Specimen Products is a Chicago-based manufacturer of custom guitars, tube amplifiers, and audio horn speakers led by luthier Ian Schneller. Specimen Products also offers courses in guitar and tube amplifier design, construction, and repair through their Chicago School of Guitar Making. The Specimen workshop offers repair services to the general public, making use of their collection of parts from rare and vintage manufacturers.
History
The brand Specimen Products was conceived by company founder Ian Schneller in 1981, during his undergraduate study at the Memphis College of Art. After completing his graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Schneller began producing instruments in favor of sculpture. In 1986, as he began producing more instruments for friends and band mates, Schneller established his workshop on Chicago's south-side Archer Street, in a loft rented by his band Shrimp Boat. The first commissioned project Specimen undertook was fulfilling Tar guitarist John Mohr's request for an "indestructible guitar," a task that would develop the company's longstanding experiments with aluminum guitars. The Archer Street facility was creatively productive but Schneller states that he only sold a single unit out of the many produced. In 1992, Specimen was moved to Madison Street. It was at this facility that the company began to offer guitar and tube amplifier repair services. In the two years spent on Madison Street, Specimen introduced their first two standard models, the Pippin and the Maxwell. At this time Schneller began to experiment with mimicking the silhouette of established guitar models using non-traditional materials. This experiment would prove central to the philosophy behind Specimen's later designs. By 1994, Specimen was working to fulfill backlogged orders. In 1994, Specimen moved to a storefront on Division Street in the Wicker Park neighborhood. At this point Specimen's plans for a production run of 10-Watt amps materialized in the Petimor amplifiers. The Division Street shop allowed for an expanded repair business. Repairing so many guitars from big manufacturers impressed upon Schneller the need for minimalist designs with very durable construction. These tenets have become the standard of Specimen Products designs. The Division Street shop became a prominent show room for the custom instruments, establishing a customer base with many local musicians, as well as those travelling through the area. In 2003, the business grew large enough to warrant moving to a new facility on Chicago's near westside, representing a shift to an industrial model of production rather than a boutique. It is equipped with modern specialized equipment for finishing completed products as well as intensive design of new models. In 2005, this facility became the operating center for Schneller's Chicago School of Guitar Making.
Products
Specimen Products offers a wide variety of products for sale from their showroom. The string instruments, tube amplifiers, and horn speakers produced by Specimen use experimental designs and materials, or seek to reinvent antique designs or concepts.
Instruments
The instruments produced by Specimen products have become highly regarded as both ornate works and quality sound. While Specimen continues to experiment with different materials and designs, most of their works fall into one of the various series designed by Schneller.
Aluminum
Pippin
Maxwell
Royale
Singletons
Audio
The stated design principle of Specimen Products' audio equipment emphasizes durability and functionality over feature-rich designs. The tube amplifiers are built without the functionality that comes standard on most production amplifiers, theoretically limiting the number of possible locations for distortion and malfunction, though there is some controversy to this claim.
