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#46
07-20-2017, 07:29 PM
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#47
07-20-2017, 07:58 PM
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Well Known Means Little To Most Custom Luthiers, Marketing Even Less
Aloha,
Individual luthiers & sustained marketing efforts? Not going to happen. That's a disaster that never happens & the reason why many great luthiers toil in anonymity. Often, the personality that yields the best craftsmanship is a direct polar opposite of the person or organization that markets that craftsmanship. Solitude serves the luthier well but not the marketing of his or her custom guitars. So well known to who? What scope? I mean AGF forums are but a small fraction of the custom guitar markets luthiers seek. There are international luthiers too who are not often discussed in our little AGF world. Many custom luthiers I know do not like the spotlight at all & prefer to be in the shop building guitars, not talking about them. They let the work do the talking. And the players who need to find the custom guitars they play usually find them by word of mouth. Once a famous player finds a particular luthier, that's when things change - becoming well-known with more money to afford sanding belts, but also with the pressure of a long waiting list. Some custom luthiers take forever to be discovered or well-known. Some like Jeff Traugott in Santa Cruz or Jason Kostal in Arizona, zoomed to the top of the profession in terms of high prices the market will bear by apprenticeship & association with famous luthiers & then producing great sounding results (also likeable personalities) in a relatively short time. The luthier's path to being known varies as much as luthiers themselves. Robert Ruck is a great example of a now famous luthier who took a long, long time to become known - though that was never his intent at all. He doesn't even have a marketing website & closed his wait list a decade ago. All of his efforts went into perfecting the same guitar design he's been doing since the early 60's & advancing his flamenco skills - not marketing. Luthiery & marketing guitars certainly has changed a lot since the days' when the few custom luthiers out there - guys like Paul Reed Smith, Mark Whitebook & even I - would finagle their way into the sound checks of well-known visiting musicians to get direct opinions of our instruments from star players or their managers that sometimes would turn into orders. That's how Paul & Mark got "well-known" anyway. Me? I knew I could never create a guitar market from Hawaii & didn't want to move to the Mainland. So after ten years & 220 acoustic guitars & lotsa other acoustic instruments, I put luthierie back to "hobbyist" status & kept gigging as I always had, making & repairing occasionally as my full-time job allowed. Individual custom luthiers & marketing are seldom a perfect fit. If you build it?..... well, the reality is they don't come (or buy) to most luthiers, enough to make them "well-known" or able to pursue the arcane & un-lucrative craft of lutherie full-time & make it work through economic downturns. Becoming "well-known" is mostly luck. Good guitar players determine what "good" is. If a well-known player(s) uses your guitar, then you'll become a well-known luthier. It's as simple & lucky as that. That's why I chased well-known players at sound checks. A Hui Hou! alohachris Last edited by alohachris; 07-26-2017 at 04:09 PM.
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#48
07-21-2017, 12:10 PM
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gitarro asked:
"If I understand you rightly, this means that to individually voice a guitar to deliver the desired responsiveness and tonality that a particular customer desires and yet achieve or surpass the fit and finish delivered by a good factory, the luthier will have to compensate for the disruption and deviation from the standardized norm imposed by jigs and manufacturing process by his woodworking chops?" Precisely. I'm also reminded of a comment, I believe by Winton Marcellis, in the Burns 'Jazz' series. He said that the Whiteman orchestra 'never made a mistake'. He then pointed out that the only way to do that is never to push past the known and safe to do something original. We are blessed (or cursed, depending on your perspective) with designs that have been very highly optimized over many years, if not centuries. This sort of situation begets two symptoms: 1) the difference between the 'best' and 'average' examples is small in objective terms, and 2) those small differences become very important. All the good makers I know are always trying to make a better instrument. There are lots of dimensions to 'better'; it could be nicer looking wood, or better tone (whatever that is), or fancier inlay, or improved finish, or better stability. Whatever it is it involves moving beyond what you've done in the past, and that always involves some risk. Do you always succeed when you try something new? How many threads have you seen where somebody says : "My $$ production guitar sounds as good as any $$$$ guitar I've heard". Again, given the variability of wood this is almost bound to happen once in a