In Chinese culture, 2026 is the year of the horse. In the guitar sphere, 2026 is the year of Angine de Poitrine and their brilliantly bonkers double-neck guitar/bass.
The band’s KEXP spot in March, in support of their second album, Vol.II, broke the internet with their microtonal guitar the centerpiece. Viewed over 17 million times, their stock continues to rise like a balloon that’s slipped through a child’s fingers. But therein lies a problem.
Their first microtonal experimentations were – by their own admission – a joke as they sawed extra frets onto an existing guitar. Then they turned to French-Canadian luthier Raphaël Le Breton, who made them the polka dot double-neck with which they’ve made their name. It’s served them well. But they never expected to get so big this quickly.
They needed a second guitar to accommodate their intense touring schedule. When Le Breton proved unavailable, they didn’t have to look too far for a solution: Quebecois guitar co Godin was already sliding into their DMs.
“My friend had shown me the band, so we’d sent their manager an email saying we were open to making them a guitar,” says CEO Simon Godin. “Two weeks later they were touring our factory.”
The band had ridden into town – presumably on a double-headed horse – for a show in Richmond, near one of Godin’s five Canadian factories. “They were blown away by all our tooling and the space,” he reports. “So they said, ‘We’re Quebecois, you’re Quebecois; let’s do it.’”
The local connection was important for the band, with Godin having produced the Limelight and Grace guitars for Alex Lifeson, and a signature guitar for fellow Canadian heavyweight Michel Cusson. But speed was essential, too.
“They asked if we could make the guitar in one month,” Godin says. “That’s pretty crazy – a normal production guitar takes eight weeks.” This, of course, wasn’t a normal production. “It should have been impossible, but we stopped everything. We had a lot of people working on those guitars.” They did it in 38 days.
It was Godin’s first foray into both double-neck and microtonal guitars, and they were handed a strict brief. The new instrument needed to be substantially lighter (considering the original is literally two guitars cut in half and stuck together) feature a smaller gap between the necks, and resolve some key playability issues.
“Because they’re so busy, I only got one hour with the original guitar,” Godin reveals. “We weighed it, took measurements, and that was it.” The resulting guitars – they made two with different pickups – were very much the firm’s own design.
Guitarist Khn wanted greater visibility of the fretboard, so Godin placed glow-in-the-dark fret markers on the back of the neck: white lines for the dotted frets and black for the rest. The microtonal frets are unmarked.
A purpose-built basswood body, with a chambered center, dramatically reduced its weight, and upper fret access was simultaneously improved. But Godin brought plenty more ideas to the table.
“Having the headstock six-in-a-row gave them more attack and dynamics because of the string tension,” he says, “especially with the reverse headstock, which also makes a triangle with the bass headstock. It’s got locking tuners and the necks are reinforced with carbon fiber, so they’re really stable.”
The guitar keeps its two inputs (Khn splits the guitar and bass signal between a Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 and a Hartke HA2500) but they’re now placed alongside each other. That means the Strat-like input for the guitar, the upper of the two necks, stays well away from the bottom neck – a pain-in-the-butt feature on the original.
The guitar features a 25.5” scale length with a flat Godin bridge, while the bass has a 34” scale length with a Hipshot bridge. They both feature Graph Tech nuts and Richlite fretboards, with 37 and 35 stainless-steel frets on the guitar and bass respectively.
Frets 1-15 are quarter-tone, with standard half-tone frets until the 22nd. The quarter-tone frets were installed by hand – Godin claims that making the microtonal necks was the easiest part. It simply required “a formula you can do on an Excel spreadsheet.”
Electronics-wise, they’re saddled with unbranded noise-canceling pickups from major players. Godin assures us that “we put the best of the best in there.”
Beyond that are plenty of Easter eggs. “They wanted three of everything,” Godin confirms. “The dice knobs are all at three; even the serial numbers have 333 at the end.”
Previously, Khn’s makeshift guitar case (a sleeping bag) had caused problems at airports, so Montreal’s Boblen custom-built cases were sworn in. The guitar gets its own seat on every flight they take, so to keep things compact, its necks are removed for travel. The case is tactfully nondescript because “they wanted it to be under the radar.”
Counterfeit items like vinyl and t-shirts are a big problem. People are trying to make a quick buck. Do you want to vote with your money for that?
Godin notes, “If something happened to it, it’s not like you go to a music store and buy another one.” When GW jokes that their shopping list would need to consist of two guitars, extra frets, and a lot of glue, Godin laughs before adding a stern “It’s not that easy…”
So, the million-dollar question: is there going to be a signature model? “I get asked this every day,” he responds. “I’m speaking with their team. It’s not a yes or a no. Everything went very big, very fast, and now this is the instrument they’ve dreamed of.
“Maybe this is why, for now, they want to keep it unique. If we do make a signature version, it won’t be a big production. It will be more of a collectible item that you hang on your wall.
“One thing’s for sure: we would like to make single-neck microtonal guitars and basses for those who want that sound but prefer something easier to play.”
Other brands, like Eastwood, have hit the market with polka dot-laden, AdP-inspired guitars. For Godin, who sees its work with the band as a real badge of honor, it’s an unfortunate side-effect of their success.
“Counterfeit items like vinyl and t-shirts are a big problem for them,” says Vincent Cléroux, the project manager on the builds who oversaw fretting, shaping and electronics. “A lot of the counterfeit producers are just following trends, trying to make a quick buck. Do you want to vote with your money for that?”
Khn first played the guitar in Joliette, Canada, on June 20 in front of 20,000 people. A week later they performed to approximately 100,000 people at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Godin and Cléroux were among those in the crowd, witnessing history being made with a guitar they built.
“When I brought the guitar to Khn, he didn’t say much. He just kept playing it. I knew he loved it,” says Godin. “Seeing them play that stage with our guitar, the hairs on my arms went up. It was insane.”
“Of course, we’re biased, but I think our guitar sounds better,” Cléroux adds. “We’re really proud. It was a special moment.”
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