My “guitar” story

Ever since I started my own business building guitars in 1995 I love to combine traditional elements with new innovative ideas and insights. It’s simply against my nature to just copy existing guitar designs and constructions. My passion is to take things further in my own unique way and to find the perfect solution for special customer requests. Most of the guitars are custom built and are as unique as the musicians who play them. I’d be looking forward to building your next dream guitar!

Luke Brunner

Innovations

Innovations have always attracted me and the world of guitar building is such an exciting playground to keep discovering and developing new things to improve sound, functionality, playability and to come up with new beautiful designs. Of course, it’s always important to build up on old knowledge and traditional designs, but we only discover new things by actually going different directions, especially in the field of sound board construction. Just in the past years I have developed an new dynamic curved bracing system supported by some suspended braces which brought my guitars to a new level. They project a very dynamic, powerful and rich sound, which has a free, light feel to it with a good balanced.
Another major area to me are neck connections. Somehow I never became friends with the traditional glued dovetail neck joints as the neck angles can’t be corrected easily if needed. So I started designing removable cantilevered neck joints during my first years already and I’m now additionally offering an adjustable neck joint for perfect playability all the time! 

In 1997 I created the first easily removable neck guitar for our tandem-bike honeymoon trip around New Zealand and Australia. After being encouraged by many people, I decided in 2001, to start building these travel guitars in small batches. Soon after the “Outdoor Guitar” (so called until 2011, now the “Brunner Compact”) with its remarkable quick-and-easy-to-remove neck and Big sound has become the main product of Brunner Guitars and keeps gaining recognition worldwide. Over the years many new model options where developed including the newest unique B-Compact Harp and full Harp Guitars! Also the unique Muriel Trebles (named after Muriel Anderson), an attachable mini harp for any guitar, has become a very popular product. 

The beginning

I grew up in a small town in Switzerland, and my father built custom-made furniture, so I was accustomed to working with wood from a young age. I began to play guitar at the age of fourteen and from that point on, my interest in guitar building started to grow. In 1992, at the age of eighteen, I built my first dreadnought guitar during my apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker. I started my own small business in 1995 at the age of 21 in a 20m2 basement room in Zernez, Switzerland. As a cabinetmaker, I started off making custom furniture and building guitars on the side. Over the years, through my own experiments and being pushed further by my customer requests, fascinating high quality guitars were developed in the past 20 years…

On the right, back in 1996…

The source

Being able to create things, particularly fine guitars, is a real privilege and I look at it as a wonderful gift. God created us in HIS image as little creators. I want my guitars to reflect some of HIS goodness and the creativity he endowed us with knowing that my guitars will never be as “godly” perfect… He is the ultimate designer in every aspect of beauty and functionality far beyond our little minds… I believe in Him as our amazing creator and provider of all things, all the wonderful tone woods, but also the ability to work them into something sounding beautiful 🙂

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you createall things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
Rev. 4,11