looks, I mean, I think a diehard pinball fanatic might realize that it's not exactly the original. but I mean you can be a couple inches away from it and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference um same with the backs like we we relic the backs of the guitars to make it look and sort of feel the same age as what the what the play field is um some some are more worn out than others um and we kind of make the paint and stuff match the the play field i i okay by the way i didn't even know that you replaced the insert so that that's pretty amazing right there i'm learning about this right now yeah and the cool thing about that is because it doesn't limit what play fields you can actually use for these guitars so if you find a guitar if you find a play field and that's kind of the limiting factor really so the good thing about us We actually went through your existing play fields, and I chose Silver Ball. Actually, this is the one I wanted when I first heard about what we were thinking of doing.
    19:39
    But you can do it with other play fields. Like, for example, we saw that you did a custom guitar out of a Jersey Jack Guns N' Roses play field. Yep. And so we saw that. And my friend John was really interested in doing this, and we were able to figure out a way of finding a discarded play field that he purchased, a Guns N' Roses one. So he's getting a Guns N' Roses guitar from you. Yeah, absolutely. And so we were at Pinball Expo this year. So this year was sort of like our big launch of these guitars. We sort of became a little bit more active on Pinside Forum. And then we thought, if we're going to try to take these guitars to market, let's take it to market. And let's take it to where the people are and the fans of pinball. And it's either going to go really well or it's going to go really bad. And thankfully, it went really well. And the guitars were really well received. all of the manufacturers that were there all kind of had caught wind that we were going to be there as well too so they did come over and sort of make a point to say hi and we were working with the guys from Jersey Jacks on that Guns and Roses that first GNR one that we did so they kind of knew who we were too and they've all said to us like there are so many play fields that are a second or they're a ding and dent and like we can't use them because they can't put them in the games um and you're more than welcome to them and almost every release of a game has ding and dents or seconds or stuff that can't be used so it's just tracking them down and sort of building the network to give us the connections to to find them but um yeah so so we can go that weight and even some of the the uh we've gotten stuff from cpr too and we'll get the reproduction sent up to us um or guys will pull them like we get them sent up to us just from guys personal collections all the time too um that that they've done a restoration job and they've got the playfield and they they send it up to us what game do you think would probably what's one that you haven't done yet that you think would do great as a guitar we have a lot on the on the docket for this year um evil kenevil you can sort of see behind me there it's always it's always great like if we could just make a hundred of those we'd be selling them every day they're they're um people really are drawn to those so they always make a great one um the the gnr one's a good one two um it's complicated because it's new and there's so many lights and stuff in it we've got um one on the books that is um oh shoot i'm gonna screw it up centigrade 37 centigrade that's great yeah that's seven grade 37 yep that's a that's a rare one yeah yeah and like it's gonna be awesome again fits a fits a junior style like a less paul style um we also have another one that is uh night rider and it's just cool colors it so we have these um templates in the shop and um we can like kind of like viewfinders that we can place on the play fields and kind of figure out the nicest area to locate the guitars on and it is just got really cool colors you've got the the trucks on the roads coming down um so it's a really neat one too so sort of same as the soccer one behind me like if you saw the game like this is boring like this is just not a and a nice looking game it's pretty bare bones but even if they've just got really cool colors and like organic shapes and stuff like they can make really cool guitars um there's another one too i don't remember what is but i i do like the old pinup girl stuff too i think the old pinup girl and bomber girl stuff is really cool and we've got a couple of those in inventory i don't remember what they're called though but yeah yeah there's a lot there's tons there's tons you have posted a guitar about three weeks ago that's absolutely insane and it's a shark guitar have you seen this scott i did i actually so i we were all seeing the same thing because when we reached out and we're like okay dan we we have the guitars now we've been talking about this this is a great time to come on and then we're all like yeah i saw the shark guitar i thought was a really cool cool uh you And this was like a reproduction, right? Because this was a limited guitar from Japan, and it was unavailable now, and so you were able to do a recreation of it. Tell me about that. Yeah.
    24:59
    Honestly, like, there's not really much we can't do. We give us enough time to kind of figure it out. We can pull it together. So this was a project that came to us a couple of years ago, honestly. and it's from a Japanese anime show called One Piece.
