Our Story

By Cord Pereira

​

     In 2023, my wife Caroline and I started splitting our time between Santa Barbara and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It's exhilarating oceanfront living, but also came with unexpected sacrifice with respect to playing guitar.

     At home in Santa Barbara, I play lead guitar in the Doublewide Kings (www.doublewidekings.com). Because I am away more than half the year, the band decided to bring in a sixth King to plug the hole.

     So the band kept rolling, but my rhythm certainly changed. With less time on stage and in rehearsals, I leaned even more on keeping guitars ready at home in PV.

     I needed my guitars out. On stands. On the wall. Within arm’s length. If I couldn’t grab one instantly, chances are I'd be too lazy to pull one from a case.

     Then PV’s humid, salty air started oxidizing and corroding my strings - fast. I was stuck choosing between convenience and protection. If I left guitars out, the strings degraded. If I put them in hard cases, spontaneity died.

     I had a big problem that needed a solution. I needed to protect the strings without hiding the guitar.  I spent the better part of a year biting my tongue and storing guitars in cases. Then one day I thought why not put the case on the strings.  A simple concept that has evidently been overlooked for centuries.

     In late 2024 Hugo Knef came for a PV visit. He's a close friend and former bandmate, a do-it-all musician, and a hands-on waterman who could sew and build in ways I couldn’t.

     While the solution vision was mine, the invention accelerated with Hugo beside me. I drove the concept and the purist requirements. Hugo helped translate it into real prototypes, construction methods, and durable refinements.

     We iterated fast.

     An early “string condom” design hid the headstock, which was sacred territory. Guitar purists weren’t going to accept a billboard over the instrument’s identity, and neither was I.

     So we tightened the goal.  Protect the strings from corrosion and dust, keep the headstock logo visible, and make it feel natural.

     Iteration after iteration, we finally landed the String Case. It shielded the strings perfectly while the guitar stayed out, ready to grab and play, with no headstock heresy.

     Then I realized String Cases could add personality and a novel artistic element to the guitar. My existing Talent Tees digital printing business could easily be plugged into the process.

     The spark and the push may come from me, but the invention became real with Hugo’s timing and skills. And Mexico got a final credit too. Puerto Vallarta gets an invention assist by making oxidation impossible to ignore, and teaching me a simple truth: if my guitars aren't within reach on a stand or wall, they wouldn't be played as much as they deserve.