TLL Guitars are fully handmade in Sweden by Luthier Tobias Lindberg. Tobias's guitars are heavily influenced by Art Deco designs of the 1930's. Each instrument he builds is a stunning piece of functional art, with forward thinking design implementation both inside and out. These guitars still seem to feel and sound familiar to even the most discerning musicians. Everybody who we've seen handle his instruments in our shop, has instantly been blown away with their high build quality, intricate details and overall beauty both aesthetically and functionally. Where this guitar gets everyone, is in its mesmerizing tone and the way the guitar vibrates so heavily in your hands. Not to sound cliche, but it's truly a guitar with tone that you can feel, just as much as hear.
The smaller body size than most Gibson or Fender style guitars on the Marvin makes this guitar extremely comfortable and is built with balance in mind. It sits perfectly in your lap without any body or neck dive whatsoever. TLL Guitars are a huge step above any instrument you can find that has been built in a factory. Every piece of this instrument has been painstakingly thought out and executed to stringent standard by hand. Having one great and highly talented artisan building your instrument, means that the guitar has been seen through from beginning to end by the careful eyes of Tobias Lindberg. There is so much to love about the beauty aesthetically of his instruments, such as this Marvin; however once you play one it's addicting.
This guitar resonates fearcly! Notes bloom and sustain in an acoustic-like manner. It is also quite loud before even plugging it in. We feel guitars like this can only be built by a guitar maker who has the utmost knowledge in their field; Tobias certainly does. While the guitar is a single cutaway design with P-90 style pickups, it is refreshingly spanky and responsive leaning towards a Fullerton-Style bolt on neck guitar in it's attack and overall fell. The 25 1/2" scale suits this design perfectly. It's as if TLL guitars are a mix of what makes both Kalamazoo and Fullerton style instruments at their best so fascinating to soo many players. The wider nut width of 1 & 11/16" and 9.5" fingerboard radius are two specs, not typically found on the same instrument. The same goes for the Wraparound bridge and 4 bolt neck construction. However these specs work soo incredibly well together. You get the best of both worlds; single cutaway Kalamazoo style guitar sustain with the spank and response of a Fullerton bolt-on neck. The neck pocket has the perfect radius built into it, giving this guitar the correct angles needed for it to perform its best. The Lundgren P-90 style pickups are clear and dynamic with great articulation. You can play lightly and the guitar sounds clean and sparkly, but when you dig into a note the pickups react in a blissful way that can overdrive a tube amp beautifully. These pickups certainly have that great fat P-90 tone so many love, but inside of this guitar they react in a more charming, charismatic way. Tonally this is a very pleasing and versatile instrument, in which the most discerning ears will love night after night of playing it. Rewarding is a great word for what this guitar brings to the table. The more you give the more the guitar gives back to whomever is lucky enough to call this their axe.
We wanted the looks and specs to match the wonderful workmanship TLL Guitars are known for. So their are quite a few upgrades on this Marvin compared to others. The body is built out of Kayah wood, another word for African Mahogany. It is dense like most Mahagonny but with a lighter weight. The body is topped off with a Maple veneer for added clarity as would find on a LP style guitar. We chose to have the beautiful 1/4" sawn Flame Maple neck to be finished in a light gloss water-based finish. Not only is this more environmentally friendly, but while looking and aging similar to Nitro; it feels less sticky while retaining that stunning shine. The top is also a gloss style finish. The back of the body is an oil based finish, giving the dark wood a feel and look that is very natural to the eye and to the touch, allowing the pores to be felt. The Wenge fretboard has some beautiful dreamy lines, that are addicting to look at. We chose to upgrade the inlays to oval celluloid pearl large inlays instead of dots. The top of the body, the neck and other appointments such as the knobs and tuners, are a classy grained ivoroid. The Deco style guard as well as truss rod cover and back plates are all handmade from a deep red tortoise celluloid. Their are a couple small dots in the wood around the cover. This is how it was when we received the guitar. The back of the headstock is Wedge and the headstock logo is the new TLL Pill style emblem. What more could one looking for a sonically rich and stand out guitar ask for? Needless to say we're extremely pleased with this TLL Marvin. In the last few pics you can see how the color changes in outdoor light from a Green color indoors to a more Turquoise color outside.
Specs:
Model: Marvin
Color: Green Metallic
Body: Kayah (African Mahogany
Top: Maple
Neck: Maple
Fretboard: Wedge
Headplate: Matching Green Metallic
Binding: Ivoroid
Tuners: Waverly
Bridge: Wraparound
Pickups: Lundgren BJFE P-90's, Nickel Covers
Pickguard: Tortoise Celluloid (Square)
Knobs: Ivoroid
Electronics: 3-way switch, 1 vol, 1 tone
Frets: Nickel Silver, Med/High
Nut Width: 1 11/16"
Neck: Med C .83" - .94"
Scale Length: 25 1/2"
Fingerboard Radius: 9.5"
Inlay: Oval Block Celluloid Pearl
Logo: TLL Pill Emblem
Truss Rod Cover Toroise
Weight: 7lbs 5oz
Case: Hiscox HSC
