About the builder

My career really started when, as a young teenager, I saw an ad in the back of one of my guitar magazines for a lutherie school. I have always loved making things and I really enjoyed playing the guitar so a career as a guitar maker seemed like the natural choice. Several years later I attended Bryan Galloup's school of Lutherie where I got my feet wet in the world of guitar making. On the first day of school everything in my brain clicked and I knew I had found the perfect career. I could combine my artistic talents with my love for music. I soaked up everything I could at school and gave all I could to make the best student project guitars they had ever seen. Whether they were or not is a question you would have to as Bryan.

A couple days after I finished school I saw that Paul Reed Smith would be giving a clinic at a nearby guitar store. I thought this would be a great opportunity to get some insight from one of the last half-centuries most important guitar makers. So, I packed up my student project guitar and went to meet him. When I got to the front of the autograph line Paul looked at me and said "what's in the case?" and I told him I had brought a guitar I made to show to him and hopefully get some feedback and some pointers on how to make the next guitar better. He played it for a minute and said "stand over here for a minute, I want to talk to you when this is all done". Paul told me he liked the guitar and we talked for a while about our thoughts and ideas about guitarmaking. The next day he called me and asked me to make an acoustic guitar for him.

That same weekend I had accepted a job at McPherson guitars. Matt McPherson is fiercely detail oriented. Some times even coming into the shop with a watchmakers loupe to examine joints in purfling lines. I could either get good fast or head for the door. Over the next few months I learned how to go over every detail and be meticulous about my work. I had to train myself to be flawless in my wood working. Landing at McPherson was probably the best thing that could happen, because in many ways it was like a continuation of school. Almost like graduate studies.

While I worked at McPherson during the day I would go home to my basement and work in the evenings and weekends building the guitar Paul had commissioned from me. It took months but I sent it off and he called me to tell me it still needed work. So, he sent it back and I reworked it. Finally, at the end of two years Paul called me to say that he loved the guitar and asked me to come to Maryland to meet with him. He told me that PRS wasn't quite ready to jump into the acoustic world but that he was very interested in perusing that market. We decided that I would set up a shop and build some prototype acoustic guitars, pass them around to some select musicians to see if there was a market out there for an acoustic PRS. I packed up my family and moved home to Utah and set to drawing out designs and building prototype acoustic guitars.

A Friend of Paul's owned an original Torres which Paul said was the most amazing musical instrument he had ever heard. I was told that I was to go to California and experience this guitar for myself. Paul was right, it was an amazing guitar, not just because of the tone but because of the huge sound coming from such a small bodied guitar. The bass was big and thick, without sounding "woofy", it was full and rich and musical. The trebles were bright and jumped right out of the guitar. There was no question that this guitar had much to teach me. The owner was gracious enough to let me take the guitar back to my shop to see what I could learn from it. I measured everything inside and out and even had it x-rayed, trying to not only figure out what the old man did, but why he did what he did. After all the measuring and note taking I then had to figure out how to apply all I had learned to a steel strings guitar.That was the inspiration for the hybrid x-fan brace design and a new direction in my own pursuit of tone. I wanted my guitars to have the richness and articulation of a great classical guitar with the power of a steel string. My goal then became to make guitars that were balanced across the tonal spectrum with trebles that didn't give out and go limp, but were rich and jumped off the guitar and bass that was big and round and not "boomy" or over compressed. Each note would have to ring true through the cord. It would have to be so responsive that a musician could get the guitar to take them where ever they wanted without having to coax the notes out.

Over the next three years I designed guitars and build prototypes until Paul and I decided that we had developed a guitar that we could show to the world. With the support of some very important musicians PRS decided that it was time for the first line of PRS acoustic guitars. Once again I packed up my family and relocated to Maryland where I would establish the production process and train the crew that would build the guitars. The guitars were an instant success, winning a MIPA award for best acoustic guitar and very positive reviews all over the country and the world.

Unfortunately living on the east coast didn't work for my family and me and we decided that we wanted to be nearer our families and have our children grow up knowing their grandparents and cousins and things like that. So, once again I loaded up my family and headed back to Utah. Now I am very blessed to have the opportunity to do what I had wanted to do since the very beginning; establish Steve Fischer Guitars. Just me alone in my wood shop, no CNC machines, no lasers, just me building exactly the guitars that I have always wanted to make; simple elegance and uncompromising tone.

 ~ Steve Fischer