When The Ventures re-release of their instrumental “Walk, Don’t Run” hit #8 on the Billboard charts in 1964, it signaled the arrival of the guitar as a lead instrument and helped shape the sound of a new generation of guitarists.
Always fascinated by the sound of the guitar, his dream was to be an elite musician. But realizing his talent didn’t match his passion; a young Robert turned his attention to refining the instrument itself.
Spurred by the advent of rock n’ roll, Godin started experimenting with ways of adapting guitars to fit their newfound lead instrument status. “The guitar strings at the time were a very heavy gauge, difficult to bend, ” he says. “So, I started using banjo strings to get the effect I was looking for.”
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Eventually moving to a shop on St. Hubert Street in Montreal, Godin found success customizing and modifying guitars, and in the early 70’s, decided to make an instrument from scratch. “I teamed up with a former wooden window frame maker in La Patrie, Quebec and we made some guitars, ” he says. “They were very rudimentary but I fell in love with creating the instrument”.
Having invested the profits from selling his guitar shop to start his manufacturing business, Godin found himself fully immersed in self-financing. “The banks thought we were a bunch of hippies, ” laughs Mr. Godin. “They weren’t familiar with the industry, and were hesitant because much of our receivables were in U.S. dollars.”
These were dollars earned the hard way, with Godin selling guitars from the back of his van and cold calling music retailers across the northeastern U.S.
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With persistence and a determination to use the finest materials to make his guitars, word quickly spread in music circles about the merit of Robert’s instruments, and more opportunities materialized.
Godin Guitars has six factories: five in Quebec and one in New Hampshire. Utilizing current robotic technology to precisely manufacture their products, each facility is dedicated to building specific instruments. This focus results in optimized efficiency, fewer production errors, and provides employees with an overall understanding of the craftsmanship that goes into each guitar they build.
From re-creating traditional instruments to utilizing the latest guitar technology, Robert Godin is always looking for ways to innovate. Most recently, Godin is collaborating with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) at McGill University to develop new technology that can analyze the style and sound of different guitar models.
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Godin now supplies the majority of its international markets directly from its six factories through Godin Direct, their in-house fabrication and distribution system.
“The whole idea was to make the supply channel a lot simpler, ” says Godin. “With Godin Direct, there is no multiple distributor pricing systems, and every seller is effectively paying the same price for the product.”
No matter where they are in the world, dealers can place an order and expect to receive their instruments, shipped directly to their shops from one of Godin’s factories, in two and half days. “We have an amazing distribution deal, ” smiles Mr. Godin. “But we had to guarantee huge volume.”
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Thankfully, volume isn’t a problem. Godin Guitars is now one of the world’s largest guitar manufacturer, making approximately 250, 000 instruments per year, across its six guitar brands – Godin, Seagull, Simon & Patrick, Art & Lutherie, Norman, and La Patrie.
According to Robert Godin, a vital part of becoming as successful exporter is acquiring knowledge about the markets you’re shipping to. “Go to the countries you want to be in, get to know the market, and visit the retailers, ” says Godin. “Relying on an overseas distributor to represent your best interests could get you in trouble.”Simon Godin, left, Robert Godin and Patrick Godin. Sons Simon and Patrick are carrying on the guitar manufacturing business started by their father Robert in Quebec.Handout
The era of the modern guitar started with the Ventures, clean-cut guys appearing in fuzzy, televised black and white. A quick introduction by Dick Clark, and they were off playing their quasi-surf-music 1960 instrumental hit Walk, Don’t Run on Fender guitars, bending strings, adding tremolo, turning the guitars into lead instruments and ushering in a new guitar culture, or so says Canadian guitar manufacturer Robert Godin.
