So I was about 12, and the only things that mattered in life were: Guitar, Rush, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Until that point, all I knew about guitar was acoustic (I was playing acoustic since I was 7). I remember asking my friend Mike Becker how Tony Iommi got that heavy Black Sabbath sound. His reply was " you need an electric axe with distortion dude!" So I traded him a joint for a Strat copy, plugged it into a tape deck with the inputs overloaded and discovered distortion-And my life took a hard left turn.

  From that point on, I was consumed with tweaking tone. At that age, I found Jimmy Pages ability to coax unique sounds from his guitar fascinating. However, it was Alex Lifeson from Rush that inspired me to develop my first guitar electronics. (Pages tone was impossibly elusive for a child!) I was listening to "The Grand Finale" (end of side one-2112) where Alex used a "wha" pedal on his solo . I discovered that rolling the tone knob on the guitar could reproduce that sound. So I reverse engendered a dump truck made from "Legos" and inserted the tone pot from my guitar in place of the "dump" motor. By moving the bed of the truck with my foot, I had accomplished "Wah".  At that point, I thought I was god of tone - I was wrong.

   Over the following years, I became obsessed with electric guitar tone. By the age of 17, I discovered Metallica. The patented Metalicrunch was the sound to die for. It took years to figure out the secret of EMG pickups and gain, gain, gain! I performed live for the first time at the Washington High School "Battle of the Bands" playing selections from Ride the Lightning. The response was an overwhelming "What the f*** was THAT?" Metallica was not yet hip, but we had the sound-and that was all that mattered. Around this time, I also began learning the art of building guitars by taking wood working classes at a place called "New Beginning in Wood".

  After high school, I became deeply involved with my other passion, cars. I loved hotrods and began building fast cars. Since guitar was still a hobby at that point, I obtained sponsorship from Cadillac and attended their private and prestigious university for automotive training. After graduation, I began working for Cadillac inspecting vehicles and performing quality control tests on new Caddy's. But my love for guitar tone was still strong. As a hobby, I began playing in bands with a heavy focus on tone. I joined a working band and started acquiring the gear needed to sound great live. Unfortunately, while road testing a new Cadillac, I got a parking ticket in front of a music store while buying a new Marshall amp and got fired form the Cadillac gig. From that point forward, guitar was all that mattered.

   Around 1995 I joined another band "Josia-Bruce". No one ever heard of "Josia", but the Bruce was Michael Bruce of Alice Cooper fame. The prestige of filling his shoes was huge (in my mind only) and I played my fist gig as the headliner at "The Mason Jar" (AZ residents all know Franco and "The Jar") I remember the opening band leader "Michael Nitro" approaching me after the show and saying: "All you did was a bunch of crazy penatonics, but your tone was HUGE". In retrospect it was a slam on my playing, but at the time it was a huge compliment. Since I was never happy with my sound, I was always looking to Jimmy Page for "Tonal Guidance". I felt that with the right sound, a player could memorize the crowd with a single note. I quickly discovered that amps, effects and pickup switching were all part of the mix. So I obtained, Strats, Les Pauls, Marshalls, Boogies, processors and every pedal known to man. I think this was also when I discovered the "neck" pickup. Since EMG pickups were "one sound wonders" I bought a Duncan Invader and a Duncan '59 and threw them in my Strat. Hallelujah for organic tone! This introduction to Seymour was another pivotal turning point in my eternal quest for killer tone. However, it was the "phased" and "Tapped" sounds that Jimmy Page had that intrigued me and peaked my interest in pickup coil switching. I began tinkering with coil wiring and its effects on tone. I also began playing with MIDI triggering from a guitar with a system developed by Gibson and and a company called Shadow.

   By late 1995, I had taken several circuits developed by Shadow Electronics (Shadow Elektroakustik in Germany) and tweaked them to the max. I eagerly presented them to Shadows president Joe Marinic in Florida with the "look what I made" attitude. He was quick to point out that everything I did was already perfected by his company years before, but he liked my enthusiasm for tone and offered me a Job at his factory in Germany. It was at that point that I began my professional career of "tone".

