Original subtitles

Still makes me go, wow.

I'm executive chairman.

I was CEO for 35 years. And come January 1, I'm going to retire and remain

chairman of my family's business.

I did not grow up in my family's business.

I grew up with my mother, who then remarried, and I stayed with her until I

to college.

But I actually was going to become a marine biologist.

The summer before college, a friend of my dad's came to visit. He said, why

don't you apply to UCLA?

and you can work in my music store.

Went to UCLA, worked at Westwood Music, and pretty quickly Fred Wallachy

realized Chris really doesn't know anything about the business.

He briefly said, why don't you go in the back and help John Carruthers repair

guitars? And he realized very quickly, Chris doesn't know how to repair

so I quit college. My mother was in a tizzy, and I moved in with my

and I worked at a shop.

We are in the sawmill.

This is where the very first step comes in.

Wood actually gets delivered from basically all over the world right to

sawmill area here. We'll inspect it for the quality of the wood that we're

buying. We'll start to palletize the wood, get it ready to be processed in

area.

I really wanted to get a taste of as much as I could, and I spent the better

part of the rest of that year.

Learning some simple jobs and understanding the complex jobs I'm not

learn in a week or two.

Getting wood from all over the world means it might have a lot of different

humidity. So we have things like vacuum kilns. We have a wet room.

We have drying kilns that will run that wood through to get the actual internal

moisture of the wood exactly where it needs to be.

Several folks said, okay, Chris, if you're going to join the business, you

an MBA.

So that means I go to a small liberal arts school for four years, and then I

to college for two more years. I said, no, I'm actually ready.

I want to join the family business.

Fortunately, Boston University has an undergraduate business program, so I

transferred into BU.

This room is full of wood that is acclimating, again, to this environment.

each piece of wood needs to be on sticks for at least two weeks minimum.

This will allow the air to flow freely through each piece of wood. One of the

most important classes I took was organizational behavior.

So the professor's up there and he goes, all right, kids, you know the answer.

Today, who makes the best cars on Earth?

The operators here are inspecting the wood, make sure that there's no

tracks, stack pockets, wormholes.

Japan. And the professor goes, right, how did that happen?

How did it happen?

And so he gave us the history of America committing to reconstruct Japan after

the war to teach them modern management science.

So here we can see operators using a plant carrier to actually glue up the

Now this operator is working on a three -piece back. We'll do two -piece backs

as well.

The professor said, the dynamic in American manufacturing needs to shift.

I thought about my family's business.

Very hierarchical, top -down. That's just the way businesses were run.

He said, in my estimation, the key going forward is to tap into the

individual worker because they know more about that job than anyone else in the

business.

I've been at Martin for 26 years.

Holy cow.

It doesn't really feel like that long, but, yeah, it's been 26 good years.

My main job is programming the polishing robots, but I also do a lot of the high

-end final polishing.

I'll do things like John Mayer 45.

We did Post Malone's guitar that he played at the Super Bowl.

My skill set is just really set up for finishing, and I have good attention for

details.

This has Brazilian rosewood sides and back, so this one is quite valuable.

So this won't get run on our polishing robot.

This would normally be the first step after the robot.

But I've already done all the breaking down by hand.

I am a third -generation employee. My grandfather and father both retired from

here.

It's the G50. It's the 50th anniversary of Chris Martin being with the company.

Yeah, 50 years.

So when I joined the company, business was terrible.

So we're in the North Street factory.

This factory was in operation from 1859 until our Sycamore Street factory was

opened in 1964.

So all of those great pre -war guitars from the 30s and early 40s were built

here. I mean, this is where Martin started seeing the demand.

Eventually, they just outgrew the factory, and that's why they needed the

Sycamore Street factory.

But, I mean, you think of all the great guitars that were built here, like the

first D -45 for Gene Autry.

I mean, all of the Grand Ole Opry stars from the early days. I mean, this

cover's great because it has Kitty Wells on it. She was the first female country

artist to have a number one song on the country charts, and she played a D -28.

Then, of course, Johnny Cash and Roger Miller. Johnny has a D -45 there.

And this is Johann George Martin's baptismal certificate from 1765.

So we have something that predates the United States of America in our

C .F. Martin Sr.'s baptismal certificate from 1796.

