VRe Custom Guitars

Classic Look • Vintage sound • Modern feel

VRe Custom Guitars was built on the idea that a great guitar is born out of the combination of the right design, the right wood, and the right components.

As a child, owner Ray Vidal would take apart his toys,  and put them back together, along the way figuring out how they worked.  As one would expect, this passion to understand, carried over into all aspects of his life. At a very young age Ray got the music bug and wanted to learn how to play an instrument. His uncle gave him a guitar at the age 9 and of course, before he could even play the instrument he had already started taking it apart,  and putting it back together….. multiple times actually. Inspired by an article in a Guitar player magazine which detailed Eddie Van Halen’s quest for the perfect guitar, Ray began mixing parts and modifying any guitar he could get his hands on. 

But that was just the beginning. With the help of his high school wood shop teacher Ray learned how to make pin router templates, and by 1986 he was cutting and painting guitar bodies and selling them to friends and anyone who wanted one. Wanting to expand his knowledge in the art of guitar building,  he would visit a local guitar repair shop in the San Fernando valley called (LA Guitar Works) owned by master Japanese luthier Toru Nittono. Ray would spend as much time as he could at the shop with Toru,  learning anything and everything he could from him. Over the years Ray used these skills to repair and create custom guitars for friends, never as a business but more as a therapeutic passion. 

Fast forward to 2015 Ray began working for Boutique amps distribution were he helped develop and market the Friedman Amps Guitar line.  During his time there, he continued to refine his skills by working hand in hand with Guitar Builder Groover Jackson. In 2019 Ray moved to Nashville Tn,  and at the advice of a few friends and family decided to take his life long passion and turn it into a small business. 

VRe Custom Guitars was born.

Ray knew that the guitar market already had a number of companies reproducing classic designs and just adding their logo to the headstock. But his belief is that music is about individual passion and each artist has their own identity. Ray understood that If his passion was to become a business, it needed to have its own identity and unique design’s, Ray wanted to present 3 new body designs that paid respect to the classics but still represented the VRe identity. 

Ray believes that the most important design detail would be the guitar’s headstock. “It is what makes or breaks a guitars beauty.” 

Since 2010 Ray has been refining his approach to the design and shape of his signature headstock. The VRe headstock is a perfect blend of vintage and Modern with a surprising ability to always keep the instrument in tune. 

But, Ray did not want to stop there, one of the most important components of any electric guitar are the pickups, they are truly the voice of the instrument. Ray has worked hard to develop a small line of pickups that can be used for any style of playing from a Spanky Twang sound to blistering shred or crystal clear cleans and everything in-between. With one focus and one focus only, pure clarity, tone and dynamics. 

VRe Custom Guitars’ mission is to provide every player who straps on a VRe the experience of having a one of a kind guitar. VRe Custom Guitars is not in the business of mass producing guitars for retail stores, but neither are they intended in over pricing their guitars. Ray merely wants to produce great quality, classic looking guitars with vintage tones and modern feels.  All VRe Custom guitars are built in small batches of 3 by Ray Vidal striving to be as unique and creative always pushing to be a one of a kind.

Welcome to VRe Custom Guitars.