    25:20
    And one of the characters in the show plays this shark guitar. And I guess there was a factory in China that decided to produce a limited run of them, and they are nowhere to be found anymore. They're sold out. They're not on the used market. They're just there. I guess everybody who has them has them and is holding on to them. So the client approached us and said, is this something you think you can do? And we honestly, we tried to sort of talk them out of it because we knew the scope of what this was going to be and the challenges we were going to face with this. And we thought maybe we could find one somewhere for you and like restore it or sort of bring it up to a standard that makes it a nice playing guitar and stuff. And we couldn't. So we said, OK, well, let's let's sort of have at it. So we were able to find a lot of drawings and pictures of the guitar online. And from that, we built a guitar. So it's kind of built around a Strat body and Strat specs. It's loosely a Strat guitar with sort of the shape of the shark.
    26:31
    But there's enough information online that we could kind of sort of build it out the way that we needed to and the way that it would function like a guitar. that's the big thing like they can look cool but they still have to be a guitar like they still have to play they still have to be able to so function but yeah it was it was tough it was a good year and a half to get this thing pulled together for these guys what you're saying too like even the fin off the bottom of the guitar actually doesn't go straight down it actually scoops yeah outward and stuff too it was just not straightforward uh oh absolutely yeah so the fin is like it's i mean the guitar is three-dimensional that's sort of a stupid thing to say but yeah the fin like scoops up and out from the guitar like it's supposed to and um the like the teeth are all carved in like we manufactured parts for this thing we were like the eyes are um all this turned resin and there's like a it on the original guitar i think it was like a speaker but we weren't we weren't doing doing that but we had to recreate the speaker type function and um yeah it was it was uh the pickups were custom too um because the cavity for them was so tight they had to be certain tolerances and certain dimensions to be able to fit um yeah so it was um it was a it was wild it came together great though like we were we were really happy with the end result and the client was super happy with it too um it's gotten a great reaction online. Um, we were talking about that just beforehand there, just wild, how things can kind of pop off. And this is, this has popped for us a little bit. So that's kind of nice too. So when someone's thinking about doing stuff like this, how would they go about doing that? Would they try to source their own? Would they contact you and say, Hey, I have an idea for a guitar. Um, what is the best way if people are, are thinking about a project like that to, to commence at that. It's, it's just to reach out. And then we kind of can guide you through the process from there So some guys will have like will have a play field in hand and they say hey I got this play field I want to build a guitar. And I say, okay, we'll help with the shipping and get it sent up here. And then once we get the play field in our hands, we can kind of look at it and see what might work. We give you possibilities of layouts, and then we kind of take it from there. um we have an inventory of playfields as well too i think we've got probably close to 30 yeah and there i was looking online like i was reviewing while we were talking and yeah there's a a lot of in a lot of more of the like the 50s and 60s style which are kind of fun lots and and honestly we have um i think another 15 or so that aren't on the website yet if you're scrolling right now um yeah there's a lot of cool ones that we've got and we just haven't had a moment to to put them up so so people could just say they could look through our inventory and say uh they want to do xyz playfield um or we can help you try to find one like we we've sort of been able to develop the networks over the last several years of um salvage guys and and guys sort of that restore play fields and repair play fields and even and even um the the manufacturers so we can sort of try to we can try to track one down it's not always a guarantee but we can certainly look so what's uh what's the future for you going forward what's the goal and the plan right now we're trying to just get through all of the builds that we have gotten pre-booked from uh from the the expo um how many did you get i'm out of curiosity because you guys were pretty busy with josh and i stopped by a few times and even my son was because it's been fun because my family's been getting into guitar so we have about two years of like my kids have been taking it and then about last year i said well why don't i take so i i've been taking guitar for the last year so So it's been fun to get into it. But yeah, so he got down and he was playing it and he thought they were really cool. So how many orders did you get? So I was hoping we would get a couple there.
    31:09
    We knew it would sort of be a slow burn because people weren't really expecting to see us at the show because we'd never been there before. we didn't have a huge presence in the industry or in the market. So I was kind of expecting the first day people would come and see us, they'd get really pumped about it, they would go back home, think about it. They'd come back and see us on the Saturday, they'd think about it some more, and then Sunday would sort of be the big day for us.
