Fair warning to Keith Richards (Mr. Clapton pay attention too). I hooked my iPhone to my MacKenzie & Marr Ian Tyson Limited Edition with a gizmo called an iRig, fired up "Satisfaction" in the associated program and played along. In all humility I was astoundingly good - better (again with humility) than Keith himself. In fact Keith was doing such a fine job on rhythm I added my own embellishments to the tune. Later Willie Nelson backed me up on "Pancho and Lefty". I outdid myself. You'll have to take my word for it since no one else was around to judge. The electric sound was also delivered to my earbuds so only I could hear it.

Jonathan Mackenzie, the other founding partner in MacKenzie & Marr Guitars prefers acoustic folk with a bit of Celtic flavour. He has little love for electric guitars. I, on the other hand gravitate towards acoustic blues with built-in raunch. Truth be told I am a secret rock n' roller at heart. Hanging my head is shame, I'll also admit to being a bit of an Apple fanboy so when I saw the iRig I couldn't resist. It's not much more than a cylinder that connects an electric guitar to an iPhone or iPad and headphones or powered speakers. Coupled with a free app the iRig allows multiple guitar effects and an infinite number of settings for tweaking the sound. I had my Ian Tyson Ltd fuzzing and buzzing, reverbing and wah-wahing. At one point I hit the "Heavy Metal" setting and - no word of a lie - the guitar sounded like a Kirk Hammett rehearsal. Cranking out full-on rock 'n roll from a solid wood acoustic guitar with a built in pickup blew me away. Doing it through headphones will no doubt make my wife ecstatic. She already labours under the misapprehension that I lack any real guitar playing skill.

In addition to all the cool effects the app offers the ability to load and play along with a tune from the device's iTunes library. The song can be slowed down without changing the pitch - a great way to learn. If you're intrigued by the idea of your amplified acoustic guitar doing double (or triple etc.) duty as a full electric axe and you own an iPhone, iPod or iPad here are some links you may want to check out:

The iRig -available at most Apple Stores for $40.

Amplitube iPhone App - the free app from the same people as the iRig. There are multiple add-ons that can be purchased

iShred App - another free app that works with the iRig. I found the pre-sets to be a bit more interesting than those supplied with Amplitube

Taylor EQ App - If you're just looking for acoustic amplification through the iPhone and headphones this does the trick. The maker claims the various EQ presets duplicte the unique sound of different Taylor guitars but to me they all sounded the same. No effects

Have fun....oh and if you see Mr. Richards, don't tell him how good I think I am. He's already got one high maintenance ego to worry about. He doesn't need another.

Back in December, no sooner had we booked tickets to the annual NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Show than CBC notified us that our Dragon's Den episode would air the night before we left for California. We knew it would be a bit hairy handling the trip and interest sparked by the show at the same time. We had no idea how hairy!!

I spent Wednesday shipping guitars, getting US cash, setting up a video link in Skype for a Dragon's Den watching party and (for the first time in decades) locking my keys in the car. Rushed and stressed!

Within hours of the show airing on Wednesday night our web server was under strain and we were seeing a flurry of orders. By Thursday morning as Jonathan and I boarded the plane for California half of the first 48 MacKenzie & Marr Tofino guitars were sold and orders continued to stream in. Air Canada had a bit of a problem establishing the in-air Wi-Fi link but when they did I found I had almost 100 unanswered e-mails. If yours was one of them I apologize for not responding immediatly. The backlog is now dealt with. One of the benefits of the threehour time difference is a few hours of early morning work time.

There are a number of questions that pop up from multiple users. I'll post answers to them in our FAQ next week. If you ordered a guitar in the last couple of days it will be shipped Monday Jan 18th. If you're thinking of ordering a Tofino we still have about 1/2 dozen available. After that the next delivery date will likely be late May 2010.

Thanks for all of the wonderful comments about MacKenzie & Marr Goitars and our appearance on Dragon's Den.

Best to all,
John Marr

Most companies will wait through at least one selling cycle before rolling out the "new improved" line. Here at MacKenzie & Marr Guitars we simply don't do things like other companies. Our cedar top acoustic guitars are distinctly our own design. Our way of distributing direct-to-musicians through the web is unusual in the music industry to say the least. Waiting until we actually had some sales to tweak our product line (if one model constitutes a "line") seemed so 20th Century.

Everyone who played Tofino had nothing but praise for the guitar but no one seemed to be blown away by its hardshell case. Why would they? We'd put all of our effort into designing Tofino. We'd spent no time at all thinking about the case. After all it was free with the guitar. Who's going to spend time and effort on "free"?

But at one of the focus group sessions where we previewed Tofino the comment was made that the case didn't do justice to the guitar. When customers speak we listen.

So with great fanfare we announce the "New Improved" MacKenzie & Marr hardshell case. With thicker sidewalls, tougher skin, stronger latches and a raised top the new ruggedized cases that hold our guitars

Tune in CBC on January 13 at 8 PM to see Jonathan and I pitch our business to five savvy investors on Dragon's Den. We know we have a winner in both our Tofino acoustic guitar and our business model. Selling high end acoustic guitars direct from the factory to musicians over the Internet means huge savings compared to retail. Will the Dragons recognize either our cedar top guitar or our business plan as worthy of an investment or will they tell us our "valuation is nuts, we're being greedy an/or there's no business here".
We're betting they love the guitar and see the savings to consumers as a winner. Think we're wrong? Leave a comment or visit our Facebook page to add your input to the Dragons Den poll.

Things were just too quiet! We'd done pretty much everything we could to prepare for the arrival of the first 48 MacKenzie & Marr Tofino acoustic guitars.
We'd set up the stock room, humidified, insured, alarmed and locked down the building.
We'd tested the on-line store, and then tested it some more.
We'd proofed, published and printed our warranty to include with every order.
We'd lined up Canada Post and UPS for shipping.
We'd laid in 40 double walled cartons (with room for extra padding) to insure Tofinos were coddled in transit.

We felt reasonably sure we were on track to deliver all outstanding orders in time for Christmas. Then the rails (literally) started to come off. CN Rail, embarrased by a one-day strike, backed up rail cars across the country. Our guitars were caught in the backlog and didn't arrive in Montreal until December 21. Now Canada Customs is taking its own sweet time clearing the shipment. As of noon today (December 23) we're calling the broker hourly. Still expecting delivery in time to send out Christmas orders. Perhaps we should look into a sleigh and reindeer?

This morning we started shooting photos of the MacKenzie and Marr cedar top "Tofino"acoustic guitar. The back and sides are crafted from Indonesian Mahogany. The top is western Canadian red cedar. Combining the warmth of cedar with the crisp projection of Mahogany gives the MacKenzie and Marr guitar a distinct full voice.