Tom Ribbecke has spent his long career perfecting his craft and pushing the limits of design. He developed the Halfling™ design in 2003 with the help of renowned bass player (and good friend) Bobby Vega. The design is a unique blend of the Steel String/Classical guitar and the Archtop guitar that offers versatility, enhanced bass response and more feedback suppression. For the contemporary guitarist whose literature crosses over into both worlds the Halfling™ combines the best of both worlds.

The soundboard of the Halfling™ is a combination of the flat bass side of a Steel String and the arched treble side of an Archtop. The instruments are capable of large full fundamental bass response with the ability to hear and distinguish all the notes of a complex chord when ringing together.

The Halfling™ is a unique and proprietary design of guitar or Bass that uses the concepts of advanced luthiery design to create a more versatile and efficient stringed instrument by combining the flat bass side of a Steel string or Classical guitar top with the carved or arched treble side of the soundboard, to create an instrument that is capable of large full fundamental bass response with the separation of course (ability to hear and distinguish all the notes of a complex chord when ringing together.)

"It's almost as if makers are trending toward more flat top characteristics in their archtops. Ribbecke has taken this trend and twisted it into the Halfling™, which uses an odd bracing system that gives an archtop-like bottom end, and flat-top-like uppers... The lower strings are more resonant sounding than any archtop I've played, yet never sound flabby or uncontrolled. The uppers have a little flat top shimmer". - Mark Guest

With the creation of the first Halfling™ design an opportunity emerged to create a new company, Ribbecke Guitar Co. (RGC), based on this design. This new company was founded to build high quality, made-in-the-USA guitars and basses.

To see more photos of the Halfling™ instruments click here.