Handmade Custom
Instruments

Building beautiful custom instruments that inspire

Welcome to Dubova Musical Instruments.

Michael Dubova is the founder of Dubova Musical Instruments, an independent, handmade musical instruments company.

Located at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Crozet, Virginia.

ABOUT....

Dubova has been interested in bluegrass, folk and flamenco music since high school. He would tune into “Bluegrass Sunday Morning” on WNRN, and wear out his tape recorder laying down tracks by Doc Watson and Tony Rice. He performed with a few bands and would frequently busk on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Michael started building musical instruments as a hobby in 2009 when he wanted to challenge himself to build an instrument that sounded better than what he could afford to purchase.

Michael ended up building a mandolin that didn’t quite look like what the blueprints depicted and it sounded…like there was room for improvement.

After years of trial and error, and never shying away from trying new concepts, requests for custom orders began pouring in.

Past Clients...

Over the past 13 years, Dubova has made instruments for Adam Skolnick (ghost writer for the David Goggin’s book “Can’t Hurt Me” and journalist for New York Times), Sage Canaday (professional runner and musician in Boulder, Colorado), Chad Timmer of Colorado-based band HenScratch, Nikos Briscoe of Fever in the Funkhouse, and Jess Spaulding of the Rusty Dusty String Band.

Once, one of his clients handed Chris Thile a Dubova mandolin backstage after a gig and passed along the high-praise Thile had for the mandolin back to Dubova.

DESIGN AND BUILD

I invite the client into the build process so they are intimately involved in the creative design and build process.

That’s a lot of what they will be getting with their order: a front row seat to experience how their personalized instrument takes shape from raw lumber to completed instrument.

“When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it – don’t back down and don’t give up – then you’re going to mystify a lot of folks."

-Bob Dylan

I take pride in trying to utilize domestic woods as much as possible. There’s something magical about being able to walk through the forests that surround us... and to have the knowledge to turn those same species of timber into an instrument that then creates music.