Guitar for Sightless

Valentino Valente asked me to build an instruments that perfectly fit his needs. After letting him try many options like set-neck or bolt-on neck, light or heavy body woods, longer or shorter string scales, various pick-up configurations, we finally got to the definition of his preferences, the right sounds and the right comfort and playability.
There was an issue that need to be solved: For Valentino to be able to easily find the positions on the neck, we initially used some stickers on the back of the neck to solve the problem. Then I thought to file some small grooves on the back of the neck to give him references.  During the build of the guitar, I asked Valentino to check it and try to play it assembled, to see exactly where his left thumb felt the right position for the fifth, seventh, and twelfth frets. This is where we placed the grooves.
Here is his testimonial: “Thanks for your great professionalism and experience, Andrea. Now I can play a guitar that is versatile and handy, very playable. With the 5-way selector and two push-pull pots, I get really interesting combinations, each very different from each other, ranging from a warm Strat sound to an aggressive bridge sound. The pickups are very sensitive to the touch and their dynamic response highlights the energy and quality as you touch the strings. This is more noticeable when you pass from strumming to arpeggios to soloing. The fretboard is very slinky and the frets are well defined to let you play all the way up to the uppermost frets without losing sound definition. The balanced and well distributed weight of the guitar lets you play for hours in comfort, with no problem.