    31:40
    That was kind of how it worked out. We had a couple guys on the first day put some deposits down, and then they kind of continued through the weekend. And then quite a few on the back end once we got home, guys were sort of sending us emails. I think we got about 12 or so on the books from the show, which is great for us. That's impressive. How long does it take to go from start to finish? So if someone is interested in getting something like this, what is the expected lag time on this? Yeah, so right now we're pre-booked almost to the end of the year right now. So most of the orders that are coming in now are slotted for the fall. So if it's a pinball build, you can pretty much guarantee a six-month wait on it. And then we're close to a six-month build time. We sort of block four to six months for a build time. also depends on how complicated the build is um if it's if the playfield's something wild or if there's lots of lights on it or or how customized we're going with it that can take longer but that's that's sort of a good ballpark yeah because we were talking earlier because you did um oh no it's blanking my mind now that i'm going to bring it up the black and white playfield the uh with the monster centaur yes centaur yes centaur has quite the centerpiece with all these lights and stuff like that yeah and so it's hard to navigate that versus you know soccer that you have behind right because you still have the center of the playfield still has you know all the all the strings and the bridges and all the uh yeah yeah and and the whole lighting package is that's been a big developmental piece for us as well too um we've gone through many different iterations of our controller boards and figuring out what what works and what doesn't so for example like we know that we can only be within a certain proximity to the pickups because if not we get interference we also have learned that how we route the wires and and the wire paths that we sort of take all those wires is also important because if they get too close to components they start to to make noise also to like each of those lights um they're like an individual or a separate output like we can't use um or what's it called like those address i think they're called addressable leds because they're chained but then they also make a ton of noise which we didn't and not a lot like and we had sort of chatted with other people about this too and never thought that the noise was going to be an issue so um yeah the lights are the lights can be very tricky but we've got it we've got it down to a pretty good science now and are pretty confident with what what we can do and how we can do it and some and that's also part of the layout that we just know sorry like you can't light that up because it's too close to a pickup or we're going to drill through this with a with a locate hole so that's not going to work either but uh we go we map it all out and and give you renderings and stuff too so you you know ahead of time well what i love what you guys did too is like casey was talking to me a lot about my guitar because he worked with you guys he worked closely with you on it and like even because mine actually is a feature that has two different light patterns and yeah one that's more single light and then this one has more of a double light to it right but it was funny because like both of yours do yes really i think scott's does as well so yeah if you pull on the light switch it should or pull you pull on like the tone or something like that and like either the volume or the tone it'll change the pattern oh really i didn't know that yeah so we're learning something new today I am. Wow, look at that. We called it a show mode and a play mode. Yes. Because one of the other things that we learned is that we can't have more than one light fire at the same time because there's too much signal or current and it makes a ticking sound. So with your guys, it was the first one we tried it on, to be honest, because, oh, this could be really cool. because some guys like obviously you want to play it and you are playing the guitar but there's also some guys that just want to have it as a showpiece and they'll hang it up beside the game on their wall in their game room um and they they use them as as sort of as an art piece to complement the guitar or the the play field or the pinball game um yeah so so yeah so the show mode is a little bit more of um firing multi lights at the same time different patterns a little bit more pinball esque um and the play mode is one light at a time following in a sequence that we know will not make noise wow well not only that you guys did it because like it's like well if you ever decide to use this in the studio or whatever it's like i'd never thought of that you know i'm saying but you get yeah you get recording artists that love these machines or these these guitars and they want to use them on because they love the sound and they they want it on the record and it's like yeah you know it's just funny that it's like i'd never thought of more than one light would create a ticking sound through a recording we didn't even we didn't even think it was a thing and we tested like we test them here in the shop and we've got decent amps but we don't have it cranked and so we were doing a delivery and it was to an artist at um an amphitheater like several thousands of seat theater like outdoor outdoor amphitheater and he plugged it in turned it on and it sounded like a freaking machine gun going off in the place i'm like oh my god like we can't do this like it was terrible um but we but we didn't hear it because we didn't have it loud enough um so it was definitely like a volume thing too um yeah oh gosh that was that was wild you're like just leave it turned off for tonight on the lights but you can't turn those lights on tonight because it was so bad like we like it was it wasn't wild but we had like quick patterns and a couple of lights that like, and it just honestly like, wow. We're playing all the songs at a, at a one 20 BPM tonight so we can keep in time with the guitar.
