Jim Dunlop Guitar Products

Dunlop started as the small side business of Glasgow-born engineer, Jim Dunlop. He started out as a hobbyist with a passion for guitar effects and accessories. After relocating to California in the 60s and seeing that music stores had a limited range of guitar picks, he created the Nylon range with grip and in 6 gauges. Shortly after came the Tortex range and then in other shapes then through the years Delrin, Gator, Ultex, Jazz III, Primetone culminating in Dunlop being the biggest creator of guitar picks in the world. Jim Dunlop Sr. once described this as the equivalent of making Da Vinci’s paintbrushes with many iconic guitarists having Dunlop picks in their arsenal.

Along the way he was developing other accessories with the Capo being a key product with the invention of the original Trigger Capo which has become an industry standard. His son, Jimmy, developed this further with the Trigger Fly Capo. Jim went on to develop some of the most defining guitar accessories of all time dipping into pedals, strings, slides, original design guitar straps and guitar polishes, oils and maintenance tools.

In the early eighties, Dunlop acquired the rights to the Hendrix name for his CryBaby range which undoubtedly is the definitive Wah pedal of all time. All you have to do is look at some of the CryBaby signature artists such as Hendrix, Buddy Guy, EVH, Slash and Joe Bonamassa to notice the significance of the pedal.

Shortly after Dunlop saw the opportunity to purchase MXR which was lying dormant and relaunched and reissued the classic range from the 70s and developed it through the years with new models.

There’s rarely a guitarist in the world who hasn’t used at least one Dunlop product with famous names attached to the brand, such as Iron Maiden, Tom Morello, Metallica and Green Day; and with nearly 60 years under Dunlop’s belt, there are no signs of stopping with Jim’s son and daughter taking the company into an exciting new future.