Asken Guitars

Fren has done more for my guitars than anyone I have ever taken them too in the last 15 years. As others have said, it can be up to 2 months before you see your axe again, but I promise you it is worth the wait. I can’t see myself going to anyone else as long as I live in LA.

I brought in my 2011 Fender Tele and 1983 Fender Acoustic.
The lead time is long, but worth the wait. Fren told me it would take a month and it took 5 weeks to see my guitars again, none of which I am up set by. The quality and care I heard in my guitars when I picked them up is not comparable to any one else. Keep in mind, it is one guy in his garage. He is busy because he is good, and apparently a lot of people know this. If you don’t have time, don’t waste his time. But remember, he is the best at what he does.
Thank you Fren for the set up of my guitars.
–Zachary

Fren really knows his stuff but it wasn’t the experience I thought I was in for. I looked him up on Unilocal and everyone’s review raved about his quality of work. I have a horrible hum when I plug in my 57 reissue telecaster. Not sure why it was happening. I thought I would have a professional take a look. I arrived at Asken Guitar with Waze guiding me in. I ended up in a residential neighborhood. I sat in my car confused then saw a mom and her daughter walking towards the house with a guitar case in hand. I followed them into the driveway where they popped open the gate and proceeded to the back yard garage when Fren’s work area is. They were there for a lesson. I popped my head in and introduced myself looking around to see many guitars tagged and racked. I explained my issue. Fren very politely said he would take a look but it could be up to 2 months! Not going on tour anytime soon I said what the heck. After a month I checked in. His preferred communication is text. After little response I got nervous. Then he replied he will take a look and get back to me. A month later still no response so I asked to come pick it up. No response and I got really nervous. Then he finally responded that I could come get it. I went the next day and he very kindly said he opened it up but that is the typical hum the tele pickups have. He recommended a noiseless pick up. But my wife convinced me it was a silly investment and I should suck it up. I paid him 20 bucks for his «time» which he reluctantly accepted. End result if you are looking for a brick and mortar repair shop try another place. If you want a repair on a tricky issue. He seems to be the guy. But you need patience. Lots of it.

My girlfriend and I had a horrible experience with Fren. I contacted Fren shortly after my father decided to give me his old Gibson electric guitar back in the Fall of 2014. Due to being busy with work and school I could never get around to bringing it in. My girlfriend and her parents decided they wanted to tune up the guitar for me for Christmas. My previous guitar was stolen at the airport almost 10 years ago while I was in college, so finally getting another guitar after so long was a really big deal for me. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. My girlfriend had a hell of a time getting a hold of Fren when trying to coordinate dropping off the guitar, because Fren runs his business out of his house. So you have to call him and he has to be right by the phone is seems, to come out and receive the guitar. After weeks of trying to drop off the guitar, I had started looking up other shops to potentially bring the guitar to. Unfortunately for both of us, she was able to get the guitar into his hands by early January, just as I was going to tell her I was recommended another repair shop. A set up usually takes a week or two. The turnaround should never be several months. I had told my girlfriend to advise Fren to please look at the wiring, as the guitar had wiring issues as far back as I could remember (because I learned to play on this guitar as a kid and it was starting to go in and out on amps back in the 90s). He told her it looked fine, and that it just needed a set up and should be good in a month. One month is a long quote by normal shop standards. I’ve had guitar set ups done before, and I had never had to wait more than a week, but he was supposedly one of the best in the city. We found him because of an LA Weekly article about best guitar shops in the city. Since this was such a big deal for us (with the last guitar stolen, and not being able to replace the guitar for almost 10 years, being a christmas present from her and her parents), we thought let’s do the set up right and take it to the best person. Fren was not communicative at all about his delays. We both have customer service industry backgrounds, and understand delays in service happen, but as long as you communicate what is going on people will usually be understanding. Well, he didn’t do that. We would give him an extra week, then an extra two weeks until trying to reach out to him. He would wait a week or two after we’d email him to tell us what we already knew, that he was backed up and it was taking longer than expected for him to get to the guitar. This meant the guitar was just sitting in his work area, waiting to be seen. This happened multiple times throughout the next few months. By the time we got it, he had butchered the job. Yes, the guitar has new strings, yes the guitar’s action was adjusted, but no, the wiring was still messed up and after all of this, I still can’t play the guitar. My girlfriend bought me a new case and a new amp and cable to go with this. She is seriously the best, and her parents are so amazing as well. Yet after all the trouble, and all the anxiety he caused by not communicating with us, and my own parents breathing down my back asking if the guitar had come out of the shop yet, I can’t even enjoy the guitar. The first day she brought it home after telling Fren in person how disappointed we both were about the experience, it was hard to really enjoy the experience of finally having back home. I finally was able to open up my christmas presents, set up the amp and plug in, and what happens? The guitar sound is coming in and out of the speaker, because he never looked at the wiring, he just said it was fine. He probably never even checked his work, because the guitar was out of tune. Fine details are important when you have botched the whole customer service experience. At least plug the guitar in when you have finished the job and tune the guitar. He had sprayed the guitar’s head for free (after my girlfriend had to tell him she would not pay for the job done on it because it looks terrible!) because it had started chipping while in his possession. At first he wanted to her to pay a discounted price on the job. I feel terrible for sending her there in the first place. I am never recommending Fren to anyone. Money is tight for us, and to save up money to do this, and to get her parents involved, I just feel bad that she had to deal with this experience, and that it caused so much anguish for both of us. He is a very busy and popular luthier, but he needs to treat every customer with respect and value. He told my girlfriend that he had lots of guitars in his possession, where he wasn’t communicating with his clients on an update on time either. If he did an amazing job, then maybe I could see how he could get away with being maybe a week or two past his quoted time, but a few months after the time you quoted? Take your guitar somewhere else.

