Sadowsky Guitars Limited (Professional Guitar Services) is a Queens, New York based high-end guitar, bass guitar, and preamp manufacturer. The company took its name from the company founder, Roger Sadowsky. Sadowsky is an alumnus of SUNY Geneseo, and built the business from the ground up, in 1979, after 7 years of guitar luthier training. Initially, Sadowsky worked alone for years but as demand began to grow, his number of employees did, as well, and there are, as of 2011, currently 10 employees involved in instrument manufacturing excluding Sadowsky himself and Madison, the "chief of security" and company mascot.
Sadowsky started out modifying vintage (Fender) basses, which were at that time inexpensive, to improve their sound by adding more noise reduction technology and replacing the passive electronics with an active preamp, which increases the signal to noise ratio of the bass's signal. Once the price of vintage bass guitars began to take off, Sadowsky started creating entire bass guitars, and finally, requests for signature models.
The Sadowsky "NYC" line of instruments consists of 4 and 5 string bass guitars and 6 string guitars. The bass guitars have a 34 inch scale length with no current models offered in longer or shorter scale lengths.
The Sadowsky Metro line are the basic models of Sadowsky NYC basses made by Sadowsky Tokyo and offers most of the same features, minus the custom options, of the NYC line at a more affordable price.
Sadowsky, as of 2003, also offers a line of archtop guitars. There are currently 5 models available, the Jim Hall model, the Jimmy Bruno model, the semi-hollow model, the LS-17 (long scale/17" lower bout) and the SS-15 (short scale/15" lower bout). The various models are played and endorsed by many professional guitarists including, Jim Hall, Jimmy Bruno, Russell Malone, John Abercrombie, Leonardo Amuedo and many more.
Sadowsky instruments are used by high profile musicians including Willie Weeks, who claims "the Sadowsky Vintage P/J 5-string with the reversed P pickup is his personal model.[1] Bassists Will Lee and Jason Newsted, who once placed a single order for nine Sadowsky bass guitars, are also known to use them, as well as Alter Bridge and Creed bassist Brian Marshall, who has used them exclusively since 2004.
In 2007, Roger Sadowsky heard Australian bass player Tal Wilkenfeld on the instrument, and she accepted an offer made by him as the official endorser of Sadowsky bass guitars. She still continues to retain this position, as of April, 2009.[2]