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We've always got new product ideas in the works here at C. B. Gitty. From new kits and parts packs to cigar box amplifiers and guitars to expanded variations and options for existing products, there is always a lot "in the chute" waiting to be gotten to.  As the company has grown and things have gotten more complex, the path from idea to listed product has become more involved. Still, when something really gets us excited, we find ways to hurry it along.  This is the story of …

Shane Speal brought a dead cigar box guitar back to life using C. B. Gitty parts. The guitar was a 3-string solid-body, built in 2007 by West Virginia builder, Tomi-O Hartwell, and was an essential axe in Speal's live shows for many years. The original guitar sported two P90 soapbar pickups wired to a selector switch and one volume. After countless gigs and constant abuse (including Speal throwing the guitar across stage at the end of shows), the pickups died, and the guitar was unusabl …

Last year, C. B. Gitty introduced the Psycho Knob internal distortion, an easy-to-install circuit that added fuzz effects inside your guitar.  Now Shane Speal shows you how to hack the kit to become a standalone unit that can be used on all your electric guitars!Hear the Demo What you'll need (Click each picture to purchase the item) Hack the Kit 1. Wire Jacks to the Circuit Board Instead of installing the Psycho Knob inside a guitar cavity, simply wire a 1/4" ja …

This past January I was out in Los Angeles for the winter NAMM show. NAMM is the National Association of Music Merchants, and it is the biggest music-industry trade show in the United States. I wrote an earlier post about one of the few innovative things I found there (check it out here), but this article isn't about the NAMM show and the room after room of shiny, factory-made instruments there.This tale takes us to the other side of the city, to a dingy little recording studio in North Hollywoo …

In this video, King of the Cigar Box Guitar Shane Speal shows off one of his recent cigar box guitar builds, featuring all of the great C. B. Gitty parts on it: Shane Speal Signature 3-string TunersTeisco(tm) Del-Rey-style Gold Foil surface mount pickupChrome 3-string Hard-tail BridgeDecorative brass box cornersNickel-silver fretwire …