Takamine Guitars
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Takamine Co., Ltd. (高峰楽器製作所 Takamine Gakki Seisakusho) is a Japanese guitar manufacturer based in Nakatsugawa, Gifu, Japan. Takamine is known for its steel-string guitars.
The company was founded in May 1962; in 1978 they were one of the first companies to introduce acoustic-electric models, where they pioneered the design of the preamp-equalizer component.
The company name is often pronounced /ˈtækəmaɪn/ in English. Closer to the Japanese would be /tɑːkəˈmiːniː/.
[edit] Company history
Takamine's US-American distributor is Kaman. The Takamine F-340 was the cause of a letter from Martin Guitars in the early 1980s because Takamine's acoustic guitars including the logo design were supposedly nearly identical to Martin Models[citation needed]. According to Chris F. Martin IV, CEO of CF Martin and Company in a speech given to the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum members on August 8, 2005, no lawsuit was ever actually filed, and Takamine did change the appearance of their guitars[citation needed].
Every year since 1987 Takamine presents a Limited Edition Guitar model, which gets produced in very limited quantities up to a few hundred guitars for the world wide distribution. These guitars always come with the latest pickup/preamplifier combination available and artful inlays, often with motifs focusing on nature or astronomical phenomena.[1]
