Mike Sabre
Mike Sabre
Mike Sabre is a French luthier building custom guitars, basses, and mandolins by hand to each musician's personal specifications. Born in 1954 in Paris to an American father and a musical family, he trained in cabinetmaking at the école Boule before moving into lutherie through apprenticeships in workshops in France and the United States, and has spent decades repairing, setting up, and buildin...
Mike Sabre is a French luthier building custom guitars, basses, and mandolins by hand to each musician's personal specifications. Born in 1954 in Paris to an American father and a musical family, he trained in cabinetmaking at the école Boule before moving into lutherie through apprenticeships in workshops in France and the United States, and has spent decades repairing, setting up, and building stringed instruments.
Sabre's catalog centers on signature and custom models developed in direct collaboration with the players who commission them. He has built guitars for jazz fusion pioneer John McLaughlin since 1993, most notably the custom 'John McLaughlin' model solid body with a Johnny Smith humbucker and a RMC piezo/MIDI bridge system. On the bass side, he has produced several Dominique Di Piazza signature instruments, including fretted and fretless 4- and 5-string models such as the Di Piazza Feather Bass, along with a dedicated DiPiazza fretless bridge.
Beyond those longstanding collaborations, Sabre has made instruments for mandolin virtuoso U. Shrinivas and for guitarists Eric Sempe, François Arnaud, and Yannick Robert. His output spans electric and acoustic guitars, basses, mandolins, and bouzoukis, and his reputation is rooted in small-batch, hand-built work rather than production manufacturing.
Mike Sabre has 4 products cataloged on Equipboard, including Electric Basses and Solid Body Electric Guitars. Their gear is featured by 2 artists, with the strongest followings in Jazz, Rock, and Classical. Notable users include Dominique Di Piazza and John McLaughlin.
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