The Charlie Farren FMan Guitar: When One Size Doesn't Fit All

by Staff.

Charlie Farren on stage at the Regent Theatre with the FMan guitar on May 29, 2009. Photo credit: David FitzPatrick.

Enter the FMan guitar from Charlie Farren.

Says Farren: "A few years ago my band, Farrenheit, performed at a memorial show for a friend who had passed and the event was shot in high definition video with acts like Boston, Extreme, Godsmack, RTZ, Ernie and the Automatics, and Beatejuice. Farrenheit sounded great, but seeing the video it struck me that I was playing the same guitars that I played 25 and 35 years ago - the '68 Tele I bought when I joined The Joe Perry Project or the Washburn G15Vs Washburn provided when Farrenheit toured the United States with Boston in the 1987 Third Stage tour. I realized those guitars didn't "fit" me anymore. They still sound great and they looked great on me when I was a 170lb boy, or a 180lb young man. My clothes looked great on me then too, but I don't wear those clothes anymore so maybe I should try to find a guitar that "fits" the grown man version of myself.

I'm a 6'4", 230+lb guy now, and the notion of playing the same sized guitar that looked great on a teenager, or someone like Prince, or Angus Young, just doesn't make a lot of sense from a straight style perspective. What I found was that nobody is making a true rock 'n' roll XXL. A Les Paul is a great guitar, and it looks like a million bucks on Les Paul, but the great Les Paul is not a large man."

Farren, a long time professional guitarist, contacted guitar builders and instrument techs about building a larger solidbody electric guitar and received a less than enthusiastic response. Many felt that the instrument would be too heavy or he was told, "I'll make you one. It'll cost you $3,500, but I can't guarantee that you'll like it."

Undaunted, Farren remarks, "I wanted a guitar that fits me the way a Strat fit Jimi or the way a Les Paul fit Jimmy Page or Pete Townshend. After speaking with some builders, many of whom provided lots of reason why this wouldn't work well or wouldn't look good, or would be too heavy, I realized I'd need to clear out my garage and build one myself."

And build it himself he did.

"This was my first attempt at building a guitar - I started this as a proof of concept," says Farren." It really is very much a prototype at the moment - a very playable prototype, but by no means is it luthier quality or production quality. I built it in my garage using household workbench tools. Now I have a working model as an example of what I'd ask a guitar builder to make for me. Ideally, I'd like to see a manufacturer understand the potential and work with me on a production version of this."

Listen to Charlie Farren demo the FMan guitar:

The specs of Farren's current FMan working prototype:

The FMan Guitar is made of poplar with a maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. The body is an offset teardrop with streamlined 'horns' in relief and set back from the contoured top. It has a broader waist and a body length that is about plus 15%. It has three Seymour Duncan pickups: Vintage Rails (SVR-1) single coils in the neck and middle postition, and a single-coil-sized 'rails' humbucker in the bridge position. It has a 5-position switch and a single volume knob. The volume and 5-position switch are close enough to manipulate as part of the instrument. This arrangement of pickups and switches is perfect for a player that needs to go from glassy-clean, to muscular rythym, to soaring leads and crunching chords without the use of pedals, or powered pre-amps. This is key for a lead singer who plays guitar - pedals can really get in the way of a good performance to a front man - so having an instrument that you can play like a complete instrument without relying on pedals is very important.

The FMan Guitar is super slim (1 3/8") to offset the any weight gain from the larger front profile - so slim that a standard input jack will not fit on the side of the instrument. I didn't want an input jack interfering with the lines of the guitar face, so I opted to mount the jack on the back of the guitar. The net weight is much lighter than a typical commercially available solid-body guitar.

The offset teardrop shape and slim body offer full and easy access to the high frets without the expense of some reduced or no-heel designs available today. The neck was designed and provided by Roland Giles at Giles USA, a custom guitar builder that has pioneered the six-bolt neck for greatly improved stability and feel. I'm using a vintage Washburn Wonderbar bridge, which uses torsion spring technology, is very stable, and mounts on the surface of the guitar so it doesn't require routing, which removes the 'wood' from the tone.

Originally intended as a POC instrument that Farren could show to builders and manufacturers, the FMan has been received by several professional builders with enough enthusiasm that he's applied for a design patent and plans a limited run to test potential market reaction. "When I bought a 12-foot board of poplar at Home Depot for $31 three months ago to start this, I never imagined I'd end up with a guitar that I'd play in May."

Front of the FMan guitar. Photo credit: Austin Lang.

Front of the FMan guitar. Photo credit: Austin Lang.

Back of the FMan guitar. Photo credit: Austin Lang.

Headstock of the FMan guitar. Photo credit: Austin Lang.

Charlie Farren on stage at the Regent Theatre with the FMan guitar on May 29, 2009. Photo credit: David FitzPatrick.

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