This starts the journey for Martin Guitar, his father being a cabinetmaker

building guitars on the side, and then eventually seeing that his son was more

interested in building guitars than he was furniture.

To me, one of the most fascinating things about Martin Guitar is the

a very pivotal guitar company and the history of modern acoustic guitars.

but it's also the history of a family.

So when I joined the company, the business was terrible.

And if you were making pointy electric guitars for hair metal bands, the 80s

were good for the guitar business.

But for acoustic folk guitars, not so much. I said, look, if this is our lot

life, this is our lot in life. Let's make good guitars.

So we refocused on quality.

We've been making guitars for over 190 years, and obviously we've... embrace

technology. This is actually a seven -axis CNC machine, so we can take it

from this neck billet form, which was cut by hand in the sawmill, right to a

finished looking neck. This one even has slotted heads in it.

We've invested millions and millions and millions of dollars in upgrading the

way that we make an instrument whose design more or less hasn't changed for

to 75 years.

This is an example of the X -bracing pattern that was first created by

Frederick Martin in the 1840s. It gives the guitar the stability.

Once you put the steel strings on, if you didn't have a very stable inside,

whole thing would blow apart.

Fortunately for me,

MTV Unplugged happened at some point.

And that began to remind people just how stinkin' cool it is.

to hold an acoustic guitar and make some music.

So business picked up. We had to hire.

This is Grandpa.

And what is so significant about Grandpa is Kurt Cobain, you know, used it on

the Nevermind tour.

You know, they did their unplugged show, and it's just, you know, mind -blowing.

Kurt was playing another D -18 on there.

All this wear is from a left -handed guitarist because there's no pickguard

there. The sound of it is what they fell in love with, the look of it. Guitars

like this are really behind not only a piece of music history, it's a piece of

pop culture history.

When you talk to a lot of people that are, you know, Martin fanatics, really

into the history of the company, they have such reverence for the employees

worked here, built those guitars, and really helped shape modern music.

This photo was taken in the 1920s. A little bit different than things now.

I mean, it does make you appreciate a lot of what we have now.

A Martin guitar, thin wood, it's really sensitive to the environment that it's

in. So they wouldn't open the windows during the summer. If it was 90 degrees

outside, it was 90 degrees plus in the factory.

You had to make sure that the factory was a certain climate so that the

you were building, you know, they were able to survive.

We can tell they were dedicated from how excellent the guitars are that the

company built.

Before we had electricity, they would actually hold a candle behind the top of

the guitar.

to look for any hidden defects so we recreate that now by shining a light

through and when we do that we can see there's a hidden sap pocket right inside

this top here so we know not to use that part you can see here the braces are a

little long in length and they're a little beefy they will actually hand

the shape and size of these braces they'll then sand each brace by hand We

say we want the inside of the guitar to look as nice as the outside of the

guitar.

This machine is using a probe to get the outside dimension of that particular

guitar. Then it will come back in with a high -speed router bit and actually cut

a channel on the outside of the guitar.

That's where the echo binding material then will get inlaid.

This neck will forever be married to this body.

They are getting fit as we speak right now.

Now, they're going to go their separate ways for a little bit as it goes through

the process, but when it gets over to final assembly, that neck has to be put

back with that body.

People talk about the Martin sound.

Part of it's the design, it's the materials, it's the craftsmanship, and

consistent sound.

It's all there, you know.

A really good player would be all over the thing.

I always wanted to be a guitar maker. That was really my first thing that I

thought I wanted to do.

But the guitar that I always wanted to model myself after was a Martin guitar.

What we're looking at here is a 1935, most of the guitar, 1935

Thunberg Model D18.

They have become very popular.

It's nicked and scratched, but it's not damaged.

The first Martin that came my way that I bought, a 1928 00018 12 -fret.

And I played it, and there was something about it I thought, this is really

special.

This guitar, I would guess, in the neighborhood of about $150 ,000

Going to jam sessions, they'd play my guitar, or they'd say, hey, it plays so

easy, and it sounds so great.

How come my guitar plays hard? I said, well, because it needs fretwork and it

needs a saddle.

And a lot of times I'd go to a jam session with my guitar and I'd leave

three guitars.

