Official Luthiers Forum!

[QUOTE=Hesh] Generally speaking a quality built/crafted guitar from a talented, experienced Luthier WILL and DOES sound better. 



[/QUOTE]

Kevin and others no disagreement here from me but please reread what I said above.

Generally speaking means not always right?  Although "quality built/crafted", "talented", and "experienced Luthier" are somewhat subjective I believe that you and I would agree on definitions Kevin. 

My statement was never intended to imply that any hand built guitar by a self proclaimed "Luthier" would always sound better than factory guitars. 

So again no disagreement from me if you take my statement as it was offered and clearly written.

Many of our pals here fall into the category that I describe above, experienced, talented, and justifiably entitled IMHO to call themselves Luthiers.  These are the folks who I believe are entitled to march to the banner that "generally speaking" a Luthier built guitar will sound better then a factory built guitar.

The real point of my post was that if you are offering superb guitars you need to toot your own horn about it and let people know.  And, I will add, that if you are building superb guitars I believe that you are entitled to make this claim. 

Sure sound/tone is subjective and that plays into the truth of Mario's statement that some people just won't get it.....  Nor will they ever.

And I am sure that there are many exceptions and never any absolutes about any thing.  But this is why I framed my comment with "generally speaking."

There is an old and rather cold expression in the sales game that reads:  Some will, some won't, so what - next.

Peace

I guess another analogy is that having a guitar custom made for you is about the "conversation". It starts with the first inquiry and probably never ends. I just saw the punch list for a guitar built for Keith Richards. Basically it described the dimensions that best suited his desires, neck, scale length body size, etc. The rest was up to the Luthier as he has a signature sound. But many will be able to talk through all of the details, from fret wire size to how the fret ends are dressed to the custom logo and the style the guitar will be used for. A "conversation"!

Shane

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Canada

[QUOTE=muthrs]

I think there is also a third "bridge" category that has to do with Gestalt. I really believe that when someone pours their soul into their work the result is more than the sum of its parts. This is something that is not easily measured, but is experienced. Somehow a part of the artist is in the art. This has to do with the motivation of the artist rather than with the art form itself. Thus it can be equally true for anybody including scientists, athletes, etc. But it is rare to find this kind of motivation and dedication among factory workers.[/QUOTE]

I think Randy makes an excellent point, here (and I haven't yet had time to read this thread beyond his post which I quote here). I'll add my two cents to this theme.

A guitar is a tool for making art. Art is a mirror of, and a deep expression of, our souls. When one of our guitars is taken up in the player's hands, the making of art through the vehicle of that instrument becomes theirs. But before that moment, the artistry, the soul, that is poured into that guitar comes from the guitar maker, and the instrument is a manifestation of the maker's unique creative vision, hands, and ears. This creates a continuum of soul, creativity, and expression, uniquely shared between that guitar maker and that player, that can be a profound experience for the player who is open to it. Picking up that instrument can help connect the player to the flow of artistic inspiration in a way no factory made guitar ever could.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

What I've said here applies to some extent to all handmade guitars, I suppose, but most especially to those instruments which, through the talents, skills, and inspiration of the maker, embody a high level of artistry in every aspect - the look, the feel, the smell even, and the sound.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

I thank Mike Mahar for standing the question on it's head, so to speak, and asking people why they did not consider a hand made. It's interesting to me that, had they just asked, most of those concerns could have been easiliy addressed by almost any of us.

I, too, think it's dangerous to promise 'better' tone, since that's such a subjective thing. OTOH, I think any skilled and experinenced luthier should be able to either build an instrument with the basic timbre the buyer wants, or else be able to refer them to somebody who can. Factories can't control tone to the extent we can, and must rely on chance to some extent. We've all played some great factory instruments, but we've all played some real dogs, too. Any luthier worthy of the title should at least not make any dogs (except Rick Davis, who only makes dogs, but they run so good....).

