RainSong: Celebrating A Decade of High-End Guitars in Woodinville

You make guitars, you score sweet perks. Like dinner with Steve Miller before his upcoming summer gig at .

Who’s the lucky guy? It’s Ashvin Coomar, owner of Woodinville’s . Miller, the American icon behind “The Joker,” “Fly Like an Eagle,” “Jungle Love” and other anthems, is the most high-profile RainSong owner. He’s got 18 of them.

Miller is in select company, as RainSong only produces between 500 and 1,000 guitars annually, a number that larger guitar makers can crank out in a single day. Because of their high-end status (prices range from almost $1,900 to $3,295), RainSong guitars are largely sought out by professionals or seasoned amateurs looking for something different.

That difference is spelled out in RainSong’s official name. Instead of traditional wood, RainSong creates its acoustic guitars, which includes the body, neck, fretboard and bridge, with a graphite/carbon fiber composite.

“The main benefit is that these guitars are impervious to temperature and heat changes,” said Coomar, who adds that that makes more desirable for touring musicians. “As a result, they are also lighter than a traditional guitar.” Coomar added that discerning ears will also notice that RainSong sound is brighter and more uniform. “On wood guitars, the trebles don’t ring out as much.”

Coomar employs about a dozen luthiers (makers of stringed instruments) at his shop, located at the Beaver Machine Works complex on NE 178^th St. behind . It was 10 years ago that RainSong, started in 1995 in Maui, HI, by John Decker, moved to its current location. Coomar took over the business from Decker, his father-in-law, and decided that keeping the company in Hawaii had too many business disadvantages. Coomar, originally from India and who graduated from the University of Southern California, decided to move the business to Woodinville since one of his toolers, Beaver Machine Works owner Rod Brower, offered him a building for rent.

“I needed access to composites, which Boeing has,” said Coomar. “I wanted to be near a major city, and there are a lot of good distributors here.” Coomar doesn’t regret his decision, and speaks highly of the Northshore School District, in which he and his wife have two children.

Coomar, although he knows a few chords, admits he’s not much of a guitar player himself. “You don’t need to know how to play a guitar to build one,” he says. But his engineering and business background has certainly paid off, as his guitars draw rave reviews from music magazines and, in addition to 30 states in the U.S., they can be found in Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Singapore and Australia. You can even find them on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

The closest RainSong retail location to Woodinville is at Northwest Guitars in Bellevue.

Earlier this year, RainSong introduced its Studio Series, its lower-priced guitar whose body is a combination of carbon and glass fiber. The guitar’s neck was created in tandem with rocker Miller and master luthier John Bolin. The guitars, available in dreadnought and full-body and slim-body cutaways, follows the Hybrid Series that debuted in January 2010. These are also constructed from carbon and glass, but are more expensive.

To keep prices lower on the Studio and Hybrid series, some of the ornamentation found on RainSong’s Classic, Concert and Black Ice series is not used. All the guitars are six-stringed, except for the two 12-string models ($3,195) in the Classic Series. All the guitars feature pickups so they can be plugged into amps.

As RainSong continues to expand its recognition beyond Woodinville and the Pacific Northwest, more and more musicians are coming on board, including Zac Brown and Leo Kottke. “Aerosmith, they travel with our guitars, too,” said Coomar. “So do R.E.M. and Hall and Oates.”