How Are There So Many Great Luthiers in Canada? Nicole Alosinac’s T-Style Guitars

welcome to get offset my name is Emily

and that smile looks really really good

on you if you weren’t smiling before I

hope you are now and I hope you will be

soon because I have some really cool and

exciting guitars for you today

um it’s a building you might not have

heard of unless you’re in Vancouver BC

her name is Nicole olazanak and she’s

really known

um for her Acoustics she’s recent fairly

recently in the past

five six seven years started building

her own Acoustics previously she was at

larave and has her own repair and

restoration business she’s one of the

most talented luthiers I know and she

just started building electrics and I

have a few for you today they’re

they are T Styles and I’m gonna play

through them I’m gonna play them with

some gain effects some compression after

I play it clean uh and then I’m going to

talk about some of the features I really

like about these guitars but I’m going

to get into playing because I know

that’s what the people want

so that’s what the people get

all right let’s do this

[Music]

[Music]

that was the middle position

I’m going to go to the neck position now

and the bridge

[Music]

let’s go ahead and

there’s this push knob so if you’re

familiar with Telecaster to telestyle

guitars one of the most common mods is

to have

the two pickups able to go in series as

well as parallel it gives you a bigger

beefier sound let’s uh listen to that

[Music]

[Music]

and in that serious position it does not

matter if you are oh it does not matter

where you have

the toggle

[Music]

all right

[Music]

so I’m gonna go ahead and talk about the

feel of this guitar before I get into

playing it with some effects uh first

things first the neck this is one of the

best feeling next I’ve ever played it is

uh kind of between a c and a D I hope

Nicole doesn’t get mad that I said that

it is a beefier neck that I’m used to

playing but I do find that to be more

ergonomic and I’m getting to the point

in my life where I think I prefer a

bigger fatter neck

neck

um the feel of this is just really

amazing I know Nicole largely designed

the the neck feel by what she personally

prefers and she she and I must have

really similar preferences

secondly obviously it’s a semi Hollow

there

um or at least it has the F hole so

there’s a little bit of air moving

through the guitar that helps it lighten

up a little bit it’s an ash body with a

spruce cinder block it has a Nitro

finish bone nut and the pickups are

Lawler Specialties let’s go ahead and

see how it sounds with some effects I

have the moon op amp fuzz by Keely the

empress compressor Mark II so I got my

Canadian representation there the Benson

germanium boost and the tribute by

Catalan bread let’s start with some Buzz

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

changes it much

[Music]

thank you

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

series

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

turn that off let’s try it with some

compression

middle position

[Music]

[Music]

thank you

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

tread on the neck

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

and Bridge

[Music]

[Music]

series

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

red tribute

um game Slightly North of 12 o’clock and

um kind of a mids ish

boost low meds start in the middle

yeah

foreign

[Music]

Bridge

[Music]

thank you

[Music]

and now series

[Music]

[Music]

thank you

I’m gonna boost the tribute with the

Benson I have it to 10 because I can’t

get it to 11.

[Music]

thank you foreign

[Music]

EK t-style guitars that I’m going to

play today there are a few other things

I wanted to point out that I really love

about Nicole’s guitars one’s the

headstock you’ll see that in the other

guitars it’s a lot like her acoustic

headstocks and like it’s got that nice

little

look at that that’s so pretty I don’t

know how that looked on the zoom I hope

it looked good you look good

all right so I’m going to remove this

guitar and grab the other one so stay

tuned

welcome back I know I didn’t give you a

lot of time to go anywhere unless you

hit pause feel free to hit pause come

back come back if you need to come back

but I hope you stick around because this

is another Nicole loznak t-style guitar

uh this one is a little bit more

traditional it doesn’t have the Bixby

obviously it is uh chambered Ash and it

also has the push pull to put the

pickups in the series

um these are Lawler 52 pickups the neck

again this one

even nicer to to my hands um this was

one that Nicole told me again she shaped

it around just what she thought felt

good and it’s uh working out I also want

to point out this control plate

it really Harkens back to kind of the

elements of the headstock there and it’s

a lot like her acoustic guitar bridge

which I think is really neat it’s

awesome when Brands can and Builders

because I don’t know if you call Nicole

a full brand when Builders can uh have

that continuity between completely

different instruments in their line so

yeah let’s uh give this one some play

time

just come completely clean I don’t know

why I said that like that

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

middle position

[Music]

it’s a neck

and the bridge

[Music]

let’s put it in series

[Music]

all right what else can we do here

[Music]

that was middle

don’t know why I said that like that

when you start talking on camera you

start second guessing every word you say

and you’ve ever seen that episode of 30

Rock it is very true do I say that weird

camera

camera

[Music]

Bridge

[Music]

[Music]

thank you

[Music]

foreign beautiful

so this guitar has just a gorgeous

finish on it

um I forgot the exact color Nicole told

me was obviously it’s a type of green

but this binding

is I just don’t know if

it’s so perfect it’s so nice and again

it’s chambered so it’s very light you

could play this all day easily

all right so let’s get some uh fuzz

going and see how it handles fuzz

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

that was middle now we’re gonna go to

neck and then bridge and then series

foreign

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

loved that I’m going to retune and I’m

going to do compressor and uh probably

that was some gain at the same time just

to speak things up

[Music]

so I was in the middle position now

we’re going to go to the neck

[Music]

Bridge

[Music]

[Music]

I’ll do a series

[Music]

three two

[Music]

I love that with a bridge damn

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

[Applause]

this is indeed one of the best t-style

guitars I’ve ever played and you all

know how much I love my gold gnl

um with the B Bender I’m actually going

to ask Nicole to commission something a

little bit like that

um but with her style another thing I

wanted to point out just like she has

all these great Design Elements like the

longer you look at these guitars the

more just like impressive they are like

look at these inlays I just love those

they’re very simple stated they have the

side dots but on the 5th and 12th Frets

those those are just really really nice

I love love this guitar I love the other

one too I think I probably would pick

something

um a little bit more like this chambered

solid

um

I think I would forego the Bixby because

I would get a B vendor

I’m gonna make her make me a be better

guitar and uh definitely the four-way

um I can’t decide which Lawler pickups I

liked better the uh these are the 52s

the others were the Specialties let me

know which one you preferred in the

comments but you know I want to give a

thanks to Nicole she drove all the way

down here uh from uh Vancouver BC to let

me play these for a few hours so I’m

really appreciative of that

um if you have the chance to get some

guitar work done or commission one of

these

um and guitar work done if you’re in

like the Vancouver BC area obviously but

uh like this is

such a nice guitar and I am uh

extremely impressed by it but uh I’m not

surprised but you know again thanks to

everyone out there for watching thanks

for understanding hope you smiled today

um the petals I played you can get

almost all of them via my affiliate

Links at Sweetwater so please check that

out I will link out to those

um

so yeah again thanks for watching thanks

for understanding until next time my

name is Emily goodbye