;)


One issue that I don't think has been addressed yet is the difference between 'standard paractice' and 'best practice'. I agree with Rick that a stint at the repair bench is one of the most useful things a luthier can do. It teaches you what's wrong with the usual designs, and gives you ideas about how to improve them. In many cases design features are adopted by the factories simply to save time, and can easily be improved on in acoustic or structural terms. Of course, the manufacturers have spent a lot of time and effort convincing the public that these features are 'the best way', and it might take us a while to turn things around. Still, I believe we can all think of changes we have made in our designs or practices in response to perceived deficiencies in standard designs, and we need to point these things out, and give the reasons.

[QUOTE=Kevin Gallagher] It's a funny thing and the people who make up
the market are as guilty of the "If I paid more, I must have gotten more."
mentality as those in any other specialty market. [/QUOTE]

Sorry to always quote you here, Kevin. I was on the phone with Robert
Keeley yesterday ordering one of Keeley's modified Tubescreamers to
stack on top of my Keeley Bluesdriver. They offer a modified TS-9, and a
modified TS808 reissue. The 808 is $250 with true bypass and the JRC
chip from the original pedal. The TS9 is $210 for true bypass. I asked
what the differences were and he said they're the same pedal. "If you
open them up, they're exactly the same." I asked why some people go for
the 808 and he said the higher price makes them think it's a better effect.

I ordered the TS808 for it's resale value.      

That phenominon is known as "Cognative dissonance" by the way and has a lot to do with why people buy what they buy and for how much.

I agree with Alan on the workmanship issue.....no way can an individual maker beat an entity like C.F. Martin or Taylor on consistancy of quality......and the sound thing is also problematic though I have to say that if you are not producing instruments that  sound better than commercial offerings you may be in the wrong line of work.

Beyond mere custom features, what an individual guitarmaker CAN produce is an instrument with a Genuine Individual Character. The nature of that character depends upon the maker and that character is what prospective clients should be seeking and what guitarmakers should be offering, rather than trying to beat manufacturers on their terms. 

Just to explore another avenue...  Could we say that when you choose a luthier guitar , in general, you will have access to a very high quality of woods and parts? 

[QUOTE=theguitarjunky] Just to explore another avenue... Could we say that when you choose a luthier guitar , in general, you will have access to a very high quality of woods and parts?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, that is certainly one of the advantages to a luthier made guitar and a good point to bring up. Many of the responses to your question are about getting the tone that the customer wants but there are other items that the customer may want that we shouldn't ignore.

You can get a guitar made out of "sustainable" woods or woods local to a certain region or woods that are alternatives to CITES controlled wood. I know of several builders who did not bring their Brazilian Rosewood instruments to your show because they weren't confident that the paperwork would be right and they would be confiscated at the border.

The details of the ornamentation are important too. The stories that I've heard builders tell is that they have a short conversation about the style of play and the sound that the customer likes and then go back and forth over details like whether to use bloodwood purfling or pink ivory or pink or green abalone. In short, they say they care about the tone but fret endlessly over the bling.

[QUOTE=theguitarjunky]Just to explore another avenue...  Could we say that when you choose a luthier guitar , in general, you will have access to a very high quality of woods and parts?  [/QUOTE]

That's a very good and hopefully true point. When you are building 12 to 50 instruments a year, it's not hard to be extra picky with wood.  When you're building hundreds or thousands a month, no way.

For instance, I make 3 piece necks but I mill all the wood from 3" - 4" thick stock so I can get heel blocks that came from the same board as the rest of the neck.  Always a perfect color and grain match.  Imagine a factory trying to do that?

Also, I can stock up on my neck wood when one of the lumber yards I frequent happens to have 1 or 2 nice slabs, well quartered.  One good board can last me a couple of years.  I could never be as picky if I needed even ten times as much.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Once again I'd caution about hubris.

Most of the guitar buying public have no idea that there even are small shop guitar builders.   Go visit a Guitar Center...that's where most people think guitars come from.   They may understand that guitars show up at GC in a cardboard box, but that's about the extent of most peoples' thinking on the subject.   

