My wife and I recently took a trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to visit family. While we were up there, I visited Cream City Music, an excellent music store in the area. I played a number of guitars, including a brand of Strat- and Tele-style guitars that I had never heard of: Landric Guitars. They are handmade and assembled by Rick Land in Grafton, Wisconsin. I played several of his Strat-style guitars, and they played as well as any Fender-made Strat I’ve ever played, including my own number one Strat. I’m not really looking to add another Strat to my collection, but if I were a Landric guitar would be at the top of the list. They are reasonably priced, too!
Land uses a mixture of high-quality parts, select hardwoods, custom finished bodies and hand-finished necks. For example, on the models I played, he used Lollar “Blackface” pickups, which sound fantastic. The neck felt extremely comfortable in my hands, and the overall weight of the guitar was very comfortable.
Cream City Music is currently the only retail store that carries Landric Guitars. You can contact them to get more information about Landric Guitars. I’ve only had the one visit with them, but they seemed very friendly and helpful.
You can see a demo of a Strat-style Landric guitar below (in fact, this is likely one of the guitars I played in the store):
The prices seems somewhat high for guitars using Allparts necks. I would expect Warmoths at that price point. Do you agree?
Aubrey, I would not disagree with you that the prices are a little high compared to other builders who craft every piece of wood by hand. However, I can only say that the Landric guitar played as good or better than any other Strat-style guitar I’ve played. It seems like Rick puts a lot of effort into finishing the neck so that it plays as well as any others. I’ve never played a Warmoth neck, so I can’t compare, but the prices seem to be comparable between Allparts and Warmoth. Is there a well-known quality difference between them that I’m not aware of?
Warmoth necks feel more to me like premium Fender necks. Allparts have a look and feel to me more like basic Fender models or Squiers. They’re not bad at all, just not quite what I would expect for that price point. It’s a good review, though. Thanks for sharing the info.
Thanks for the info, Aubrey!
I actually have the guitar in this video; picked it up a few days ago for $1100. And let me tell you, the Allparts neck feels 10 times better than any Fender neck. Rick sets them up perfect, and the hand oiled finish makes it feel incredibly comfy. If you want the absolute truth, it plays and sounds better than my Custom Shop Strat. Throw in the Lollars ($300 on their own), and I honestly have no idea how you would expect to get anything this quality from Fender at that price. It’s just unheard of.
Hey Jack, thanks for letting me know that you picked up the guitar. If it’s the same one I played (and I’m pretty sure it is), I agree that the neck actually feels great…as good or better than any Fender neck I’ve played.
Hi. I have played several Landric guitars and and own one of his strats bought at cream city last year. They are nothing but quality. Hand built and done with an awful lot of attention to detail. My only regret is that I dint get two or three. I would advise anyone to try one as soon as possible and to buy, what are still early serial number models as Im certain Ricks guitars are going to be huge in the future. Absolute quality.
Hey, one other thing. I asked at cream city for Ricks number to speak with him and they gave it to me no problem. We chatted on the phone and he is a really nice,approachable guy. If you wanted anything changed, a different pick up, neck, whatever, he is happy to listen. He will even build to your specification anything at all. Getting a landric now could be your childrens pension plan in place. These guitars are going to be huge.
Eddy. Manchester UK.
Rick actually has his own website now: http://www.landricguitars.com Super guy!