    38:46
    Yeah. And, but that was the thing too. Like it went to their in-ears, like the tick was audible in their ears. So you've got a click track, you've got stuff and you're hearing this tick, random off in the background wow yeah but uh not a problem anymore yeah oh okay well i'm glad you worked that out because yeah yeah now you have you have pictures so ed robertson has one of ladies it's a it's a dolly parton one yeah ed's got two and yeah so um his was one of the one of the first guitars that we did after we did the fathom like our first prototype one um and so his first one we did was the quicksilver and full disclosure it was ed's that that sounded like a machine yeah yeah yeah we took it to one of those shows and he plays big shows yeah yeah they're popular that was the thing that was the thing we just hadn't put it through that type of a sound system before um okay so you are you are in canada so i mean there are other you are near rush baby like why don't you call up alex lifeson and say hey uh why don't you get a guitar from us yeah yeah yeah so we are we are a canadian uh shop and we're we're near toronto um that's where rush is from yeah yeah and ironically we are doing a rush build not for a rush um but yeah we are doing a rush uh build which will be pretty cool um there's a couple and they've done um work getty lee's done stuff getty lee and alex leifson have done some work with a another shop that we know uh in the area too so it's a it's a thing it's definitely a possibility um just hasn't sort come together yet. They're on tour this summer. Just tell them to borrow mine.
    40:47
    I'm going to go see them in LA. Oh, nice. Cool. If they give me a backstage pass, then I'll let them play my guitar. There you go.
    40:58
    Know what Scott's doing. He's going to be making some calls. To show up with a Rush guitar. Ironically, we actually know someone who does know Alex Lyson.
    41:11
    So the – I'm sure Dan does too, but also do you remember Steve Govea who did my Iron Maiden Eddie thing? He actually – he is a professional player too. Oh, cool. And he was in Jersey Boys and he plays obviously exceptionally well. So he actually – maybe we'll ask Steve if Alex wants to have a custom guitar because that would be awesome. Yeah, it's funny. Like they always, it always comes together eventually. It just sometimes takes a bit of time. Okay, I actually do want to get a little bit back to some of the customization. So Josh obviously has been in a band. He's a big guitar player. He knows his stuff. I do not. I'm learning guitars. And so I've been playing for about a year and a half. and when you were asking me about the customization process you know he's like okay so what do you want for the neck what do you want for for all this you know what do you want for the pickups what do you want and i actually told you hey um you're the expert here so i want to know what your recommendations are so josh i think you went with the humbuckers is that right am i getting that right yes you're you're correct i went with seymour duncan uh mayhem humbuckers and the top one can split it has a split coil so okay that's a lot of fancy things i don't know anything what you just said but uh okay so dan talk about the ones you put in mind because you said they were customized from the the local thing and i'll even pull them up and kind of yeah you said it's it's from uh someone who's really close to you guys so that i thought that was a really cool touch um i thought um they they could be i don i don remember off the top of my okay head I do know that we built Josh as more a little bit more on that hard rock metal side
    43:15
    And yours we were building more as a really nice kind of all-around player. And that's, like, you're not the only one. Like we get players from all walks of life and we definitely get guys that will come in that are very, call it analytically based. They know the specs of what they want. They know the neck profiles and the fingerboard radiuses. They know what they want the guitar to weigh. They know what hardware they want to do. And they're very sort of, yeah, call it analytically based that way. We get other guys that come in and it's a feel thing. They're like, I want warm tones. I want a nice finish. I want it to be this color palette. I want it to sound this way. And they're definitely, that's sort of how they describe the guitars. And then we kind of get people that don't necessarily have a preference, but sort of know what they don't like. and then from that we can kind of direct them and and build the guitar out that way and kind of direct the decisions and sort of give you options that we can then pull the information that we need out of and it's it's important to us like all of us are players here at the shop and and we've all been playing a really long time so we understand when a guy says like oh i just want it to feel this way i want to have a really nice snap to it or i want that like real telly twang and we're like okay that's fine like we'll we'll go for that that's and we and we kind of know what they're after um and that's what's really cool about