while. Since most production guitars are more or less over built (to guard against warranty work) it means that one instrument just happened to get lower density wood than average in the top and bracing, so that, instead of being stiffer and stronger than needed it's 'just right'. The better the production facility the more likely this is to happen. In one study of violins, Dunnewald was able to define a number ( I think it was five or six) of measureable parameters that correlated well with tone quality in violins. He used (iirc) 700 instruments to do this, ranging from Strads and Del Gesus to modern production instruments. He then went back and looked at the proportions of the different sorts of instruments that fulfilled all the desiderata. IIRC, better than 95% of the 'Old Master' Italian instruments did, while less than 6% of the new production instruments filled the bill. So, if you want something that plays like a Strad, and don't have a lot of money, you might still be able to get it is you're willing to play through enough instruments. Strad, has the reputation he does IMO more because he was consistent than because his instruments were 'better'. Some top tier players say that a good DelGesu is a 'better' concert instrument, but his quality control was all over the place. Now, part of good QC is fit and finish. In general, I find in my students that the ones who take a little more time to do clean work and 'get it right' tend to end with the better instruments. This makes sense, and gives some teeth to the notion that we do need to pay attention to fit and finish. OTOH, there's the notion of 'tolerance'. How exact is exact? What we think of as 'level and smooth' looks like the face of the moon when you compare it with good machining work, let alone the stuff that goes into the guts of an IPhone. A top-tier maker told me a story about a buyer who brought one of his guitars back to the store in Tokyo, saying it was 'unacceptable' due to the scratches in the finish on the back. When the store owner took it over to the window to look for them, the customer said: "You won't see them like that; you need to use this magnifying glass!". Several years ago there was a thread on one of the lists started by a buyer who noticed that the bridge on his new guitar was 1/16" closer to one side of the top edge than the other. The question was; is 1/32" off center 'acceptable'? Most of the makers asked the practical question: how does the guitar play and is it in tune? However, some folks simply said it was not acceptable, period. To me, this is a question of structure and function. A bridge that is off in length might cause the intonation to be poor (which I've seen on well regarded production instruments!), and one where the bridge it too tall or short might make it hard to get the action right (did you know that some manufacturers make more than one height of bridge so they can get that 'correct' no matter how the neck set went?). Taylor's NT neck, was designed to be adjusted over a fair range of up-down angles to avoid that issue. The usual cause of a bridge being off center on a hand made guitar is that the neck set is not perfectly on axis. Unless this is really out of line it won't make any difference in the way the guitar works so long as the bridge is properly positioned with respect to the neck and fingerboard. So, is it a 'problem' in that case? The scratches in the back of the guitar in Tokyo mattered a great deal to the buyer, due to the culture he is in. No doubt one of his buddies has a guitar where there are no scratches in the finish that show up even under magnification, and he 'loses face' if there are scratches on his. At the same time, he can gain face over the maker if he can find a flaw the maker missed. This is certainly a relentless pressure on makers to improve their chops, but one has to wonder if it's a real improvement in the essential quality of the guitar. Would a highly polished plywood box that sounded poor be a better one? I'm a tool maker at root. To me the best guitar is the one that allows the player to make the music they want without having to think about the instrument. To the extent the guitar gets in the way, I've failed. Certainly it should look good, if only because the players won't find out how good an instrument it is if they won't take it off the wall. I have yet to make a 'flawless' guitar, although I'm improving. Obviously, I'm not really cut out for the Tokyo market. *sigh* 
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#49
07-21-2017, 12:20 PM
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He focused mainly on fit and finish and some structural features. When I asked him about tone he said "It sounds good, they all sound good---to someone."
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#50
07-21-2017, 01:32 PM
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Is it rather assumed that the differences between a great production guitar (like a collings) and a high end luthier-built guitar (like a Kostal / Tippin / Beauregard etc..) go unnoticed UNLESS the musical style involves more than strumming? Either classical approach to steel string, or more contemporary fingerstyle arrangements with melody/harmony/rhythm?
