An original like Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia needed an eccentric guitar, and Doug Irwin built it for him. Using laminated maple and purpleheart, an incredibly stiff South American wood, Irwin invented an instrument with a new shape, hardware, and controls. An ingenious plate system allowed pickup systems to be dropped in and out, and Garcia settled on an unusual humbucker/humbucker/single-coil arrangement. Two outputs allowed Garcia to run his effects loop separately and switch it from the guitar.