Dunable Evil Instruments Claudio Sanchez Signature The Jackhammer

About the Dunable Evil Instruments Claudio Sanchez Signature The Jackhammer

This guitar carries two names for a reason: Evil Instruments is Claudio Sanchez's own brand, launched specifically for this guitar, while Dunable Guitars is the boutique manufacturing partner actually building it - the compound product name reflects a genuine collaboration rather than a signature endorsement slapped onto an existing Dunable shape. The Jackhammer isn't a variant of an existing Dunable model; it's a from-scratch design Sanchez initiated himself.

The two production tiers differ in more than just country of origin. The USA build uses a mahogany body with a five-piece maple neck, an ebony fingerboard, Grover hardware, Bare Knuckle pickups, and a nitrocellulose finish, shipping with a Gator hard case. The South Korean import version instead pairs a mahogany body and neck (rather than maple) with Alnico V humbuckers and a gloss finish, in an Evil Instruments-branded hardcase - two genuinely different builds under one model name rather than a single spec with a badge difference. Both share the same core geometry: a 12-inch fingerboard radius, jumbo frets on a medium C neck profile, mother-of-pearl block inlays, Grover Rotomatic 18:1 tuners, and a Grover Nashville Tune-o-matic bridge with stopbar tailpiece.

Where to buy

Unfortunately we can't currently find any offers for this instrument. Check back regularly - we update our listings several times a day.

Sound character of the Dunable Evil Instruments Claudio Sanchez Signature The Jackhammer

The USA model's Bare Knuckle pickups are described as running ever-so-slightly hot, pushing the signal harder into the amp than a more neutral-output pickup would - a deliberate voicing choice for a guitar built by and for a working rock guitarist rather than a vintage-accurate recreation. No independently verified detailed tonal review beyond that manufacturer-level description could be confirmed for either production tier.

What owners of the Dunable Evil Instruments Claudio Sanchez Signature The Jackhammer say

As a guitar launched in 2025, there wasn't an established body of long-term owner sentiment available to review at the time of this research - the most substantive material found was press coverage of the launch itself and Sanchez's own account of the design process, rather than accumulated player feedback over time.

Playability & handling of the Dunable Evil Instruments Claudio Sanchez Signature The Jackhammer

The 12-inch radius combined with jumbo frets on a medium C profile is specifically built for a smooth, fast playing feel - a modern-leaning specification rather than a vintage-correct one, consistent with a guitar designed from a working musician's own touring and studio needs rather than reissuing a historical template.

Recommended accessories & strings for the Dunable Evil Instruments Claudio Sanchez Signature The Jackhammer

At the 24.75-inch scale shared with other short-scale guitars in this research, .010-.046 is a typical starting set. The two production tiers reward different amp pairings: the USA model's Bare Knuckle pickups run slightly hot and push the amp harder, suiting a setup with a bit less gain dialled in to compensate, while the Alnico V humbuckers on the South Korean version offer a more moderate output better matched to a standard gain setting.

Technical data for the Dunable Evil Instruments Claudio Sanchez Signature The Jackhammer

The history of the Dunable Evil Instruments Claudio Sanchez Signature The Jackhammer

Two separate founding stories converge in this one guitar. Sacha Dunable, guitarist and vocalist of progressive metal band Intronaut, started building guitars around 2011-2012 in a converted Los Angeles garage after years of touring and working as a guitar tech, having studied instrument building at the Musicians Institute's Guitar Craft Academy. What began as a personal search for instruments that could survive punishing shows while still sounding massive grew into a genuine boutique brand by 2014, and now operates from a 4,000-square-foot facility in Bell Gardens, California. Dunable has described his own philosophy directly: he doesn't want to just be making clones, he wants to be making guitars that are the company's own design.

Claudio Sanchez's side of the story is far more recent and genuinely charming in its specifics. He'd played a Gibson Explorer as his main guitar for more than 20 years and had long wanted a signature model from Gibson - when that never materialised, he decided to build one himself instead, in keeping with what he's called his own creative spirit and DIY methodology. The idea came to him on a flight to visit his in-laws: he literally collaged the design together from photos of different guitars on his phone, then handed it to his own guitar tech, Kevin Allen - who happened to also be a trained luthier - and asked him to build a prototype just to see if the idea made sense. Sanchez describes the resulting shape as an amalgamation of many guitars, specifically citing an SG Special he played during early van-touring days and an Explorer E2 model he found at Mike's Music in Cincinnati, calling the whole design a tribute to the guitars that helped shape his own identity as a player. He launched the finished result as Evil Instruments at NAMM 2025, built in partnership with Dunable's shop rather than as an in-house Dunable design.

About Dunable as a manufacturer

Dunable represents a genuinely artist-founded boutique shop rather than a corporate brand with a signature-artist deal bolted on - Sacha Dunable is himself a touring metal musician who built the company around what he personally needed from an instrument, which likely made him a natural manufacturing partner for another musician, Claudio Sanchez, wanting to do the same thing for the first time.

That two-artist collaboration structure - one experienced boutique builder, one first-time designer with a genuine creative vision but no manufacturing infrastructure of his own - is a different model from most of the signature guitars covered elsewhere in this research, where an established manufacturer licenses an artist's name onto an existing or lightly modified platform. Here, the design genuinely originated with the artist and the manufacturer's role was closer to realising someone else's from-scratch vision than adapting one of their own.

Notable players & recordings featuring the Dunable Evil Instruments Claudio Sanchez Signature The Jackhammer

Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria is the guitar's direct, unambiguous origin point - there's no gap here between the name on the guitar and who designed it, since he built the concept himself rather than lending his name to an existing shape. His own long-term main instrument before this was a Gibson Explorer, played for more than two decades.

Sacha Dunable's own brand counts Chelsea Wolfe, members of Mastodon, Intronaut, Khemmis and Monolord among its documented players, though those artists are associated with Dunable's guitars generally rather than specifically confirmed on this particular Jackhammer model.