Flip Scipio | Feedback - Paul Simon, Marc Ribot

“Recently, Flip set me up with a Vietnamese-style scalloped fingerboard Teisco, suitable for Cai-Luong music. So now, I can confidently accept those good-paying wedding and birthday jobs down around Little Saigon, in Orange Country. A gig is a gig, and glad to get it! ”

Ry Cooder

I cannot imagine doing any work on my guitars without Flip's participation or supervision. A wonderful guitar maker and craftsman.

Paul Simon

Flip is like a Renaissance craftsman— every single line and curve of his work is executed with the most elegant attention to the tiniest detail.

Rosanne Cash

I have known and worked with Flip Scipio for over 25 years. He is a master craftsman, top notch luthier, fearless tinkerer and problem solver......and always dedicated to getting it right.

John Leventhal

Every instrument Flip builds is a one-of-a-kind work of art. His creativity, craftsmanship and vision is unparalleled. When I approached Flip about building a new guitar for me, I was fully confident he would do something incredible. Still, once the instrument was finished, it had somehow managed to exceed all my expectations. I think Flip is a magician of the highest order.

Mary Halvorson

View
Convertible
Guitar Made for Mary Halvorson

Flip Scipio is, simply put: the best there is. Repair doesn’t begin to describe his work: in addition to his own creations and restorations, he re-imagines guitars. He’s magically turned my own into... what I’d always hoped they’d be.

Marc Ribot

I could have sworn Flip left that propelling pencil we found in my flat in 1981, but he said it's not his. I should have known, of course – he's too meticulous to use a .09 lead Papermate. He's one of only two people in the world I'd trust near my guitar with a tool.

Adrian Legg

For many years Flip Scipio has been repairing and setting up my vintage and new electric basses; he has an amazing knowledge of guitars and basses and the insight to adjust the instrument for my particular needs...when I pick up a bass from Flip I can go directly to a gig or into any studio knowing the instrument is going to work properly and also be fun to play. There’s no one better...

Tony Garnier

Flip treats every guitar with respect like they are works of art, and when he makes a guitar for you, it is a work of art.

Edie Brickell

View
Gurian Style Guitar Made for Edie Brickell

Flip Scipio is an unparalleled craftsman. A gifted guitar whisperer. A meticulous diagnostician, restorer, fixer, and lo these 26 years, friend. Flip is also sage, funny, and, like the gorgeous acoustic baritone he built me, (“Mr. Williams”) he keeps getting better with age.

Jonatha Brooke

One step into Flip’s shop and his passion becomes obvious. The room has that unidentifiable feeling one gets when setting foot in a historic place – fervent with the love and energy weaved into everything he touches. Flip is the only luthier I know who will not only bring a guitar back to life, but also revive it’s spirit.

Elliot Moss

Flip Scipio....is one of the most knowledgeable, experienced, trusted, and finest luthier practitioners in the art of fretted stringed instrument building, repair, and restoration.

John Monteleone

I Love, Love my baritone guitar.

Leni Stern

About 15 years ago I met Flip for the first time and asked him to repair a couple of my favorite guitars. The care he took to make me and my guitars ‘happy’ led to us to becoming the closest of friends. He was able to take unplayable valuable guitars like my 1939 CF Martin D28 herringbone and finally make it a dream to play. It took about four years for us to toil through all my valuable instruments. He was building one for our dear and mutual friend Larry Tarica inspired by one of Paul Simon’s favorite guitars that he occasionally worked on; a Gurian S3.

It was a perfect instrument building commission for me. Michael Gurian and I have been great friends since the late sixties and I am a huge Paul Simon fan. To think that my good friend Flip would build me a custom instrument that pays tribute to two of the most influential people in my life, Paul for his music and Michael for his great guitar innovations and friendship was an extraordinary twist of fate.

Everything about the instrument he made is special to me. Seeing a picture of it would speak only to its visual beauty. Playing it or even better, hearing from across the room is where the real beauty lies. I am so fortunate to have Flip in my life, I can’t imagine anyone else tinkering with one of my guitars.

Jim D'Addario

View
Gurian Style Guitar Made for Jim D'Addario

Flip Scipio comes from the Land Of Guitar where only a few people live. His love of the instrument, the wood, the history, the priceless and the quirky, the torn and the tattered and the polish of it all, is invaluable, runs deep, and most importantly is great fun! He needs his own TV show. Maybe that will happen some day, but until then, who needs Reality TV when you've got the Real Deal.

Patty Larkin

Recommending Flip is nothing new for me, I've been doing it for years. He is first and foremost an artist who, fortunately for the rest of us, chose luthiery as one of his primary forms of expression.

TJ Thompson

Flip Scipio is a master bladesmith, and in this guitar he has given me a razor sharp knife. His instruments allow the player to siphon maximum resonance and dynamic response from even the slightest gesture. This is the result of an exceedingly rare degree of depth of understanding of the electric guitar, beginning with the recognition that it is first and foremost an acoustic instrument. But it is also the product of a lifetime of exploration and a relentlessly creative mind that draws inspiration from all over the map.

I could never have imagined an instrument more tailored to my needs, and especially not one that also simultaneously pushes me to grow as a player every time I pick it up. When I play this guitar, it feels like an extension of my mind and body, allowing me to focus entirely on the music.

Rafiq Bhatia

Flip is simply the best there is. There's some sort of magic in his craft that makes every instrument he touches come alive.

Nir Felder

Flip Scipio has been an essential part of my music for over twenty years. I own a lot of guitars, from vintage Fenders and Gibsons to $99 Squiers. Flip cares about them all equally. Whatever instrument is on his bench is the most important instrument in the world to him at that moment. Flip has an uncanny ability to intuit what any guitar he touches can become, and he has the skill to bring forth that potential.

Not only is Flip a master craftsman, he is a creative partner. Flip understands not only what I need my instruments to do, he is full of suggestions about how they could work better for me. When I acquire a new instrument, I don't feel that it's totally mine until Flip has set it up. He makes my guitars feel like they are an extension of my hands.

Maybe the best way to describe Flip's work is that it's transparent. You can see straight through to the music without ever having to think about your guitar. That's a blessing.

When you're under pressure, your guitar has to be right. It's the first mechanical link in the musical signal chain after your heart and your hands. Flip gets it right. And his work lasts too. I can pull any one of my instruments out after not playing it for six months, change the strings, and it's ready to go. I've taken instruments straight to the studio or the gig from his shop without even playing them first. That's how much trust I have in him.

There are many fine repair people: there is only one Flip Scipio.

Andy Bassford

What motivates me is The Music