It's a bit different for those who read Acoustic Guitar Magazine, but that's a small percentage of the market.

Also, many buyers of higher end guitars want to go with a "known brand".   They'd rather drop $10,000.00 on a spiffy Martin than $5,000.00 on a decent luthier-built guitar because they think the Martin will hold value.

The guitar market is remarkably unsophisticated.   Even in the vintage market, brand names rule over quality. I'll put up my 1897 Howe-Orme 000 sized guitar against any Martin equivalent of the era on any real criterion...craftsmanship, wood quality, tone...and yet the equivalent Martin would be worth 2 1/2 to 3 times the monetary value.

Shows like Healdsburg, Montreal, and Newport/Miami can go a long way to helping educate guitarists to a different way of thinking.

[QUOTE=theguitarjunky]Just to explore another avenue...  Could we say that when you choose a luthier guitar , in general, you will have access to a very high quality of woods and parts? 
[/QUOTE]

I understand that you are looking for differentiators here which is exactly what I would do too.  But I would not agree that wood quality/selection is necessarily a silver bullet either.

There is another active thread where one of our very finest wood suppliers is currently out of stock because he had to fill some large orders from factory clients.  I could just as easily turn around this thinking and indicate that in my opinion the factories may have access to as good or better wood then an individual Luthier may have access too.

It is true that with a Luthier built guitar a customer may very often pick out the exact wood that they will receive.  But even smaller factories like Huss and Dalton have private stock/reserves and will do some level of customization for a price.

I realize that I did not get any where with my assertion that a quality built/crafted guitar from a talented, experienced Luthier will generally offer superior tone.  I think that the reason that this did not fly with folks here is that tone is very subjective.  It still blows my mind though to no end that some of you do not believe in your hearts that you are producing instruments that are superior sounding to a factory guitar......

Any way with this said perhaps since tone is subjective the true differentiating factor will be what the prospective customers believe the Luthier built/crafted guitar sounds like.  This leads me to ask if this show will have a place provided where a Luthier and prospective client may take a guitar, away from the feeding frenzy and let the players try out the guitars with little or no distractions?  If what the prospective customer thinks about the tone/sound of a guitar is a true differentiating factor, and I believe that it is, providing a stage so-to-speak for facilitating this discovery would be key to the successes of the Luthier exhibitors would it not?

[QUOTE=Hesh] This leads me to ask if this show will have a place provided where a Luthier and prospective client may take a guitar, away from the feeding frenzy and let the players try out the guitars with little or no distractions?  If what the prospective customer thinks about the tone/sound of a guitar is a true differentiating factor, and I believe that it is, providing a stage so-to-speak for facilitating this discovery would be key to the successes of the Luthier exhibitors would it not?
[/QUOTE]

I'm happy to report that this show was, I believe, the first show to offer quiet rooms for musicians and builders to try out instruments in a good environment (directly in the room).  This year we plan to have about 12-14 of these quiet rooms. If you speak witth luthiers that were present last year, I am confident that they will tell you that we run a world class event, taylor made for high end builders.

Jacques-Andre that sounds great but did ya have to say "Taylor" made - you might of even said "Martin" made........

I have no doubt that the Montreal show will indeed be a world class event and a great time for all!

    We got your generalization in your initial statement, but it doesn't have
to turn into another statment that some of us don't believe in what we are
doing. If I didn't believe in my guitars and my abilities as a luthier after
thousands of electric pieces coming out of shop with a crew of guys in
the early and mid 80s and almost 500 custom acoustic pieces on my own,
I would have quit this thing a long time ago. We believe in them, but the
market that we address is about tone along with personalization,
customization and the relationship betwen customer and builder.

    It's just that what Rick said is so true when he said, "Most of the guitar
buying public have no idea that there even are small shop guitar builders.   
Go visit a Guitar Center...that's where most people think guitars come
from.   They may understand that guitars show up at GC in a cardboard
box, but that's about the extent of most peoples' thinking on the
subject."

