Hand-Voiced by Hozen
Hozen has studied under the tutelage of Ervin Somogyi one of the most recognised authority on making responsive guitars. The bracing is akin to 'irrigation' used in farming; where bracing transports the vibrations of the soundwaves across the soundboard, much like how water flows in the irrigation channels, creating amazing tone and responsiveness as well as heightened structural integrity.
Hozen’s role is to voice the guitars that his team puts together. While they are busy with other parts process, his job is to maximize every single guitar’s tonal potential. Tonal potential is also impacted by the finishing, bracing structure, bridge designs, tonewood selection, neck geometry and setup which he oversees all the aspects and ensure standards are met.
Many features such as Double Sides, French polishing the interior to enhance humidity stability, bracing designs, and aesthetic elements have been influenced by Somogyi.
With Hozen's relentless development and refinement with his time at Maestro Guitars, he has modified and perfected the bracing to the point of creating his signature, three-dimensional sound found on the Blue Labels, which he calls the Hozen Lattice Brace.
His study of the traditional bracings and deep research lead him to his new Black Label bracings, an ingenious way of creating incredible responsiveness but without the time-consuming process of the Hozen Lattice Brace. Hozen also developed his way of voicing the traditional X brace for his Red labels and makes innovative Carbon Fibre Bridge plates for his Green labels Ukuleles.
Ergonomics
We believe a Hozen Guitar should be a time-piece. Something that a player will hang onto for life and pass it down to their lineage when the time comes. We believe that in order to help achieve that, we will always make instruments that not only sound incredible, but feel incredible.
The PLEK Set-Up, Soundport, Florentine Cutaway, “Manzer” Wedge and “Laskin” Armrest are the signatures of all Hozen Black and Blue Labels, taking the Hozen team guitar three times longer to build a guitar as compared to one without these options. This provides unrivaled playability and comfort for the player, which are some of the key pillars that makes Hozen Guitars exceptional. The Green label Ukuleles features an “Üchida”style beveled offset cutaway.
Manzer wedge allows the player to feel as they are playing a smaller guitar, able to see the strings better, people with shoulder issues from years of playing guitars will benefit greatly!
The back bevel improves the comfort of the guitar resting on the player’s ribcage. Like the arm bevel, it prevents the player body from muting the back response of the guitar and enables a more “LIVE” back.
Team-Built
Handvoiced x Ergonomics sounds pretty prohibitive and labor-intensive to handcraft, and they are indeed. But Hozen believes in his unique "Team Built" process. Hozen wisely delegates various steps of the building process to other members of his incredible team to increase efficiency and reduces the cost of building a guitar significantly, at times more than 400%.
Over the years, Hozen has accumulated sufficient knowledge and skills, to the point where he is proud and confident enought to put his name on an instrument. It’s not the end but a new beginning. It’s always Hozen’s dream and vision to establish Hozen Guitars as a reputable guitar builder from Asia and recognized for the quality of our guitars. He sees it as his mission to add value to musicians all over the world to enable them to own a truly responsive instrument which was previously inaccessible due to prohibitive prices.
While the zero compromise approach of guitar building such as attention to details, individual voicing effort and the ergonomic features which they incorporate into the guitars are counter-productive, he has found a way to do it through team building with a group of incredibly talented people. They have worked and honed their skills together for the past 13 years. It doesn’t bring down the speed of production as it still takes 6 months for us to put together an instrument but specialization does increase productivity which we pass the cost savings on.
He got the idea when a luthier friend of his said that they are going to build a collaborative project with various luthiers building a specific part of the guitar. That struck me as a possible arrangement to combine the strengths and experience of various guitar makers together to form a dream team.
Communication is the key. Having a team leader to relay the concept to the entire team is important and to make sure every single step is of the standard quality before it goes to the next step. A single builder knows this because everything is done by himself but in a team communication is the key. Having a team with the synergy together is rare and I am lucky to have one.
The finish of a Hozen Guitar is done by a Luthier who has 20 years of experience, specializing in the finishing; the neck is done by an expert who only does the necks; the bindings are only done by the binding specialist who knows more about bindings then 99% of Luthiers currently building; Freeing up Hozen’s valuable time to focus on what he does the best: Making the tops with his signature voicing.
This delegation of specialists breeds guitars that not only have incredible, rich and almost other-worldly tone - credited to Hozen's meticulous and extraordinary experience; but the quality of each individual section and segment is stunning and nigh-miraculous given that these boutique guitars are completely built and ready at an average of 6 months. This astounding pace and quality assurance is only possible because of the unique operation that Hozen is leading, and Hozen Guitars will continue to produce some of the best guitars in the world for a quarter of the price.