And that kind of started the whole process.

This particular guitar is a 1938 Martin 00042.

The 1939 00042 was the guitar that Eric Clapton used on the Unplugged album.

Folk musicians and bluegrass people have known what they were for years. I think

the rock and roll people became aware of it because of that.

Yeah, it's a $100 ,000 guitar, and worth every penny in my mind.

The Martin guitars, the value of them is a matter of craftsmanship, materials,

good design, and basically an integrity from the very beginning.

And here we are in our neck assembly department.

The operators here will hammer in the frets into the fingerboard. These side

dots will get drilled out by hand.

A lot of other little operations are going on. So by the time it comes out of

this department, it should be a fully assembled neck.

One of the reasons I wanted to experience building a Martin guitar was

closer understanding of the...

What is it about the individual craftsperson that makes the Martin

Martin guitar?

I've been here 38 years.

I didn't get the gift that my grandfather had, which was being able to

ear. My gift is I'm more mechanical in nature, but with a creative flair. So

able to think abstractly about how to put things together and not so

conventionally.

So this is our number three millionth guitar, the presentation piece that

been working on for about a year and a half.

The greatest guitars were designed back in the 1930s and 40s. That is when the

pinnacle of the Martin design evolved.

Those guitars in that time period are super collectible because, A, not many

were made, but they were just phenomenal sounding guitars.

And we're seeing the sycamore tree on the back. And you can see some

leaves, and those leaves represent past, present, and future co -workers.

What our direction is today is to take what was great back then and make it

better today.

So it's really highlighting the fact that this company didn't just evolve

the Martin family. It also evolved from everybody who's had a hand in it.

When I used to fit necks, you spent your day chiseling and filing until you got

that neck to fit perfectly into the body.

Nowadays, we're using technology to help us get there and get there much more

consistently. At this point in my life, I enjoy what I do. I enjoy creating

these instruments. I also enjoy and get rewarded by people who

get these guitars in their hands.

I was in a guitar center of all places, and there was a guy by the name of Buddy

Church, and he's since passed away.

One of the best guitar players I'd ever seen in my life. And I walked into the

acoustic room, and he goes, he goes, come here, you gotta hear this guitar.

I'm getting chills telling the story, by the way. It was a Golden Era D18, and

he played it, and it filled, I'm gonna get, my chills are exponentially bigger

now.

And I heard it.

And I was like, this is like, this is what a guitar is supposed to sound like.

I don't know. I just feel like Martin is the sound of the American acoustic

guitar.

This is the one. This is my 1954 Martin D18, my

favorite guitar of any acoustic guitar I own.

I had this one on the road for a long time, and then I decided it'd be

best not to keep it on the road.

But when I am home, if I'm sitting here, and I have a guitar in my hand,

nine times out of ten it's a guitar, just because, I don't know, it has a

to it.

I think that you have to have...

good quality material to make a guitar with. I do believe that. Because I think

good in, good out.

But to me, what makes a great acoustic guitar or any guitar is the people

it.

When you have people who make guitars, who care about guitars, it matters.

We attract people that...

either have an artistic bent or they want to be around people that love music

and and you know the idea that yeah it's a factory and i got a puncher clock but

i'm making the best guitar on earth right so there's a lot more to do on

but we are in the early stages we got the box put together we're using some

sycamore for the sycamore tree in there this is all solid gold and then all

these little holes

It needs to be filled with diamonds.

The next thing we need to do is get it into finishing.

Probably have my cast polish it.

To me, this just represents several generations worth of work, and it's a

celebratory piece.

Many people consider guitars art, and they can produce art, and this certainly

qualifies, in my opinion, as art.

So we now have the final product.

It'll go into a case. It'll sit inside that case for a minimum of four days.

After four days, it'll come back out and we'll do a reinfection on each guitar.

We're building a product that is meant to last 100, 150, 200 years. So our

employees take a great deal of pride in exactly what they do because it's going

to get passed down through generations.

These key artists in every popular genre of music have played Martin guitars,

and it's not like Martin was paying them to play those guitars.

It's not like they were giving the guitars away. They were playing those

because they wanted the best sound.

As people say, we are making some of the best guitars the company's ever made,

and the company's always made great guitars.