I've recently been doing research on different types of electric-guitar brands and I've discovered that there are a lot of smaller manufacturers that create very interesting guitars for a decent price. It all started when I discovered Kiesel (which is not a small manufacturer by any means) and really got into more affordable custom guitars that are still very high-quality. It made me realize that brands like Fender and Gibson (which I wasn't interested in in the first place) are really overpriced as shit. Even ESP's LTD series seems a tad bit overpriced when compared to Kiesel.
If you don't really care about a wall of text talking about some things that I've discovered then here's the question this thread is supposed to be about: Do you know of any other smaller guitar companies that have some very innovative designs? Do you own an interesting guitar yourself and what do you like/dislike about it? I'm mainly asking this because I'm looking for a new guitar myself. Also if your answer to those 2 questions is no then you may ofcourse still partake in the discussion, I'm not trying to exclude anyone's thoughts here.
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The guitar designs of these smaller companies also speak to me a lot more. For example, I love Strandberg's Boden series (not that I have one) due to their insanely low weight (like 5 pounds for a 6-string model) and headless design. And through Strandberg I accidentally found out about Steinberger guitars (due to remembering Strandberg as Steinberg for some reason...) with their minimalist (also headless) design and insane tuning stability. In fact I was tempted to buy a Steinberger, but their current series is just a bit too cheap & low quality for my taste. They're like 400 dollars and not even that light despite their minimalist design. Currently I'm very intrigued by Traveler Guitars, which, as the name suggests are primarily meant for traveling. Their main series consists of ultra-light guitars (like 3 pounds) with no headstock due to their in-body tuning system. Here's an example:
https://travelerguitar.com/products/ult ... tric-maple. They're a bit cheaper than Steinbergers and way more minimalist. I don't plan on buying one because it wouldn't be the best main-guitar but I absolutely love the design. They do have a higher-end series called the Vaibrant Deluxe which currently seems perfect to me:
https://travelerguitar.com/products/vai ... smic-black. They weigh slightly more than 5 pounds, have a Floyd Rose dual-locking tremolo and 3 decent pickups. Also they have 24 frets and a 17" neck/fretboard radius which is exactly what I'm looking for. I don't intend to use it while travelling, because, well, I don't travel. If I were to buy it it would purely serve as my main guitar. The price tag of 700 leads me to believe that the guitar is of atleast decent quality (no sharp fret ends, no shitty volume/tone knobs and good overall build-quality is what I expect from a decent guitar), though I still need to do more research on that.
Anyways, if anyone knows another company that has a guitar similar to that Vaibrant Deluxe then please let me know because I'd gladly spent some more money on a similar guitar that might be of higher quality.