these pinball guitars too is because pinball players are a lot of pinball players are guitar players as both of you guys are and as most of the clients are that we've been dealing with so that's that's a really cool um synergy and a nice marriage there. But we do get some, and we've gotten some orders, that it is strictly a showpiece for them to go as part of their collection with the game. And that's totally fine. I have nothing against that because I appreciate that piece too. And then we just get players and pros that have no real affinity to the pinball world, but they love the artwork piece, or they love the colors, or they love that it's different or a lot of guys um used to have those old evil kenevil toys like the wind up motorcycle toys and their kids so like that guitar speaks to so many people so some people just like it for the artwork and that it's something different which is also really cool because you can always have more guitars but it's sometimes tough to sell a telly to a guy that already has two tellies he's like okay like yes yours are different but like what really makes them that much different but it's so easy to sell this guy is like oh i don't have one of those yet and that nobody else has one of those yet so that's like an easy it's a it's an easier sell because it's something really unique um that people don't they don't have well and in my opinion too you guys are at a very sweet price point and so and i felt like you gave a lot of option of where you could start off on the bass and go all the way up to like the top tier and coming from a guy that's been in guitars for years and seeing that like i mean obviously you deal with fender you know there's the bottom tiers there's what three and then there it kind of switches over the actual fender brand you know it goes from squire to fender and it's like there's i think there's a total of what like seven from base all the way up and the price range is just wild you know yeah and then you get into their custom shop too and then that's just like an endless like you just write a blank check and see what happens kind of thing yeah and and you guys have done fantastic i'm making a very custom product that feels really really good like it feels very comparable to i would say a higher end fender or any any of that product and it's at that price point that you guys offer it's just you're not getting this anywhere else like it's just you guys have done very very well on balancing everything out with the guitar with with everything that's things yeah and and we've tried and it's been um it was very intentional because we knew we needed to kind of hit sort of a price range that people would be comfortable with and what's nice is that our shop is a custom shop so we're not really set up to do big production runs of things we're set up to do short runs and one-offs and that's kind of how we operate so that's what we're geared up to do um but yeah yeah we we were pretty aware of of pricing and being able to offer um options for kaisers so when we first started these um the sort of called the base price was just using the play field as the top but no lights um and it was just sort of the artwork piece. The second tier up was with the lights, but just being an on and off function. So the lights would just turn on and turn off with a switch. And then the top tier was having the programmed lights like you guys have. And we found that whoever ordered either just the base package or the second tier up with just the lights on and off, they were always disappointed that they didn't go all the way that for the extra couple hundred dollars um that it was like oh man i went so much so that they've come back and bought a second guitar because they needed it to have the lights so so tell me the right i mean the nice thing is you're dealing with a with pinball people And pinball people, we know about the range. And this is what I get every time, and I'm sure Josh deals with this too. When people ask, okay, they always come over, they always say the same thing. Huh, they still make these, right? That's the first question, right? Yeah, yeah. And then they come over and play, and they pause, and they're like, so how much does one of these cost? And my answer is, well, okay, so here's a range. It's just like a car. So you have, you know, you have the, the, you, and I always tell people, you want to buy a game that functions. You don't want to buy a fixer upper. So finding something that's like a 3000 to a $6,000 used game is, is probably a good thing. And then you get into like the new game, new and new inbox prices. You get the pro premium LE and depending on the, you know, that's the Stern model, but you also have, uh, you know, the, um, you know, the JJPs and you have the CGCs and, you know, the spookies and all that. so tell me about what kind of range are people expecting if they call and they say hey we want to get a guitar what is the what is the range yeah and and so we have shrunk that range a little bit um where we can offer you um sort of the the guitar with just the topper but we really don't recommend it the guitars are 3800 us and that's fully