    The very large majority of players don't even know that small builders
even exist and this is why the foctory produced guitar market is so huge.
I will venture to say that your guitars sound great....as good as those of
many other builders and even a good number of builders with more time
and experience under their belts than you may have.

    But...when you are producing guitars at a rate of more than 3500 a
week and a good portion of those are being given at least some attention
by skilled craftsmen with actual luthier skills and some experience, there
are going to be very good odds that some great guitars are going to
make it out of the shop at a much higher rate then any small sho can ever
think to produce. Granted, the proportional amount of duds that come
out of it will be far greater than that of any small shop that I know of, we
it doesn;t hurt any of us to admit that some wonderful souding guitars
are making their way from the production houses to the hands of players.

    I didn't see anyone saying that they didn't believe in what they are
building or that they wouldn;t hold it up to even the best factory built
guitars, only that they recognize the quality that is possible to achieve in
those production environments.

    We do wear our feelings for our instruments on our sleeves along with
the deep passion that have fore the pursuit of refining their design and
construction and the quality of even the smallest details in both.

    I've played a good number of guitars from Martin that I know would
challenge the skills of ANY solo builder as far as tone goes....and I own a
few, too. I tend to favor the elevated complexity of my 000 or OM models
over my Martins, but still appreciate that beautiful traditional tone and
fundamental power.

   I'm yet to hear a Dread from a small or solo luthier shop that passes the
best Martin Dreads that I've played, too. Is that a slap in the face for small
builders? By no means. When a manufacturer has built nearly 2 million
guitars, there's bound to be more outstanding exceptions to normal
output qulaity in the market place than any small builder will produce in
several of their lifetimes. That's all.

     With the many millions of sets of wood that have been procured by the
big guys, they will end up with the broad majoroty of the finest woods on
the planet. It just can't happen any other way in light of their deep
material budgets and huge buying schedules. I've stood in a room with
more than 100,000 sets of beautiful old growth Brazilian in the same
week that a press release was issued about the increased rarity of the
wood and the difficulty that was being had in acquiring it.

     There's more old growth in that room even now than all of the small
and solo shops in the world will be able to accumulate together ever.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

I think the only way luthiers and micro-manufacturers (both of which describe what I am) are relevant is in making guitars that are not directly in competition with anything you can get at a Guitar Center.   What's the point in making yet another 1935 to 1940-style Martin?   They're available from a lot of sources, even Martin.   Every time I see a dreadnought on stage, my mind goes, "Martin"...no Collings, Santa Cruz, Takamine, Huss and Dalton, etc. Do you really want people to look at your guitars and have another guitar maker's name pop into their head? Yes, I know that copying the great guitars is a great way to learn, but once you've got that down, bring something of your own to the table.   

When I see the work of a Kevin Ryan or Alan Bearsell or other luthier who has integrated guitar history into his or her core and gone on from there, that's when I get excited. What we can do as luthiers is to innovate, to push boundaries, to find new ways to make tools for creative musicians.

When I moderated the Acoustic Guitar Magazine manufacturer's breakfast at NAMM a couple of years ago, I posed a question to the panel which included Bob Taylor, Jean Larrivee, Chris Martin, Donny Wade (Guild), Robert Godin, and others.   The question was, "How much input do your artists give you on truly new instrument designs?" The universal answer was, "None".   Followed by a general discussion indicating that none of the manufacturers wanted input from musicians... Well, that blew my mind.   I have always relied on musicians to help guide my design concepts from Jack Casady's input on Alembic #1 to Lindsey Buckingham's thought that led to Turner Model 1 # 1, to the comments of several players of 1980's Gibson Chet Atkins models that led to my Renaissance series...and it goes on and on.   So one thing we luthiers have over the big guys is that we can listen and then apply our creative abilities to making new and better musical tools.   

Kevin I want to roll around in that room with 100,000 BRW sets........

I will now admit that I have had an ulterior motive here and that is to pump up the folks exhibiting at this show, or any show and any time you/they deal with prospective customers.  If I have riled any feathers here with my comments and got people to think about what their value proposition is - good!

