History

It was 1990, Larry Breedlove wanted to relocate to the small high desert town of Bend, Oregon – population just 20,000. A former logging community, the Cascade mountains were a haven for skiing, fishing, camping, mountain biking and rafting. Partnering with Steve Henderson they had a dream: to build acoustic instruments unlike any others. Experimenting with innovative designs, unique materials, and distinctive aesthetics, they created what was known as Breedlove sound. How? With two key structural components: a graduated top (thinner on the bass side and thicker on the treble side), and an innovative bridge truss system designed to enhance bass and midrange response by transferring some of the natural string-pull energy from the bridge to the tail block, thereby relaxing the top. The graduated top and the bridge truss created a uniquely musical and balanced voice that achieves remarkable sustain and harmonic complexity.

In 1992, they officially launched the company at NAMM with three body shapes and five models. In 1994, Larry’s brother Kim – a prolific luthier with two decades of experience building, repairing, and designing inlay for guitars, mandolins, dulcimers, and banjos – joined the small team as a master luthier. In 1995, Kim built the first Breedlove mandolin prototype that debuted at NAMM that year. The tiny company wrote 150 orders – and had no way to produce that volume of instruments.

In 2004, while continuing the handcraftsmanship in Bend, the Breedlove team took their innovative designs to a workshop in Korea, enabling a broader range of musicians to afford the unique Breedlove designs and sound.

All of our instruments are painstakingly designed in Bend, Oregon, utilizing exclusive design elements like our three proprietary body shapes – the Concertina, the Concert, and the Concerto, handcrafted necks, exotic tonewoods, and stunning inlays to deliver the instruments that will help you sound better, play better and play more. Our goal is to optimize the sound of your music by becoming the Preeminent Authority on Acoustic Sound.

ORGANIC COLLECTION

Great sound. No clear-cut woods.

The result of a pioneering three-year journey, The Organic Collection from Breedlove offers four impressive series of sustainably-sourced, all-solid-wood acoustic electric guitars at revolutionary prices.

Sustainably harvested all solid woods for superior sound. Torrefied European Spruce tops for aged sound, and durability. Natural-Sound Electronics with sound hole controls. Revolutionary Value. Starting at $499.

"We're making tomorrow's guitars today," beams Tom Bedell, whose whole earth philosophy and passion for high quality sound is the driving force behind The Organic Collection, designed in Bend, Oregon, and featuring individually-harvested FSC-certified exotic tonewoods like European spruce—torrefied at the source in the Swiss Alps—and African mahogany and ebony. Native Oregon myrtlewood is carefully salvaged and culled from the Pacific coast. No synthetic materials are used, and half the glue of traditional laminates means a lighter, more responsive instrument with dynamic range, tone and sustain rivaling other builder’s high end models.

Every entry in The Organic Collection features exacting top and back graduations informed by Breedlove’s Sound Optimization research; a thin UV finish; Natural Sound electronics with soundhole-mounted volume and tone controls; easy-to-maintain pinless bridges; and classic Breedlove playability.

Torrefaction makes the thermally “aged” spruce tops sing as though they’ve been played for thirty years and proves more resistant to changes in temperature and humidity.

The Organic Collection from Breedlove—it’s the natural path to uninhibited solid sound.