Please scroll down; there’s lots to see here. (You can also click on names in the Table of Contents)

Practically a “Who’s-Who” of contemporary mandolinists!

Shown are standard and many custom Gards for Mandolins, such Rigels, and also for Guitars, Ukes, Autoharps, and even Banjos.

Many photos are “thumbnails” that you can click for larger image.

If you’re not here and should be, please send a photo (jpg) and comments to info@tone-gard.com

David Grisman

(website) uses the custom Dawgard for a louder bark and more bite:

“I’ve been using Tony Pires’ ToneGard for well over a year now and I think it’s a wonderful thing…. My impression is that by keeping the back of the mandolin from touching one’s chest, the instrument is free to resonate more. I notice more highs, more lows, and more volume, which is always nice to have in a live situation. I also use it in recording and find positive results there as well. In fact the only time I don’t use it is when I forget to put it on…. Thanks to Tony Pires for a true mando-improvement.” Co-Mando.com (see Q1).

Thanks to the Dawg for mentioning the ToneGard and yours truly in his liner notes to his CD with Sam Bush, “Hold On, We’re Strumming“!

  

   

Ricky Skaggs

(website) is a great guy, in addition to being a superstar. He uses a custom Flowerpot design Tone-Gard on his Gibson Lloyd Loar F5s and Gilchrist.

  

  

  

  

Rickyat Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, October 2011,  'Gard arm visible on lower side of mandolin

John Reischman

(website) Many people think John has the best-sounding mandolin in the world. (The opposing theory is that any mandolin in John’s hands is the best-sounding mandolin in the world.) You can hear him nowadays with his band The Jaybirds, occasionally with John Miller, and back in the Good Ol’ Days with the Good Ol’ Persons and Tony Rice Unit.

Chris Hillman

(website) was a member of The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Desert Rose Band, and has played with Emmylou Harris, Stephen Stills, Vern Gosdin, David Crosby, Gram Parsons, Dan Fogelberg, J.D. Souther, Bob Dylan, and Roger McGuinn.

Roland White

(website) has played with everybody from the Kentucky Colonels (with his brother Clarence White), to Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt’s Nashville Grass, the Country Gazette, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band.

Radim Zenkl

(website) was the Tone-Gard’s very first professional endorser. He has taken his Tone-Gards all over the US and Europe, bringing it to the attention of more people than anybody else. His workshops and articles in various publications have done a lot to make the mandolin-playing public aware of the Tone-Gard. He has also challenged me to make gards to go where there were none. Kind of a R&D lab on tour.

Andy Statman

Radim met Andy Statman (website) and in the course of things showed him the Tone-Gard. And now he is also a Gardian -- I can’t tell you how cool this is for me. Andy Statman has always been one of my heroes, and to have him endorsing the Gard is amazing. I wish I could remember some of the great things he had to say about the gard, but I was in shock. What do you say to your hero?

In fact, the Fall 2005 Mandolin Magazine cover story about Andy Statman says at page 6: “To ensure that he can generate maximal tone and volume from the A-style, oval-holed instrument [a Gibson A2Z snakehead from 1922 or '23], he keeps a Toneguard [sic] wire support device on the back so he doesn’t inhibit the back’s vibrations by holding it directly against his body.”

Mike Marshall

(website) — yet another “needs-no-introduction” mandolinist — of the Darol Anger-Mike Marshall Band, Anger & Marshall, Choro Famoso, Marshall & Thile, Edgar Meyer group, formerly of the David Grisman Quintet, Psychograss, Montreux, the Modern Mandolin Quartet, etc., etc.

Joe Craven

(website), soloist extraordinaire and a longtime member of the David Grisman Quintet and other great groups like Wake the Dead, uses a Gard on his more conventional instrument.

Don Stiernberg

(website), the foremost jazz mandolinist in America today, says: "I love it! It seems like before long a Tone-Gard should be standard issue with every mandolin, like shoulder rests for the violinist.”

  

Paul Glasse

(website), jazz and western swing great, featured on voluminous projects with artists such as Tiny Moore, Johnny Gimble, Mark O’Connor, Jethro Burns, Mike Marshall, Tony Trishka, Jerry Douglas, Howard Levy, Peter Rowan, Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson, Eldon Shamblin, Allison Krause, Keely Willis, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Michelle Shocked, Laurie Lewis, Riders in the Sky, Asleep at the Wheel, and many others, says: "I think the Tone-Gard is a great invention. It allows my mandolin to resonate to full potential and helps protect the back of the instrument as well. I depend on it every day. Thanks Tony!"

Wayne Benson

of the headline bluegrass band IIIrd Tyme Out, says: "These really do make an incredible difference!"

Will Patton

(website), has been playing all kinds of music for over 30 years now, including celtic, jazz, rock and roll, bluegrass and Brazilian choro.

Tom Rozum

(website), performing partner of Laurie Lewis, as well as fine singer and instrumentalist in his own right, has Gards on his 1924 Loar F-5 Mandolin (the Custom “Dog-Boy” Gard) and 1924 H-1 “Nelson” Mandola:

Eric Thompson

of Eric & Suzy Thompson, Bluegrass Intentions, and many other groups (check out video clip with Jerry Garcia — scroll down to bottom of that page), is enthusiastic about the benefits of the Gard on his vintage Gibson F-4:

  

Dix Bruce

noted musican, writer of instructional material, proprietor of Musix, and former editor of Mandolin World News:

Dana Rath

of the Modern Mandolin Quartet shows off the ‘Gard on his Monteleone:

John Paul Jones

(website), who played mandolin as well as bass guitar and keyboards as a member of the legendary Led Zeppelin, has a custom Zep-Gard:

Jason Dennie

(website) with his Breedlove and BRW:

  

  

Emory Lester

(website) said in Mandozine: “My main (and only) mandolin now is the 1996 Bruce Weber Gibson… It has a ‘ToneGard’ on the back of it….I can hear and audible difference with it as opposed to without it. David Grisman turned me onto that thing at the Grey Fox Festival in New York several years ago. Obviously, when he speaks, I listen.”

Alan Bibey

of BlueRidge with his custom AB-Gard:

 

  

Kenny Epps

shows his Shamrock-Gard to Ronnie McCoury backstage at Greymont. Ronnie has one too, and told Kenny that he just uses it when recording.

  

Scott Gates

Craig ‘Lumpy’ Lemke

(website) with custom Aloha-Gards:

      

Sure. Here is the Martin baritone uke of...

Eric Segnitz

Peter Lee