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. First, the soundboards: Pellerin uses only salvaged wood for tops — Sitka spruce, Western red cedar, Alaskan yellow cedar — pulled from forest sources where the trees have aged in place for fifty years or more. The water cells empty over that time and the resins crystallize, which Pellerin believes produces a more responsive soundboard than freshly milled wood can match. Second, the range: he builds steel-string flat-tops (his most common output, base price $14,500 USD) but also a deep harp-guitar practice that few other contemporary luthiers maintain — 13-string harp-guitars at $24,500 and 21-string harp-guitars at $29,500. The custom process starts with a two-hour shop meeting and runs 150-200 hours of build time. Pellerin's tonal signature gets described in the same handful of terms across owner communities: "grand piano," "responsive," "a mix of Goodall and Somogyi tones." Other established luthiers come to him for private instruction, which is roughly the highest peer-to-peer signal a builder can earn. He travels regularly to North American guitar shows — the Vancouver International Guitar Festival, the Artisan Guitar Show — and is known among owners as warm and unusually accessible. Current wait is twenty-six months. Inventory turns up at Dream Guitars and Brickhouse, which carries the largest active Pellerin selection we track. 