Interview with Ward Veenstra

Jazz-oriented studio guitarist

Besides a professional guitarist Ward Veenstra is also a studio engineer. He owns a music studio in Amsterdam. Recently he spent two weeks in Portugal with the Portuguese singer Magda Mendez. Together they recorded an acoustic CD at her former school in the birthplace of her parents. Ward has produced the CD and he also co-written the songs.

Under the name Camiel, Ward has produced two full nu-jazz studio albums named Sunset and On a Day Like This. Ward also collaborates with artists like DJ Gregor Salto, DJ Roog, Forrest Thomas, Mathilde Santing and Nynke Laverman.





Wards gear

Guitars:

• Fender Stratocaster
• Music Man Silhouette
• Ibanez George Benson
• Ibanez Pat Metheny
• Lowden Steelstring (acoustic)
• A spanish handbuild guitar with nylon strings
• Dobro
• Gretsch Lap Steel
• Aristides OIO
• Cuban Tres
• Portugese Guitar

Amps:

• Vox AC30.
• Mesa Boogie Triaxis pre amp.
• 50-50 Mesa Boogie final power amp. with a Marshall 4x12 speakercabinet.

The interview

How did you get involved with Aristides Instruments?
About five years ago I met Jerry, a Dutch equity investor. After our meeting I started to give Jerry guitar lessons. After a while Jerry came over to me for advice on a new project. At a party he went to, he met Aristides Poort.
He told him about this material (arium) he was working on which was supposed to have perfect acoustic properties. Jerry asked me to check out some prototypes and give him my thoughts about it. After playing them for a while the first thing I said was: “this is the future” The guitar felt great!

How does it feel to play an ‘arium’ guitar?
I immediately fell in love with it. The OIO was way more stable and more versatile than my other guitars. When I played it unplugged the first thing I noticed was the amazing sustain of the OIO. Its versatility is what makes the OIO so unique and playable.

You’re the guy behind the tune of the Aristides introduction video. What was your vision for this? What were you aiming for?
Because of the the looks of the guitar, I intentionally started out with a rock/metal kind of sound. But since the OIO is so versatile I wanted to prove the opposite of its appearance. I wanted to show that you can play lots of styles with it.

So you say the OIO is versatile, what do you prefer to play on it?
The OIO is suitable for all styles of pop, rock, country, funk, metal. For jazz, I wouldn’t recommend it. I would personally always use a hollow body with flatwound strings to play jazz.

At this moment I play with a female singer. In the past I mainly played acoustic guitars with her. The only electric guitar I used was my Gretsch Lap Steel. Since I have an OIO I started using it too because it is great for volume pedal/delay effects. The OIO can also “sing” like a Lap Steel. For my electric work I used to play my Music Man and my Fender Strat. Both great guitars, but I missed something. With the Music Man I missed the attack and with the Fender Strat I missed a humbucker and sustain. The OIO doesn’t have these problems at all.

How do people respond on the OIO?
I get more complements about my playing:) When other guitar players play on it they feel right away that it is a very good instrument.

If you could customize an OIO without limits. What would you do?
Given my background, I would make the OIO guitar even more suitable for studio musicians than it already is. My idea is to build in an high quality A/D converter from Apogee, so you can easily connect the OIO to your computer with USB. Since Amp simulations are getting better and better these days it would be great if you only need a USB cable and a laptop to get a great sound. It would be even better if it also sends MIDI data just like the current USB midi keyboards. This probably will take a lot of time to develop and I think that the people at Aristides for now want to focus on creating the perfect guitar. I also noticed that they really like to look at the future and not only at the past. For me that’s really refreshing in a world where everybody is looking for a guitar from the fifties. That always gets me a little depressed, like in the past everything was better…
Having said that, I would still like a little more tradional design..