Pellerin Guitars

Michel Pellerin trained at the École Nationale de Lutherie du Québec, finishing in 1998, after a brief stint in factory guitar production convinced him that assembly-line work wasn't his cup of tea. He set up his own shop in Thetford Mines, Quebec, and has been there ever since. In 2011 he took Ervin Somogyi's voicing class in Oakland; that training opened up the analytical side of acoustic design that has shaped the work since. He builds with partner François C. Paradis — the two together have produced about 250 guitars to date, a small enough number that each one still gets the meticulous individual attention that defines the shop. Two practices stand out.