I spoke with another member on the phone today and mentioned that I am beside myself that many here are not willing to simply say to a prospective customer that their guitars sound better then a typical factory guitar. 

I was told that I have to understand that my background is far different than many here with promoting things, marketing things, selling things directly being what I have been doing for nearly 35 years if you add in the high school parking lot activities.....

And I worked for Jack Welch too the legendary GE CEO who coined the term be number 1 or number 2 in anything that you do or get out of it........

To me if a prospective customer asks you why they should purchase a guitar from you and if you don't let them know, eye to eye, without flinching that you believe your guitars sound better you just failed miserably.........

Of course if you are going to talk the talk you better indeed have great sounding guitars but I believe this to be true for many of the members here that I have had the sincere pleasure of playing their guitars.

Sure Martin and others produce some killer guitars and as you indicated some real dogs too but the one man shop business does not have the luxury of relying on the numbers game.  A single guitar is commissioned by a single customer and the Luthier has one shot at producing a great guitar that meets and/or exceeds the expectations of the purchaser.

OTH what buyers purchase from GC or where ever is returnable, exchangeable, refundable, etc.  If you don't like your brand new D-28 you can return it and exchange it for anything else on the wall and even wait for a shop swap or guitars not yet delivered.

Luthier built guitars have to be better in order to overcome the many factors that provide the usual suspect factories with competitive advantage.  These include name recognition, concerns about resale, concerns about quality, possible concerns about the individual Luthier over an established company that has produced over 1,000,000 guitars, warranty concerns and even peer pressure. 

So with all of this stacked up against us again if we don't honestly believe in what we do AND be willing to clearly communicate this to our prospective customers how do we ever expect to succeed? 

In my view if I was to ask any craftsperson why their offerings are better I would expect them to show great pride in their work and speak in winning and positive ways about what they do.  If this is absent it will be very difficult for me to find a reason, if none is offered, to believe in them.

Since we all agree that sound/tone is very subjective in my view it is also a license to, if you honestly believe this, indicate that you personally think that your guitars sound better then a factory guitar.

With this said I will say it again - if you do not believe in your heart that your guitars consistently sound better then a factory guitar you have just given that visitor in your booth, at your table, ample reason to just walk away.

It's really easy to delude yourself into thinking your guitar sounds better than another, and if you think you're going to get into an argument and win on that point, you're also self-delusional.   All you can do is to say that your guitar is designed to sound different, but you're not going to beat Martin at Martin tone, etc. Avoid direct comparisons if you can; it's a losing battle.

As for my own personal tone quest, the best thing that's happened for me is the review I got in Guitar Player for one of my jumbos.   The reviewer and the other staff had that guitar for nearly six weeks, and when I read the review I knew that they absolutely understood the tone I designed into that instrument.   They "got it" without my having to say word one about what I thought the tonal strong points are of my design.   

What Jacques Andre is saying about the quiet rooms is perhaps the single most important features of this Montreal Festival. That's where players will really find out what we do.

[QUOTE=Rick Turner]


What Jacques Andre is saying about the quiet rooms is perhaps the single most important features of this Montreal Festival. That's where players will really find out what we do.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Rick,  yes this is important, but as you will see when you experience the Montreal Guitar Show, I think that many other features makes us a destination for luthier guitars.  I'm anxious that we get time to discuss that in the private (obviously we will not give all of our recipes away on a forum)

Today, I started compiling pieces of this thread to kind of get some kind of text that we will post on our web site...  I feel that all of you have nailed it in many ways... I feel more confident in being able to sell luthiers now.  Also the text on Ervin Somogyi web site is a great stop... He is quite a communicator!