loaded as you guys have it programmed lights custom custom features custom hardware inlay um the custom specs um yeah so yeah half the price of a pro or three toppers well and that's what's great because Those games are so expensive. Like it's, it's a, it's a cool market to be in because you are, the, the clients are a little bit more acclimatized to the price point of what the, what the pinball games run. So when, when we're at like, yeah, a fancy topper, like that's not, it's not too bad. It's a nice add on. And I think that's why some people, they treat it that way. Like they're like, Oh, this is a really nice piece to add to the game that nobody else is going to have. And, and they're, they're true. Nobody else will have them. Um, but yeah, we're 3,800 bucks, which is amazing in my opinion. Like I said, like looking at the fenders and stuff like that, like their base, even their, their American made started like what? 12, 1400. And then it's like, you can get easily five, 6,000 on these, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And I think, uh, yeah, Like a custom shop builds easily five grand. Um, I think part of what partially works in our favor is that we're a Canadian shop. So we definitely do, uh, take advantage of the exchange rate. Right. Cause it's, uh, yeah, it, which it like it. So for our Canadian customer, like it works out to five grand Canadian ish. Yeah. Around there. A little longer. That's, that's great actually for a custom guitar. Are you kidding me? yeah yeah i mean in like don't i don't want anybody to sort of get the wrong opinion like there's no shortcomings of those guitars like there's we don't sort of skip over anything they're not they're no these are all le's they're not pros yeah yeah they're great they're they're yeah absolutely you can say those other brands are all mcdonald's brands and you guys are the gordon ramsay of guitars i would say that yeah i'd say we can we hold our own with any other a big american brand uh any custom shops like there's we're fine like and we've had many people sort of say the same thing too that it's comparable with any other high-end boutique shop whether it's a sir or or something like that um yeah yeah they're they're really cool we're really um happy and proud of sort of how they've all come together and sort of what we've been able to create with these ones like it's cool stuff considering i just so i just upgraded my acoustic guitar and yes it's and when you're looking at taylor guitars which is what i bought and they have guitars that you know the entry ones that are a thousand dollars but they have them that go up to like ten thousand dollars oh yeah easy easy and more and more and yeah so i So I got one that was nice, but not too nice. This, you only have one level. You have super nice.
    54:25
    That's what you're offering. Super nice, but not super expensive. Super nice at a reasonable price for a custom art project. Absolutely.
    54:33
    So the Fender Custom Shop did a pinball guitar like 2018 maybe, or 2015 or something like that. And they did a pinball wizard. And I think they've got it up for sale for like $18,000 or $20,000 or something like that. Like it's – yeah. Yes. Well, even looking at those like PRS, the custom dragon ones and like the custom shops they do, those are like $22,000 or higher. Yeah, like the private stock reserve or building reserve. Yeah, private reserve. Oh, yeah. They're wild. It's crazy. I could talk guitars all night. but we did if you yeah if you want someone to get a hold of you what's the best way to get a hold of you um however they can find us so our website is cetheraguitars.com and there's a contact page spell that out yeah it's a c-i-t-h-a-r-a guitars with an s um and then all of our social media handles is the same it's just at sathera guitars and um there's you can direct message us there's a phone number there that you can call me anytime it's a direct line to me so it's um you're gonna get me or it'll get to me at some point but um yeah however however uh you want to find us you can you probably can and it'll i i try to get back to everybody as soon as i can and yeah that's probably the best way and if you want to get a hold of us we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com you can find us on all the socials at Loser Kid Pinball if you want to rep our merch like the hockey jersey those are cool or my pride yeah I like the beanies too silverballswag.com slash loser kid yeah thanks again Daniel this was fantastic like seriously it's like a dream come true Oh, guys, thanks for having me. I'm so glad that you reached out and we were able to do this project. Like, those guitars are cool. Yeah, I love them both. And I'm glad we were able to sort of make tonight work, too, and get all our schedules aligned. And it's been great chatting with you. Definitely. Scott, give us our last words. You know what? We may actually be getting a special play field that we may be getting some more guitars heading your way. So this is a teaser. We'll get back to you on that. So either way, thank you guys for listening, and we'll catch you on the next one.
    57:28
    you