    While in Germany, I began building guitar pickups and preamps for top companies like Gibson, Honer, Dean and others as well as assisting with development of leading edge guitar products. However it was Shadows need for a website that changed everything. President Joe Marinic said to me "Figure out this internet s**t and build us a website!". So I went back to America and bought a computer. As a beta test for the Shadow website, I started a sample website called GuitarElectronics.com. All of the web publishing skills needed to put Shadow Electronics on the web were tested on GuitarElectronics.com. I started by posting wiring diagrams for Strats, Teles and Les Pauls. When I had the website process down, I published Shadows first website. Ironically, the GuitarElectronics.com site became immensely popular. I began receiving requests for custom wiring systems and the parts required to contract them.

    By mid 1996, The Guitar Electronics site was receiving 1000+ hits a day and sales of custom diagrams and guitar parts were skyrocketing. I continued working for Shadow Elektroakustik in Germany and growing Guitar Electronics simultaneously until around 2000. Being the only man in a factory of all women, the temptations were huge. Summarily I was fired for having "relations" with "Yanna" (A Russian girl that worked in assembly with me). This was however a blessing in disguise as it forced me to focus solely on Guitar Electronics. The company became a corporation that same year.

   Since the money was not enough to live on, I started working for Gary Lowe of Note Works fame to pay my way through engineering school. This is where I learned the magic of "the tube" and all things related to amps. Although the money was great, Guitar Electronics was getting huge beyond my wildest dreams and Seymour Duncan approved me to be dealer based on my knowledge of their products. At the same time (around 2001) I revived my interest in pickup switching (GuitarElectronics.com Inc. was now a full time gig) With the Jimmy Pages Les Paul as my inspiration, I began working on a device that could obtain any pickup combination possible from any number of pickup coils.  This device became my "Senior Project" at DeVry University and with the perfection of the concept, my team won the top awards at the project fair. This triumph set my future in stone, I was determined to become a master or guitar tone-all other jobs be damned!

    After graduation, I decided I would not accept any job offers. My company, Guitar Electronics Inc. had earned a world wide reputation for guitar electronics design and the money was flowing great. I quickly teamed up with my top professor from DeVry (Bill Bro) and began the commercial development of what is now the Guitar Max Pickup control system (I owe it all to Jimmy Page!) Along with developing electronics, I was also honing my guitar repair skills. As an assembly tech for Shadow, I was no stranger to guitar building (Shadow made amazing guitars in the '90s) As the company grew, I began getting requests for custom work. So I started accepting repairs by mail and was on my way to solidifying my career in the guitar industry.

    In 2003, I opened "The Guitar and Electronics Repair Center". Ironically, it is across the street from DeVry where I learned my engineering skills and in the same complex where I learned wood working at "New Beginning in Wood" almost 20 years before. My concept for the the shop was simple: Provide professional service beyond everyones expectations. I relied on my training from Cadillac where customer satisfaction came before everything else. The entire business was to be centered around the business model of the finest Cadillac dealership I had ever visited-Coulter Cadillac.  Everything from the presentation of the shop to the crews uniforms and of course the anal-retentive pursuit of perfection were all born of Cadillac training.  In addition, since no man can be an expert in everything, I took the "Dave Mustaine/Megadeth" approach: For the things you are not an expert in, hire an expert (enter Marty Friedman)! So I began assembling my "Dream Team" of personnel.

    Fast Forward to present. GuitarElectronics.com Inc. and The Guitar & Electronics Repair Center have grown beyond my wildest dreams. Our staff is a "super group" of the finest people in the guitar industry and we receive referrals and compliments from the world's top companies. There is no greater reward in life other than to to what you love and be rewarded for it. To all that are not yet familiar with our shop, I encourage you to stop by and experience a world renowned experience and over the top service. And to my crew and all that have helped us along the way... 1000+ Thanks! I am truly blessed beyond all possible dreams.

     Robert Super, President & CEO - GuitarElectronics.com Inc.