Rainsong is Closing Their Doors

[Earl49]

Originally Posted by AZLiberty

With the major caveat that the wife has already said that I am NOT allowed to buy a guitar company for some reason...

Interesting ideas, Mark. Focus on the bread and butter and not get lost in the low-profit weeds. I briefly flirted with the concept of buying Rainsong or somehow taking over, but soon came to my senses. I have run my engineering practice for 34 years as of this week, and now begin my fortieth year in the industry. I'm too tired to start over and it would be a risky thing to put our retirement savings into a new business. So not me. Still, I hope that someone buys the tooling and IP and brings Rainsong back in some form.

[Earl49]

Originally Posted by RP

...I'd suggest that Emerald develop a database that's accessible to the customer. This database would include all of the production and shipping steps along the path to delivery. Production/shipment/delivery steps would be checked off by Emerald staff with the date that step was completed. Before you say that would be too labor intensive, keep in mind that it would be off-set by the current time spent by sales staff chasing down where a customer's instrument in the production schedule and then responding to those customers who request information to the perennial question, "Where's my guitar?"

How many people really pester Kevin and Davy K about where their guitar is in the process or in transit? Is this a solution in search of a problem? Like every business decision, it is a cost-benefit thing. Sounds almost like reinventing the UPS parcel tracking system on a small scale.

[northtrader]

Originally Posted by AZLiberty

Honestly I think the product line got far to scattered, and they did a terrible job of letting anyone know how modular things actually were at the construction side.

Pick a Trim
Pick a Body
Pick a Neck
Pick L/R handed (LH not available on Parlor, OM, and Windsong)
Pick Acoustic or Acoustic/Electric

I'd go down to 3 trim levels and ditch the wood laminate tops.

Entry level is the CH with the matte finish
Mid level is gloss finish all CF
High is the Black Ice

No dot inlays on anything, just sharks.
No paint hiding the carbon weave.

Rebuild the brand leaning hard on "Normal Guitars, normal body sizes/shapes, high-tech, high end materials". Grab that niche and grab hard.

Everyone knows what an OM or a Dreadnought is, what the heck is an X-7? (you know what I mean)

Well said. Appreciated reading this. Totally agree.

It is a shame Rainsong is no more. I own 2. Enjoying them both. I guess I got a couple collector items now.

[Chriscom]

Great discussion about the business side. I'm in awe of anyone who can run a small business, to a great extent because I watched what my sister-in-law had to do to profitably own and operate a jewelry store for a couple of decades.

So all respect to Rainsong. It's kinda brutal that it's been wiped completely off the web, I would have kept up one page with a photo of the WS-1000 or something, with a line saying thank you to customers, at least for a year or so. No contact info, just an online landmark. (The point isn't really thanking the customers, although that's nice. It's more about planting a flag saying yep, we were here).

[Earl49]

I too would have left a legacy "thanks and goodbye" page on the site as a placeholder. At least until the domain name expired.

[RP]

Originally Posted by Earl49

How many people really pester Kevin and Davy K about where their guitar is in the process or in transit? Is this a solution in search of a problem?

I have no idea, but due to the uniqueness of Emerald's sales and distribution model, they've developed strategies to enhance their marketing and the customer buying experience which ideally results in increased sales. Their 3D Guitar Builder program is an example of solving a problem that Alistair must have seen that has helped to streamline the customer buyer experience while minimizing the time spent by Kevin and Davy on the ordering process...

[mountainmaster]

Originally Posted by Earl49

How many people really pester Kevin and Davy K about where their guitar is in the process or in transit? Is this a solution in search of a problem? Like every business decision, it is a cost-benefit thing. Sounds almost like reinventing the UPS parcel tracking system on a small scale.

I had to, because for two of my Emerald orders the email with the tracking number never reached me.

[martinngibson]

I bought my first CF guitar, an X20 from Emerald. I mostly play Chet/Merle style so with a thumb wrap on the low E, neck dimensions are very important as I have smaller hands. I searched the area for someone that might have one within decent driving distance to play, but no one was found. The one I ordered had a maple veneer top, beautiful , well made, sounded really decent great plugged in but alas, playing from the 5th fret beyond was a real strain. It was 2-1/4” wide at the 12th fret, more of a full handful neck so I was very disappointed. After struggling with it for a period of time, I decided it was going to have to go.

About that time , Emerald was running a discount on special order guitars. I contacted, asked about a narrower neck, came up with a compromise with it approximately 2-1/8” at the 12th, however neck profile would stay the same😩
I risked it, ordered an X20, graph tech and k&k pups, KOA veneer that I got to choose from several examples that were available, Celtic knot pos markers, etc,,, sold the first X20 and wasn’t too many weeks till the custom came in. A real stunner,, however,, while the neck was better, the profile still limited my use of the thumb wrap.,,, worse than that however, IMO, the acoustic sound was about half as loud and the tone was definitely compromised. They had made a running change of the bridge/saddle and obviously that changed the vol/tone, it was ok plugged in, but I play way more unplugged than amped. So, sitting there on the stand was a gorgeous $3930.00 guitar that for me was just not going to cut it. Alistair and company at Emerald were good to work with and if the custom had sounded as good unplugged as the first X20, I might have tried to work with the neck some more, moving as much as possible to bar chords… I put it on the market and sold it shortly thereafter, guess I need to update my list of guitars on here as the X20 is gone.

Moving forward, still intent on getting a CF guitar mostly for camping, around the pool, playing for funeral interments, anything in inclement weather where I could leave the Martins at home, I searched the net. I live in a small town but Atlanta is about 3 hour drive, so Maple Street guitars had 5 different Rainsong models. So 04/21 I paid them a visit , played all 5 and found the model that passed my 20 second test. It ended up being a CO-WS1000N2 , sounded much more “woody” than the Emerald and the neck was a close match to my ‘67 D28 ,,, thumb wrap was definitely available anywhere on this cutaway model, plugged in the tone was still good, not quacky- brought it home and play it a lot,, very fast neck, good tone unplugged, etc…

So sorry they are closing and hopefully I’ll never have a warranty issue, because it’s definitely a keeper.

[Earl49]

Originally Posted by martinngibson

So sorry they are closing and hopefully I’ll never have a warranty issue, because it’s definitely a keeper.

I doubt that you will. My WS-1000's both date from mid-2001 and have zero issues. Fret wear / replacement is just like any other guitar. I'm also saddened to see them close.

[Steve-arino]

Originally Posted by Earl49

I too would have left a legacy "thanks and goodbye" page on the site as a placeholder. At least until the domain name expired.

Agreed. I've got a CO-OM1100 NST (no electronics) and it's a very nice guitar. About 3.4 lbs, comfortable neck, great playability, very good sound. Nothing at all to complain about. No concerns about maintenance.
Would have been nice to have a legacy site up for reference. I can only assume it was an ugly, drawn out ending and the owners just wanted to bail. Yeah, sad. But everything begins and everything ends.

[studioman001]

Sorry to read that they have sold their last instrument and are officially closed. What a shame. I was saving up for one of their remaining guitars with the N1 neck but I guess that plan is out the window now unless I can somehow find a dealer with a new old stock model. I doubt it though as they've been selling direct for a while now;or they were I should say...

[OnTheFidele]

Saw that a really great looking CH-OM1100NS 12-fret with no barndoor and K&K Mini installed is currently listed at Reverb for a really great price:

https://reverb.com/item/78754891-rai...s-carbon-fiber

I would have picked this up immediately if I didn't have two other purchases I'm planning on making later this year.