Ivan Mulia of Indonesia loves blues music and the resonator guitar, especially the metal-body versions that are hard to find in his country. He started iVee Guitars in 2009, drawing on more than a decade of experience in an aluminum casting workshop to bring an unusual set of techniques to guitar-making. Resonator guitars use a metal cone built into the body to project sound acoustically, a design that predates amplification and still carries a distinct, cutting tone favored in blues and slide playing.
One of iVee’s signatures is floral etching across the whole body of the guitar, generally drawing on Indonesian traditions such as batik and songket. Blending precise technical calculation with that kind of artistic craft is a hallmark of Mulia’s work, and each guitar is built one at a time rather than produced in batches, closer to a piece of metalwork than a factory build.
Mulia works out of a small shop in Cimahi, West Java, building around ten guitars a year, and he has been recognized as a supporting member of the European Guitar Builder association. That kind of scale keeps every instrument close to a one-off rather than a run of identical models made from a single template.
The work has traveled beyond Indonesia, too. Paris watch retailer Laurent Picciotto commissioned a custom iVee for his Chronopassion shop, its aluminum body hand-etched with portraits of watchmakers rather than the usual floral pattern, a reminder of how far a single custom order can stretch the same core technique.
We caught iVee Guitars’ work up close at the NAMM Show, where the floral aluminum bodies stood out against a floor full of more familiar wood-bodied instruments.
A few booths away at the same show, we also stopped by Jennings Guitars, another small operation building instruments by hand rather than at scale.
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