Well 2012 turned out to be quite a year.
We built the first production batch of five guitars, exhibited at the Bristol Guitar Show, where we got a fantastic response from visitors to our stand, and got a write-up in Guitarist Magazine, who featured us with a double-page-spread in their First Play section (issue #358) and did a nice little video to boot…
Hirsch Guitar at the Bristol Guitar Show
Hirsch SB-1 Radius in Guitarist Magazine's First Play section, issue #358
Two of the best specialist guitar retailers in the UK (World Guitars in Gloucestershire and Play Away guitars in Sussex) each have one of the First Edition guitars in stock, and another is out in Hong Kong with actor and musician Ah Dee (Edmond Tong Chun Yip), seen here in Windmill Grass Theatre‘s Cantonese adaptation of Terrence McNally’s play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.
Ah Dee on stage with a Hirsch SB-1 Radius
Meanwhile, I took a long-planned round-the-world trip to celebrate my 40th birthday, and of course took an SB-1 Radius with me – 8 flights, 7 cities and 4 continents in 18 days, with the guitar with me in the cabin all the way 🙂
Round the world with an SB-1 Radius
The one thing I haven’t done much of is update this blog… Must try harder. But to be honest, I tend to use Facebook and Twitter a lot more these days for posting updates and keeping in touch – so please do pop over to Facebook or Twitter and follow us.
But I did refresh the web site (again… but hey, that’s the beauty of the web, you keep tweaking and playing around until you get it right…). I think this version works much better – it’s a lot simpler for starters. Do take a look – www.hirsch-guitar.com. I hope you like it!
www.hirsch-guitar.com
Overall, it feels like everything is heading in the right direction. Albeit slow progress, as I’ve always expected it would be. I think the next step is a proper PR and Marketing campaign, which will require some decent funding. I’m contemplating going down the crowdsourcing route via Kickstarter or similar – I’m not sure the business is yet at a stage where it would appeal to a professional / heavy-weight investor, but perhaps there might be enough people out there who, like me, just want to “see it happen” and get the SB-1 Radius out there into the world, and who, like me, are happy to be in it for the long term rather than a quick profit. Let’s see what 2013 brings.
Happy New Year, everybody!