''Cats'' repair and custom workshop for musical instruments came to be in 1992.

We are primarily orientated towards electric string instruments, acoustic and electro-acoustic guitars. Classical instruments (violins, double bass etc.) as well as so called ‘’folk’’ instruments (tamboura etc.) are not a part of our specialty.

It all began long ago!

In 1979. I made my first guitar. Back then it wasn’t easy neither to find the materials nor to learn how to make guitars.

Why did I start making guitars?

I’m left handed so it was almost impossible to find a guitar for a left handed person back in Ex-Yugoslavia. So I decided to make my own. I started studying and learning a lot about guitars, technology behind their manufacture, and about instruments in general. I started repairing and manufacturing guitars for my friends, while being a professional musician at the same time.

After some time I started making guitar pickups as well. (Thanks to the legendary Zlatko Grbac).

When I estimated that my knowledge and services could help a wide array of musicians I decided to open my own workshop.

My guitars and my workshop bear the name ‘’Cats’’, but that has nothing to do with cats! Cats (Kec) was my nickname ever since I was a child, so it made sense to me to name my guitars the same.

Currently, after a lot of time, collected knowledge and experience, we are doing our best to solve the problems with your instruments and make your visions into reality!

If you have an idea and vision of what your new guitar should look like you are in the right place!

Custom Shop

The instrument’s color, the type of finish, parts, designs, frets, wood… It’s up to you to choose what you want, and we will give you some ideas or advice. I’m sure you’ve heard multiple times how the type of wood affects the quality of the sound and instrument makes. That’s quite an important detail. The wood we’ve been obtaining and collecting for about 40 years is high quality and frequently stocked. Our priority is that the wood ''plays and sings'' well and after that comes the aesthetic factor. Our custom shop manufactures instruments as a whole, but also certain elements of the instruments such as just the guitar necks or body.

Acoustic guitars

Everything I know about making acoustic guitars I learned from Mr. Mirko Hotko (an excellent manufacturer of concert guitars), and partially from the books on the subject. In all of that I mixed a little bit of my own ideas, and so the whole story started with acoustic guitars.

Bass guitars

Bass guitars have gone through multiple changes from their beginnings up until today. Active electronics, 5, 6 or 8 strings, materials, parts, layered construction, innovative design etc. It all affected the changes this instrument went through over the years. Nevertheless, a good portion of musicians prefers the good old traditional electric bass as opposed to the newer ‘’innovative’’ ones. It’s up to you to decide which way you’ll go! Are you up for something more modern or are you an ‘’old school’’ bassist? Maybe something modern with an vintage charm...?

S’tac pickups

Our pickups are made in the good, old fashioned way, with materials and elements that fit the criteria of the legendary pickups from the 50’s and 60’s. Every pickup is hand wound to have the desired result and characteristics and chime. We would often make pickups specifically for certain types of wood the guitar would be made out of. If the pickup works incredibly well on one guitar, that doesn’t mean it will work well on another! There’s a lot of tricks that can be used to get exactly what you want and need…