[QUOTE=Hesh]...And I worked for Jack Welch too the legendary GE CEO who coined the term be number 1 or number 2 in anything that you do or get out of it........[/QUOTE]

There are many folks, myself included who feel Jack Welch single-handedly nearly destroyed what was a great leader and innovator of a company, for that very reason. Unfortunately, his statement was more a declaration of economic and directional focus that he was taking the company in, than a statement to encourage a company to be the best they can be.
I can name bunches of people I knew who worked for GE that were forced into retirement earlier than they wanted to, or lost unrecoverable sources of income because he sold off so much of the company while he took home hundreds of millions. There were very few jobs left anywhere for those folks to go to back in my home area. GE was the #1 employer. My dad was one of those who was forced out, and I too worked there for awhile. Fortunately, I moved away just prior to the devastation.

Welch was arrogant, self-centered, and foolish. Dump an entire division and thousands of jobs because you were only #3 in the industry regardless of how profitable it was??? How stupid is that? Most of the divisions he dumped were still profitable, and yet it wasn't good enough for him. It's beyond stupid, it's elitist.
Nope, sorry Hesh my friend...that's not a motto to be proud of.
I'd be happy to be #20 in an industry of 20 if I could make a decent living at it. I'd be honored to run a guitar factory that was #3 behind Martin and Taylor...and happy as can be too.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Ah yes - Neutron Jack.  Don we have discussed this before and you know that I am very sympathetic to the countless people who suffered during Jack's reign of terror.  I am also one of them............

Notice that I wrote that I "used" to work for GE.........

Not to get to off topic here I will add that the number 1 or number 2 thing was not cast in stone.  The target was 18% GP and if GE was even #10 in something but GP was 18% or better they kept that business going.  I think that the infamous #1/#2 statement was more for stroking the stock holders then anything else.

But you are right the "human" cost was enormous and something that I will bet that GE's new leadership regrets.

I'll add that during this reign of terror over 10,000 people who owned GE stock became millionaires for the first time in their lives.  Because of this "bottom line rules" thinking the stock out performed all other stocks over time in the history of stocks.  Ultimately Jack worked for the stock holders and ultimately the stock holders, during Jack's 18+ years did better then any other investors in old money, brick and mortar blue chips.

I still buy their light bulbs though

If we, the OLF membership, subscribed to the #1/#2 thinking there would only be two people here and I would most certainly not be one of them for sure.

Mine are flavored! Well, not yet, but I'm in the planning stage of offering guitars in which the wood is infused with flavor...cinnamon oil, chocolate, vanilla latte, etc...okay, not really, but a guy's gotta have an edge, right?

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http://www.presnallguitars.com

This thread just keeps getting better.

Richard Feynman said: "The easist person for you to fool is yourself", and he was absolutly right. I think about that statement almost every day, and ask if I'm guilty of it. The only way to avoid it is to always be thinking of the test that will prove you wrong; and that goes just as well in lutherie as it does in science. There's nothing like a cruise through a show like Montreal to tell you whether you're as much of a hotshot as you thought you were.

Tone is subjective; that's why promising 'better tone' is not a good idea. What we should be able to promise is that we can control the tone we get, or get 'our' tone (or, even better, the customer's tone) more consistently than the factories. What Rick said about the factories not soliciting player input was really important.

Of course, one man's 'dud' is another's 'Holy Grail'. The factories know that, and know that, with any luck, the 'right' person will walk into GC for every guitar they make, whatever they, or you, might think of the tone. The person will walk out a happy customer, and a good advertisement.

Many customers do worry about reasle value, and I think that's one most of us have to concede to the factories. The exception may be for those makers who are recognized as 'artists', like Somogyi and Laskin and Carlson. But, of course, their work is not everybody's cup of tea. For the rest of us, we may be stuck with what the jazz guys consolation: when an artist passes on the rest say: "Good career move!". May we all become more highly valued when we're gone!     

Hey Hesh, you're certainly right about the stock thing. He certainly did streamline and make the company more profitable. But it was a prety high cost for some.

Lightbulbs? Can't hardly find GE lightbulbs around here anymore. Mostly they're Philips and Sylvania.

I think I'll write a new song soon. I'll call it "Neutron Jack".


I'm sure it will be a sad song...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."