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For others, it was a different story, maybe going further back to country-and-western great Merle Travis and his amplified, solid-body prototype in the late 1940s. Or to the indefatigable player-tinkerer-inventor Les Paul and his electric guitar-drenched 1951 version of How High the Moon with Mary Ford. Or Muddy Waters with his howling Telecaster, Buddy Holly quick-strumming his space-age Stratocaster, the early Beatles and their Rickenbackers, or Bob Dylan committing the sacrilege of trading his acoustic for his own Stratocaster at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
The point being, as a teenager in Montreal in the 1960s, Mr. Godin wanted to be a part of that evolution, revolution.
Six different brands operate today under the banner of Godin Guitars, based in Montreal and one of the largest manufacturers (if not the largest) of North American-made guitars. Some other giant brands, notably Gibson and Fender, produce some of their lower-end lines in Asia. (The tightly held guitar industry makes verifying actual manufacturing numbers difficult, even for industry insiders.) Godin has more than 250 different models now in its catalogue, all made in five factories in Quebec and one in New Hampshire.
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“Over the years, they focused on a lot of little things, and it has really worked for them, ” said Grant MacNeill, founder of The Twelfth Fret, a guitar store and repair shop in Toronto. For instance, the company hasn’t ignored smaller dealers, while much of the industry has shifted its attention to big chain stores. Godin has started shipping directly to dealers, circumventing distributors in a number of countries, and it has focused heavily on affordability, with many of its models under $1, 000, Mr. MacNeill said. They are very refreshing.”
Guitarists tend to have a traditionalist streak, and so does the guitar industry. In his biography of Les Paul, Leo Fender and the dawn of the electric guitar, writer Ian S. Port in The Birth Of Loud notes how Gibson made guitars they wanted musicians to aspire to. At Fender, the company’s somewhat more workmanlike designs also provided musicians with a certain tone and feel that Fender was after.
The idea at Godin, though, has been to build guitars specifically for what players weren’t otherwise finding, to cater to their needs, not vice versa – and at different price points.
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“Yeah, we are very diverse, ” Mr. Godin said by phone, in the enthusiastic way he always talks about guitars. “We do jazz guitars, rock. We do Latin, a lot of guitars for Latin music. We do an oud [typically an 11-stringed instrument with a Middle Eastern heritage]. We do all the small instruments, like mandolins, ukuleles. We made our own niche.”
To manufacture such a wide, specialized assortment, Godin has had to rely on a high volume of production. Mr. Godin wouldn’t divulge how many instruments the company makes overall per year (“you see, I don’t publicize my numbers, because of too much competition, and they all want to know”), although in the past, he has mentioned roughly 200, 000 a year, each model targeting a certain kind of music and customer within the various divisions.
Generally, Godin is the company’s main brand with electric guitars and many of the specialized models. Its Seagull division produces innovative acoustic models. Simon and Patrick (named after Mr. Godin’s sons who now run the company) are more traditionally crafted acoustics. Art and Lutherie is more of an entry-level acoustic line, to which the company has paid a great deal of attention. La Patrie are its nylon-string guitars, from more of a classical tradition, but with a feel adapted subtly to players coming from a steel-string background or who play flamenco and other Latin music. Norman Guitars is the first Godin line started in 1972.
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“It’s very hard for us, because for sure we want to please most of the guitar players, because there are a lot of Godin fans out there, ” said Robert’s son Simon Godin, the company’s chief executive. “Godin started with its own image, ” with models such as the Acousticaster, which is half-electric, half-acoustic, which resembles roughly the shape of a Fender Telecaster, but not really, and the Multiac, particularly popular for Latin music.
“More and more, people want a traditional look. We cannot go too far from what exists already, ” said Simon Godin. For a company based around innovation, that traditional bent can be confining. It can feel limiting, he said, “to make a guitar that looks like another brand, but this is what guitar players are looking for. They want a solid guitar that sounds good, the action is there [in terms of the height of the strings, in other words, its playability], and the tone and sound, at a certain price point.”
As his father Robert Godin has found from experience, people buy a guitar on looks first, for its feel second and its sound only third.
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