How Guitar Wisdom creator Tomo Fujita builds tone with Celestion Speakers

For more than three decades, Tomo Fujita has been a respected voice in the global guitar community, balancing life as a professor at Berklee College of Music with an acclaimed performance career. Along the way, he has shared the stage with renowned musicians including Phil Collins, Steve Gadd, and Bernard Purdie, while shaping the next generation of players. Central to that sound is his long-standing reliance on guitar speakers from Celestion, including the Vintage 30, G12-65 Creamback, and Celestion 100.

Known worldwide for his online platform Guitar Wisdom and for mentoring artists such as John Mayer, Fujita’s philosophy centres on groove, nuance, and the pursuit of a pristine, clean tone.

Fujita treats his guitar as a vocalist, making the loudspeaker a critical component of his signal chain. “If you consider the amplifier's power to be the lungs, then the tone is truly the throat,” Fujita explains. 

“Everything ultimately comes out of the speaker, and a good speaker, like Celestion, brings out the best characteristics of a guitar.”

His relationship with the Celestion brand began shortly after he moved to the US in 1986 with just one suitcase, one guitar, and a desire to communicate deeply through music. 

After placing third in the Boston Best Guitarist Competition, he won a Marshall JCM900 amplifier, two cabinets, and a 100-watt Celestion speaker. He immediately swapped the Celestion speaker into his Fender Champ 12 practice amp. 

"Right away, with Celestion, I noticed a better balance from the low to high frequencies, and I could hear every detail," he recalls. "That was the moment I first became interested in the profound impact of speakers.”

Fujita advocates for a pure tone, eschewing massive pedalboards in favour of finger dynamics. He famously teaches students to practice with their amplifier's treble turned all the way up and the bass rolled off to master their picking touch through discomfort. Because he plays clean, the speaker itself becomes a vital, organic compressor that reveals the truth of the player's hands.

“A good amplifier with Celestion speakers definitely possesses built-in, natural compression," he notes. "When you push them, they vibrate organically. A truly great speaker reveals the nuances of a player’s tone exceptionally well.”

Today, Fujita's primary rig features his signature Two-Rock amplifier loaded with a Celestion Vintage 30, a driver that has thoroughly impressed him. Alongside the Vintage 30, his curated collection includes a vintage G12-65, which he relies on for his signature funk sound, the Alnico Celestion 100, and the G12M-65 Creamback.

"I initially thought the Vintage 30 was strictly a rock speaker, but the balance is incredibly good," he enthuses. "It simply has everything you need right there.”