Guitar Builder from Bielefeld at the Teutoburg Forest.
Before moews Guitars came into being, there was a long time when Det Moews gained his knowledge about electric guitars from repairing them. Growing up in the Solling and Harz mountains, inside Lower Saxony it is the second largest range of hills, he was drawn in his early years to Bielefeld, the friendly city on the Teutoburg Forest. His closeness to nature and the living material wood have accompanied him since childhood. In this interview, Det Moews tells us what fascinates him so much about guitar making, how he founded his company moews Guitars and how he developed it further.
„When I was 14, I repaired my first electric guitar, and that’s when I realized what works and what doesn’t in the guitar system. Since then, I have learned something new from every guitar I have held in my hands. The fact that the internet didn’t exist back then was to my advantage. I had to grasp for myself how something worked and be able to reproduce it. In the student dormitory and later in my first own flat, the repairs went on and on. Word had got around that I had a good understanding of guitars. Because I quickly realized what was wrong with an electric guitar, what worked well on it and what caused problems.“
Det Moews describes what the guitar maker calls his philosophy and the basis of his work in guitar manufacturing: „I felt that I had to develop something myself, create it myself. My professionalization came from the daily work. And then I came to the point that I realized: What really inspires guitarists cannot be bought „off the shelf“. I wanted to develop and manufacture „my“ electric guitar in order to realize my ideal idea of the optimal electric guitar.“
What is important in guitar building?
Guitar making is a craft where guitar makers are also described as luthiers. We ask Det Moews: are you a luthier?
„It might sound a bit crazy, but there is no passion I follow,“ Det Moews says mischievously, expecting criticism. But he explains what exactly is meant by that: „I see the whole thing a bit more pragmatically. Passion would not be conducive to guitar making. Too much passion would only harm the precision. And we simply attach a lot of importance to every little detail fitting together.“
What is special about Det Moews electric guitars? What sound qualities can you expect from a moews and what sets him apart from other guitar makers. „I have certain crazy ideas about electric guitars that I don’t want to announce here. But I ask myself certain questions that then lead to a certain goal. How do I get the beautiful overtones? How do I get the guitar strings to vibrate freely in every register and continuously? And finally, how do I achieve the excellent playability of the moews guitars, which increase the virtuosity and joy of playing of the guitarist?“
Implementing the optimal electric guitar
For Det Moews, the essence of four guitar models and one bass model is the logical consequence of his work: „We limit ourselves to the essentials in order to get the widest possible sound spectrum. All four guitar models have the same ergonomic neck profile and feature the Compound Fretboard Radius and 60s Fret Leveling. This allows us to set a very low string action across the entire fretboard on our moews guitars. This gives the guitarist a nice, very comfortable playing feel and makes string bending easier.“
„One thing we never compromise on is tone! The journey of sound from the strummed string as a vibration, through neck and body to the pickups and then to the amplifier means many transmissions. We pay great attention to every single transmission, to everything that shapes the sound. So that the character of the individual components comes across as authentically as possible. For me, the electric guitar is a tool with a life of its own. Everything is relates to each other. We strive for a symbiosis where every part is beneficial for a great tone.“
