Martin Sims

Long-time readers will know we’ve had our eyes on Sims Guitars for a while – we interviewed their artist Andy Fleet way back in Issue 2! We thought it was long past time for a catchup, so we chatted with Martin Sims…

-  Grace Davis

CAN YOU TELL US HOW YOU GOT STARTED BY RETROFITTING LEDS TO GUITAR NECKS?

In the late 80s, lighting shows at rock concerts were becoming huge and guitarists, whether they confess it or not, use the dots on the guitar a lot – you can see roughly where you are using those markers because they’re always set in the same places on all guitars. When you’ve got a lot of lighting going on, you can’t see the dots. We started putting LEDs in there and people loved them!

WITH EVERYTHING YOU DO, IT STILL SEEMS YOU TAKE VERY SERIOUSLY THE NEED TO NOT IMPACT THE GUITAR’S PLAY AND FEEL. CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THAT?

In order to fit LEDs into a neck normally, you would have to do it during the manufacturing process, before the fingerboard is glued on. The problem was that if they broke you would probably have to make a new neck. Also if you’re gonna peel the fingerboard offa guitar’s neck and then glue it back on, the thing will never, ever feel the same again. I worked out a way to retro-fit them, making them serviceable, non-intrusive, with no change to the feel of the guitar. My background has always been in research and development, and I’ve always gravitated towards working out ways of getting things done.

YOU WORKING LIFE STARTED IN POWER BOATS AND FORMULA 1, WERE THERE THINGS FROM THOSE AREAS THAT YOU BROUGHT ACROSS INTO THE GUITAR INDUSTRY?