Fren is a gem of a guy who transformed my guitar into a piece of art. Thank you for your patience in explaining what needed to be done. I’m truly thankful :-)

Fren is a great professional, and price is very affordable. The second time I used his service, I had a minor problem, and he didn’t charge me at all, although he spent time fixing it. Very friendly and honest. I wish I discovered him before. Recommend to everyone !

Absolutely stellar experience. Fren could not have been nicer to me on the phone while I described my guitar’s issue or while I was at his shop. He removed some superficial scratches from my guitar quickly, effectively, and left me with an amazing impression about his quality of work. The guitar came out perfect, I could not be happier and I will definitely be bringing my guitars back to Fren if they ever have any problems.
Fren, thanks again sir! you are the man!

Friendly, on time, great result, reasonable cost. What more can be asked of someone that provides a service. As others have correctly noted, Fren is a master craftsman. I feel lucky to have found him.

I’m always a little skeptical about a fully decorated Unilocal star such as Fren at Asken Guitars. I tend to think «Hmm, just how legitimate are all these reviews?» Well, you can rest assured they are all completely accurate. Fren is a miracle worker.
I brought in my maligned MIM Fender Jaguar that would not stay in tune to save my life. The neck pickup was sunken in, it was filthy, and it just sounded awful. I was considering modding it out so that it would stay in tune, but being that its only a $ 500 guitar, I wasn’t sure of how worth it it would be to invest another $ 300+ just to make it stay in tune. Fren guided me through all of my options, and let me know that there were alternatives and mods that I could use that would make it stay in tune, but that they were pricey. He never tried to upsell me on anything, he let me know his honest opinion on the matter and just seems to be a fellow that likes guitars.
So, we landed on just starting with a normal setup/​electronics repair. It was the exact same price as the newbie’s at Guitar Center, but when I got it back I had never had it feel so good. I played a show with it the next night and the guitar sang like it never had before. I’m not sure what kind of crazy voodoo he put on this thing, but whatever he did worked and worked remarkably well.
I can’t thank Fren enough for making me fall back in love with a guitar that I was almost considering abandoning. I will definitely be coming back, and have already recommended Asken Guitars to all of my musician buddies in the area.

