He has been playing guitar for 25 years, drums for 12 and bass guitar for eight and is fascinated by every aspect of how they work and how they can be improved. He worked as a luthier for 15 years and was authorised to repair Gibson, Fender, Martin and Ibanez guitars, as well as install Fishman Transducers. Please note: he no longer repairs instruments and limits these activities to his own instruments.

Alan has been using guitar synthesizers since the late 1980's, and occasionally does workshops on these and other hi-tech items such as piezo bridges. He has earned endorsments from Graph Tech for their GHOST piezo bridge saddles, Boss for their guitar effects processors and Roland for their guitar synths. He is also an active and well known member of various home recording, guitar and guitar synthesizer discussion groups.

Alan is the author of the Electric Guitar Handbook (New Holland Publishing), which was released worldwide on the 1st October 2005. The paperback version was released in April 2007. He is busy writing another book: Hotrod Your Electric Guitar for US-based publisher Course Technology PTR, which is scheduled for global release in 2008.

Visit his website at www.ratcliffe.co.za.