Unheardof Instruments is a specialised musical instrument making business I operate as a sole trader, producing unusual instruments of high quality by hand, from my home in northern NSW, Australia. I started my business in july 2005 under the NEIS scheme and I am very grateful for the start afforded me by them. My main motivation is to make a modest living for my family without leaving home. I aim to create interesting and unusual sounding instruments to broaden the sonic palette of musicians and to inspire musicians and makers of instruments to innovate and to create some new sounds for the future. I find it hard to compete with the asian imports situation for normal instruments (and would be taking business from my teachers anyhow) so I am aiming at the niche market for musicians who have normal instruments but are looking for something much more special. My instruments are all very useable and most importantly sound great and I dedicate my efforts to producing refined designs with a hand built quality the factories fall short of. I am often disgusted at the lack of proper production and setup in factory instruments when another 5% of effort could make a 200% difference to the finished product, thereby make it a tool for art instead of a source of frustration. My favourite example is the hollow soft plastic nut. Who invented that? How much does it save to make them hollow? How much more to make a bone (or I prefer brass) one, or even use a better plastic? Yet the neck is still is made of maple and rosewood, what a waste of valuable materials! I work hard to be ethical and sustainable and make sure the thing lasts lifetimes, look good and are optimised as instruments already. I also like to learn about acoustics by experimenting, that is the most fascinating part for me, seeing if the theory works in practice. I encourage anyone to give instrument building a go, start simple and enjoy the buzz of stringing up for the first time. There is no better way to jam than on something you made for yourself. This site is a work in progress and is being updated a bit every now and again so drop back in. I have gotten some requests for more sound samples so I will be doing that in the next bit and have started on some instructional stuff on repairing, building, acoustics and sound as I would have loved to find out this sort of stuff when I started and there is very little out there and it is all very expensive which doesn't seem fair. I am open to suggestions as to which things people would most like to learn too.

If you would like to see details of the various instruments I have made click on the links beside. I hope you find something that inspires you amongst the pages of this site. Feedback would be appreciated and I can be corresponded with via my email; ron*unheardofinstruments(botdot)com (just replace the * with a @ - sorry I am getting too spammed! curse those spider bot thingies lucky they're still relatively stupid so far)

May your music flow through you with the carefree ease of a warm summer wind.