Hi, I'm Steve Salvi, and welcome to my website.

For over 35 years I've been a passionate advocate of the guitar, its
players and its music. There is nothing I love more than to be around
guitars and guitar players. I feel privileged to be where I am today
and am looking forward to meeting you and many more players in the
years to come.

I started playing music at an early age, and took up guitar at age 12. I
loved the music of Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges as well as many
others, and ended up with a plethora of open tunings and finger style
techniques that I still use today.

At 14 I discovered Metal, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Van Halen, John McLaughlin,
Howlin Wolf, Mike Stern, Joe Pass and Al Di Meola amongst many
others. Studying all of these guys passionately for years has, I believe,
given me a broad horizon by which to see the instruments I now find
myself building. I attended my first instrument building class at age 17,
with the late and great Peter Kempster here in South Australia, and
spent years dabbling with building and repairs whilst playing in bands
and doing solo performances here in Adelaide.

In 1992 I went to London and worked in the epicentre of the UK
guitar scene, Denmark Street in Soho, in Europes largest Vintage and acoustic
dealership doing sales and repairs, and within 4 months was managing the
whole shop.
While there, I got to play, and work on, literally hundreds of premium brand
guitars, like Martin, Lowden, SantaCruz and Taylor. But it wasn't just the guitars
I found compelling whilst in London. The players I met, jammed, hung out
with and learned from, whether famous, amateur or introspective, was a life
altering experience.
All of this experience has helped me understand what I, and others,
need out of a guitar.
​
I came back to Adelaide in 1997 and started working for a very large
specialist guitar dealership doing sales and repairs.
​
In 2000 I was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship for guitar
building and went to the US where I attended a marvelous
contemporary guitar building course with Charles Fox, guitar builder and
jig maker extraordinaire, and then traversed the countryside seeking
out fellow builders and major factories alike, to exchange ideas and
learn new techniques to add to my guitar building expertise before
coming home and starting my own shop. Right now I'm enjoying
building my own guitars and playing regularly. I'm proud to say that
I can call some of South Australia's premier builders and players my
mentors and close friends. I learn from them everyday, and I have
learnt one thing for sure, if you don't know what a truly great guitar is,
or sounds like, then you can't make one. The dream must be dreamt
before it can become a reality.

My hope is to live a long and fruitful life improving my guitars and
making new friends. Drop me a like if you like, I try to answer as many
emails as I can.
Live the Dream!
Steve Salvi
Photo: Nat Rogers/InDaily​