We have been fans of Recording King guitars since playing the beautiful and reasonably priced Recording King ROS-626 in 2008. We have been huge fans of Eric Schoenberg since about the same time since we were in Schoenberg’s store when we played it.

So you can imagine our excitement when we learned from a very reliable source that Recording King and Eric Schoenberg have been working together to develop a new guitar that will be launched at the Winter NAMM Show this week.

We have written about Recording King guitars many times because we have consistently been so impressed by them. In fact, Recording King even had one of the ten most popular guitars on Fretbase in 2009. Recording King is based in Hayward, California and designs their guitars here in the U.S., but then the company manufactures the guitars in China to enable users to get top-quality guitars at extremely reasonable prices. From what we have seen, Recording King really follows through on their commitment to “building instruments that offer unparalleled quality and value, within the reach of every player.”

What we really like about Recording King is that the company regularly experiments with new designs based on classic models rather than just making knock-offs of currently popular guitars. In addition to the Recording King ROS-626, we have been very impressed with the company’s all-mahogany guitars – the ROS-606 and ROS-616 – both of which were released when major U.S. guitar manufacturers started cutting back on the manufacture of mahogany guitars.

The collaboration with Eric Schoenberg seems like a match made in heaven. In addition to being the proprietor of Schoenberg Guitars in Tiburon, California (awesome URL by the way), Schoenberg is also a very accomplished luthier guitar developer in his own right with his own line of hand-crafted guitars – primarily Orchestra Models. Schoenberg puts tremendous care into the manufacture of his guitars and each guitar is unique, but with many guitars costing above $5K Schoenberg guitars are out of the reach of most guitar players.

So a match between Recording King and Schoenberg should be a winner. Recording King gets the insights of one of the best guitar-makers in the business and Schoenberg gets the benefit of a less expensive manufacturing process that should bring his guitars within reach of many more guitar players – who will then realize they are also within reach of their credit cards.

We’re excited to see what Schoenberg and Recording King announce this week. We’re hoping for an Orchestra Model guitar that would be a viable competitor to the Martin OM-21 or Larrivee OM-09. Whatever it is, we’ll be sure to post a review of it on Fretbase as soon as we’re aloud to touch it.

Recording King Guitars

Do you have a guitar you’re hoping for at Winter NAMM 2010?  Let us know in the comments.