I took my made in Mexico strat in to change the pickups and decided to get a setup a well. It was worth every penny, Fren did a great job. My guitar plays and sounds better than ever before and I will take all of my guitars to Fren from now on.

Really good luthier. Just got my guitar set up there. Plays beautifully now

When I dropped off my 1967 Fender Mustang all of the electrical wiring was failing and the frets were toasted! Fren completely repaired the electrical wiring and re — fretted the entire guitar. He told me it would sound better than it ever has once he was done with it and he was RIGHT!
If you want quality, craftsman and personal customer service Asken is the best!

Fren replaced my guitar string in like 5 minutes and it was an amazingly reasonable price. Will definitely be going back for any future guitar needs.

Great experience with Asken Guitars (formerly Frenster Guitars)!
Brought my guitar in for a fret dressing and to fix some dings. Fren did a fantastic job with it. The fret dressing was clean and the setup made my guitar play really smoothly.
Fren was friendly and personable; he took the time to understand my needs and to assure me that he would do his best to fix my beloved axe.
Turnaround time (2 weeks) was decent and probably as good as any in this town.
I’ll definitely go back to him the next time my guitar needs servicing!

Fren is simply the most knowledgeable, honest and friendly master luthier you can find in Southern California!
So don’t think twice, take your instruments to Asken Guitars now.

Fren is fantastic. He does excellent work for a great price, which would be reason enough to recommend him. Fren takes it another step: he’ll explain things to you if you have questions so that you understand what’s going on. I learned so much just by talking with him.
He tricked out my Telecaster with a «pickups-​in-​series» mod that makes it sound fantastic!
In short: great work, great prices, patient, talented and innovative! Why go anywhere else in Los Angeles?

Okay, THIS guy is the real deal. This is not a guitar monkey, this is a proper luthier. The worse the problem is with my guitars, the bigger need to take it to Fren. Even if you just need a setup, take it here.
GET TO KNOW FREN ASKEN

There’s a level of quality to Fren’s work that is almost impossible to find today. You spend a few minutes in his shop and you’ll know that the art of the luthier is alive and well. The older you get, the more your guitar collection starts to include a few of your «babies» and to have a place where you can trust that they’ll not only be in good hands, but come back to you playing better than you could have ever imagined is a real gift.
I’m happy to say that I haven’t had to call for the disaster repair, but with the amount of care he puts into just getting a guitar to play the way you’d like it to play, if that day ever comes, there’s only one person I would call.

I had a 1967 Guild acoustic guitar that was in a car accident — the car was totaled. The guitar was banged up pretty badly, but (typical Guild) it was still in tune after the crash!
I have nothing against TrueTone in Santa Monica — they gave the repair their best shot but ended up returning the instrument to me after trying everything to repair the cracked and unglued braces (TrueTone only charged me for the new set of strings they put on it — kudos to them).
Frenster was recommended to me by the people at Advanced Musical Electronics when I brought an amp there for repair. Frenster is less than a mile from my home so I thought I’d give it a try. He was very patient and looked over the instrument inside and out, showing me the damage with a mirror.
He tried a few different things to fix it up — this is a player’s instrument, so I didn’t ask him to make it pretty. I just wanted it to sound good again. In the end he reglued all of the braces, epoxied the broken brace and repaired some cracks in the top. The instrument now sounds better than it did before the car accident.
Simple setups will take a week or so depending on how busy he is but allow some extra time for major repairs. His price was reasonable considering how badly damaged the guitar was.

Exceptional work! Fren is a really nice guy and delivers good turn-​around time, considering that he is probably the best on the West side. I will say his prices for some types of work are a little higher than most, but do you really want to save a few bucks on the repair of a $ 1,800 instrument? I didn’t, and I was glad I took my baby to him.
His setups are the best I have ever played on, and I’ve been to some top notch guys all over the country and the Los Angeles area. I’m taking all of my guitars to him now, even ones that already have a «decent» setup from somewhere else, because I know he will make it even better. An amateur may not notice the difference much, but if you know what you’re looking for you will be amazed.