JOE NAYLOR - RAILHAMMER FOUNDER
His Story: Visionary Designer, Weird Kid.
JOE LIKES GUITARS. A LOT.
Joe
bought his first electric guitar in 1980, at the age of nineteen.
Within one hour, it was completely disassembled on the kitchen table,
and he decided right then and there that the rest of his life would
revolve around guitars. Rash decision? Maybe, but it felt right to Joe,
"It made perfect sense. I grew up in a musical family, mom taught
classical piano, dad played bassoon, and two of my brothers played
guitar. As a kid, I was a pretty good artist, and I was fascinated with
building things. I made those flying models out of balsa wood which
required precision craftsmanship. I used to mod my toys so they'd kick
ass on the other kid's toys. In high school, I worked as a bicycle
mechanic. So when I took apart that first guitar, I knew instantly that
I'd found my calling, it was the perfect combination of art and science,
and guitars were cool too!" It's that kind of fanatical passion for
guitars that Joe carries with him to this day, and has driven him
through decades of guitar technology exploration.
EXPERIENCE COUNTS
Passion
means nothing without experience, and Joe was ready to get his hands
dirty. Playing in rock bands as a college student, he began repairing
guitars in 1981 for fellow musicians. In 1986 he earned his degree in
Industrial Design. Hungry to learn more about guitar building, he headed
to Phoenix in1987 to attend the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery. At
this world renowned school, he learned the finer points of electric and
acoustic guitar building, as well as pickup winding, under the guidance
of master luthiers John Reuter, James Weisner and William Eaton.
Returning to Kalamazoo, Joe set up shop in his basement, where for the
next five years he immersed himself in guitar repair, guitar building,
and pickup winding, while holding down a succession of day jobs as a
graphic designer, draftsman, and production supervisor.
Outgrowing
the basement, he moved to the Detroit area and opened Joe's Guitar
Exchange & Repair, a storefront specializing in buying, selling and
repairing of vintage/used guitars and amps. This experience proved to be
invaluable, as Joe was able to test and analyze every conceivable brand
and type of guitar gear on the market. The store was also a busy repair
shop, and he learned first hand what kind of features and modifications
real working pros needed. In 1993 Joe introduced the Naylor Special
Design 50 speaker, one of the first vintage style replacement speakers.
In 1994
the store was converted into a micro-factory, dubbed J.F. Naylor
Engineering, known for Naylor Amps. The highly acclaimed Super-Drive
Sixty followed, designed in collaboration with renowned amp modder Dan
Russell, and was the first high gain/master volume tube amp in the
handwired boutique market. Original Naylor amps have attained collector
status, and were used by artists such as Steve Stevens (Billy Idol),
Vernon Reid (Living Colour), Ron Asheton (The Stooges), Billy Howerdel
(A Perfect Circle), Nick Perri (Silvertide), Jagori Tanna (I Mother
Earth), Kenny Olson (Kid Rock), and many more.
In 1996
Joe sold Naylor Engineering, and formed Reverend Guitars. While
building the Reverend facility during the day, he worked evenings in the
repair department at Joe's Music in East Detroit. One of the larger
independent stores in the area, Joe worked there for almost a year as an
authorized Fender and Gibson repair tech.
Reverend
launched their first guitar in 1997, using the innovative High
Resonance Body Design based on Joe's U.S. Patent No. 6114616. He went on
to design Reverend amplifiers and cabinets, the Drivetrain pedal, and
Alltone speakers. Most notably, Joe designed the entire line of Reverend
guitars and basses (including all the proprietary pickups), well known
worldwide for their clean design and high performance. Joe worked with
Reverend users such as Dan Auerbach (Black Keys), Ron Asheton (The
Stooges), Bob Balch (Fu Manchu), Jeff Young (Megadeth), Billy Corgan
(Smashing Pumpkins), Reeves Gabrels (David Bowie, Tin Machine), Audley
Freed (Cry of Love), Marc Ford (Black Crowes), Pete Anderson (Dwight
Yoakam), Rick Vito (Bob Seeger), Eiden Thorr (Valient Thorr) and many
more. Currently, Reverend is managed by Joe's business partner Ken Haas,
while Joe continues to handle all the design work and technical
support.
A
tireless designer, Joe also managed to conceive several other innovative
guitar products including Armor Gold Cables, StringDog Products, the
Heads Up Strap, and now Railhammer Pickups. To date, products designed
by Joe have won no less than 19 awards from major guitar and industry
magazines.
THE QUEST FOR CLARITY
The
Railhammer design was inspired by Joe's personal tone quest. He really
liked the sound of a neck humbucker, especially clean. But with
distortion, he found the neck tone turned to mush, especially when
playing rhythm on the wound strings. At the time, Joe was writing songs
that required very quick transitions between clean and dirty, and he
couldn't switch to the bridge pickup for the dirty parts fast enough.
What to do...
IT'S ALIVE!
Quest
in hand, Joe headed for the lab, "I decided to build myself a neck
humbucker that could handle distorted rhythm parts, and that led to the
Railhammer concept. I was a fan of the Lawrence XL500, which was the
first dual rail humbucker. It was tight and clear on the wound strings,
but a bit thin sounding on the plain strings for my taste. So I thought
if I can keep the clarity of the rails on the wound strings, but build
in the fat tone of large round poles for the plain strings, it'd be
perfect. I hand built a crude prototype out of an old Reverend humbucker
I had lying around. I cut the rails out of steel shelf brackets, and
used nail heads for the large poles, and it worked." Bridge pickup
experiments followed, and Joe realized the design was viable for both
positions, and had a tonal balance and clarity he had not heard before
in a humbucker.
TEST, REVISE, TEST, REVISE. REPEAT.
Joe
had a concept, but it needed to be developed. This involved months of
design work, testing, and revisions to get the specifications of the
rails, poles, baseplate and bobbins just right. None of these parts are
standard issue, and required expensive tooling and molds to produce.
Once
the parts were finalized, the winding began. Winding one good pickup is
easy. Coming up with a line of pickups that includes matching bridge and
neck models is a challenge. No less than 40 prototypes were wound,
involving various combinations of magnets and wire.
One
thing Joe knows from decades of designing, is that proper testing is a
must. Enter "Red Betsy", the modified guitar used to test pickups. Betsy
is a Schecter S-1 with pickup routs that go all the way through the
back of the body, and a control panel with spring loaded quick release
clips for the pickup lead wires. Swapping a pickup in and out takes
about 30 seconds!
Play
testing by Joe and several local pros ensued. Prototypes were compared
to each other, and finalists selected. These were then tested against
the industry standards... the usual suspects: Duncan, Dimarzio, EMG,
Lawrence, Gibson, and various others. If you want to be the best, you
have to test against the best. Revisions were made, more testing, more
revisions. The cycle continued for months, until winners emerged. Betsy
was exhausted. The final group was then tested again in different brands
and types of guitars: solidbody, semi-hollow, hollow, long scale, short
scale, set-neck, bolt-on, etc. Months more of testing and revisions
continued, until Joe was finally satisfied he had a line of humbuckers
as good or better than anything out there.
RAILHAMMER ROLLS
Railhammer
Pickups officially launched in January 2012. Strong reviews and
positive player feedback have confirmed what Joe has always believed,
"There's lots of players who would appreciate more clarity from a
humbucker, especially on the wound strings. Railhammers are designed for
those players, or for any player who wants to experience a new level of
humbucker performance". The tone quest continues. All aboard.
