Meet Your Maker: Carlos Lopez

MEET YOUR MAKER: CARLOS LOPEZ

We drop in on one of the Fender Custom Shop’s newest Master Builders in this installment of Meet Your Maker.

MMeet Your Maker: Carlos Lopez
Inside the Fender Custom Shop is a limitless universe of creation, occupied by some of the most talented luthiers ever to pick up a rasp. Carlos Lopez, one of the newest Master Builders, has established himself as a rising star. We spoke to Carlos and some of his colleagues about the Fender Custom Shop, the process and precision of building custom instruments, and what sets Carlos Lopez apart as a young builder eager to sign his name on the sound of the world.

Appointed to the role of Master Builder in 2019, Carlos spent five years as an apprentice to Todd Krause, Senior Master Builder of the Fender Custom Shop. His first Custom Shop build, the Fender Custom Shop Electric XII, resurrects one of Fender’s rarest designs, all but lost to history.

His second, the Fender Custom Shop Brawlers, show a vision that extends well beyond the Stratocaster and Telecaster, and into new dimensions. The Brawler, Lopez’s latest creation, is something entirely new. Developed in his home workshop, The Brawler’s size and shape changed over time until Lopez settled on the elongated body shape and 27” scale length that make this baritone a singular innovation. Paired with Curtis Novak’s low-wind, gold-covered humbuckers, the result is different, distinctive, and enough to make you rethink the way you play the guitar.

The Brawler, Fender Master Builder Carlos Lopez’s latest creation, is a baritone beauty that will make you rethink the way you play the guitar. Nathaniel describes the revelatory nature of this baritone, its origin, and why creativity, fearlessness, and discovery are at its heart.

The Electric XII is a historically accurate reproduction of the 1960s original. Fender had no original schematics or blueprints for this model, so Lopez analyzed a 1966 Fender Electric XII down to its smallest components, taking the entire guitar apart and reverse engineering it to handcraft replica parts from scratch.