Caparison Guitars
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Caparison Guitars is a Japan-based electric guitar manufacturer primarily known for their custom shop guitars. They are favored by heavy metal and prog rock musicians.
The Caparison Guitar company was established in 1995 by former Jackson/Charvel Japan designer Itaru Kanno. The company's main design office is based in Tokyo, Japan and the guitars themselves are manufactured in Nagoya, Japan. The company's best known guitar is the "Horus" model. This guitar features a unique 27 fret neck and clock inlays that change time for each fret position (1 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 5 o'clock etc.) Caparison Dellinger and TAT models also feature these clock inlays on the fretboard, however, these guitars feature 24 fret necks.
Other popular Caparison Guitar models are the 7 String Dellinger, Angelus, FKV, Venus and Apple Horn. Caparison also currently has a Dellinger bass guitar in production.
Caparison also has a line of guitars specially designed to perform better with low tunings called the "HGS" series. The bridge is mounted 3mm farther back on the face of the guitar to help provide higher string tension when using drop tunings such as A, B or C. These guitars also perform very well with drop tunings. However, these HGS models work well with the traditional standard E concert pitch tuning (9-42 gauge strings etc.)
Caparison Guitars, especially the Horus models, are known for their custom, hand painted finishes. Caparison color options offered for the Horus such as Snow Cloud, Deep Sea, Black Night and yellow Sand are all applied by hand by Itaru Kanno using special techniques (including using various sponges). There is no special machine that magically does all the work, like some may assume. Other finish options unique to the Caparison company are it's Midnight Blue (A rough, flat matte look), Apple Horn Orange and Sand Stone (a gritty, almost sand paper-like texture) and Apple Horn HGS Charcoal Black (It truly does have a charred wood look, sealed with a light gloss top coat.)
For years, Caparison Guitars were only available in Japan. It was only up until recently that the company began offering their guitars outside of Japan. As of 2006, Caparison now have distributors in the USA, Denmark and Australia.
The guitars are still only made in limited numbers, therefore are highly prized among collectors. The average amount of time it takes from placing an order to receiving the final finished guitar is currently 5 months. Caparison manufacture approx forty guitars a month, as opposed to a company like Ibanez that puts out hundreds, and sometimes thousands of units per month. Caparison's extreme attention to detail is applied to every guitar. Only premium parts are used and every guitar is made to perform like a well oiled machine. There are no factory seconds here. Only guitars that meet the company's strict quality standards are made available for sale. Each guitar is personally set up by Itaru Kanno before it is shipped out to it's new owner. This personal touch is what truly sets Caparison Guitars apart from the sea of "Cookie Cutter" guitar makers currenly flooding the global market today.
Caparison also make their own humbucking as well as single coil guitar pickups. The company also produces a dual rail humbucking pickup that fits into the footprint of standard single coil pickup. Another common feature on Caparison Guitars is the use of "Push/Push" volume and tone pots. These special pots are used to activate coil splitting and pickup selecting functions on certain models.