Todd Nichols

Nichols Custom Guitars are built by Todd Nichols in his Santa Barbara workshop between summer tours playing guitar with his band Toad The Wet Sprocket. “I’m by no means a seasoned luthier, but after playing professionally for over 30 years, (since 1986 with Toad) I know what a great guitar feels, sounds, and looks like, and what parts work well together.” This all started when Todd was learning how to set-up and maintain his guitars every year to take on the road, which led him to building his ultimate ‘Partscaster’ guitars. A few were made for friends at first, but when he started playing Nichols Guitars exclusively onstage, and featuring them on his Instagram page @NicholsGuitars, he began building and selling more guitars. “I like to build small batches of light-weight guitars with my favorite parts and colors.” The first batch featured Bigsby Vibrato guitars with unique metallic colors such as Candy Tangerine, Candy Plum, & Candy Apple Green.

Here is my current pedalboard setup for you gear heads. Only thing that has changed is I now have a Tim overdrive instead of 2 Timmy's. Dave at L.A. SOUND DESIGN built me this custom board about 5 years ago, and that's definitely the longest I have ever used the same board. — with Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Here is my current pedalboard setup for you gear heads. Only thing that has changed is I now have a Tim overdrive instead of 2 Timmy's. Dave at L.A. SOUND DESIGN built me this custom board about 5 years ago, and that's definitely the longest I have ever used the same board. — with Toad the Wet Sprocket.

"Our sound guy loves having the options live to blend in different sounds, but mostly leans on the sE VR1 ribbon mics for my sound." "Besides the VR1 sounding super warm and smooth on my guitar amps, it's built like a tank and can handle going on the road!"