I ask this because my better guitars shine through when i'm playing something with dynamics, in an expressive way. I bet there are many musical situations where just a great plain old martin would do a better job (either cutting through, or adding something un-refined to the mix). I think the style of music played on these instruments affects the word of mouth effect for the builder's name getting out. Im really hoping I got my use of affect vs effect square here 
__________________
really likes guitars
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#51
07-21-2017, 02:18 PM
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The Bluegrass/Old Time/Country Western flatpickers/fingerpickers are not at ALL impressed by the looks and the sound of all the fingerstyle instruments. Give them a vintage Martin or Gibson looking and voiced guitar any day of the week. For them...the tonal voice and response characterisitics of these Martin/Gibson style instruments are just as complex, in their own way, in their own playing style, for their needs, as the fingerstyle guitars voices are for those players, and their musical needs. Neither better than the other, just different...and just right, for their respective styles of music and playing And, while you as a musician/player may distinctly notice the differences in the tonal quality of your higher end instruments compared to your lesser ones...the vast majority of people that you might play music for will not notice, and not really even care...they are just happy to hear you play music, and one guitar pretty much sounds like another guitar to them. Which for the most part...is really quite true in the end. duff Last edited by mcduffnw; 07-21-2017 at 02:34 PM. Reason: Add content
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#52
07-21-2017, 03:35 PM
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__________________
really likes guitars
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#53
07-21-2017, 04:31 PM
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Sure...I get that...playing a really nice sounding, very dynamic and responsive, very smooth and easy to play guitar is a real treat for the player, and can certainly help you to sound and play better. But...in your dedication to the "craft" can you develop the chops to take a lesser guitar, and really make it sing to it's absolute best, and make wonderful music with it. Now...that is really and truly dedication to the craft, as it were. Just for a little proof of that idea...and because I am not a computer tech wizard at all, or I would link it over here... Go out on YouTube and search Ed Gerhard Junk. You will get Ed, playing Sir Paul's song "Junk" solo on an old beat Harmony Sovereign 000...with old dead strings on it. Have a listen...and contemplate... As the John Denver song says..."The Music is You" duff
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#54
07-21-2017, 05:29 PM
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I think that's the exact reason a player like Tony McManus can switch from a Greenfield to a PRS, he has the chops and the gift to make it work. But if he had his choice he would still pick up the Greenfield , except that he's in this to make a living
__________________
really likes guitars
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#55
07-22-2017, 02:28 AM
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I think in the case of the Japanese customer in Tokyo, it may not be so much a case of boasting to his friends and losing face, but it goes to the Japanese culture of excellence whereby quality is expected of any product and service. Nothing is done for the sake of doing it but the act of making it aesthetically beautiful and clean is part of their character. I recall the creation of art where the Japanese artist would apply lacquer by layer after layer of a carp swimming in a container until the carp appeared almost 3 dimensionally photo realistically real within the container. The amount of work and patience required to produce just one small piece of art was remarkable- yet that was precisely what they admired.
So making products for the Japanese market requires a commitment to a higher level of quality and after sales support than some other countries. A finely finished plywood box that doesnt sound good would not.fulfil the purpose of a guitar so it wouldn't be a "good guitsr". It may be a "good" box though... While I agree that there is no such thing as flawless - look close enough and you will find flaws even in precision manufactured goods - and though the pursuit of perfection is chasing a moving target that will never be caught, the pursuit itself is worthwhile as it raises standards in the industry to new heights. Previously bill collings' guitars represented the state of the art when it comes to fit and finish but I'm seeing the work of some custom builders posted ln this forum setting new standards. For me, the apex of fit and finish so far is certainly a Circa OM guitar that looks as finely made as any work of craftsmanship but sounds and responds like only the best guitars do. Now that to me at least, is a "good guitar"... That is why i believe that the luthiers whose work will be most greatly desired are those who not only make superlative musical tools but whose workmanship will also be super clean and finely wrought beyond the standard of other luthiers. It is a false dichotomy to distinguish betwen tone and fit and finish because it is possible to deliver both if one has the chops, and that is what customers will be prepared to pay for. Quote:
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#56
07-22-2017, 02:45 AM
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It's like if I wanted to travel to another town a hundred miles away. Some people want to challenge themselves and build their bodies stronger by running the whole way there. Most of us though would just start up the car and drive there.
Both are correct and it depends on the purpose. The working musician will want a guitar that sounds decent unplugged playing the kind of music he plays and can do everything he wants it to do well enough to his standards, intonates correctly and is balanced and which has a great pickup and which won't cause him too many issues with cites and which can easily be repaired and fixed and even replaced readily without too much heartache and expense. Which is why Tony Mcmanus leaves behind his custom G1 greenfield that was made for him by his friend the luthier and why he takes his PRS instead on tour. The hobby guitarist wants a guitar that will sound great and respond great and give him the most pleasure to play and make the most beautiful sound and be the most inspiring musically because he plays when he has the time to do so in the middle of his busy life and the last thing he wants is to have to struggle with a guitsr that doesn't even intonate correctly. The young teenager who discovers guitar can't afford anything to play except a cheap plywood guitsr like objext that sounds like it was made out of a cigarette box. So that's what he is forced to play. Because epf his intense interest and thousands of hours of free time, he figures out songs from watching videos and figuring the arrangements out and coming out wih his own unique way on how to play the guitar - because he had no choice but he was driven by strong interest that became an obsession. As a result he got really good - but it wasn't because he had a lousy guitar. It was achieved in spite of that guitar and was produced by his passion. Quote:
Last edited by gitarro; 07-22-2017 at 03:35 AM.
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#57
07-24-2017, 08:30 AM
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It is probably correct to assume that as tone is more a subjective thing (read Kant's epistemology), the only concrete element for customers/people to apply their mind to is the fit n finish....which is a shame.
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#58
07-24-2017, 09:14 PM
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#59
07-24-2017, 10:35 PM
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__________________
"Still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest." --Paul Simon
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#60
07-25-2017, 06:27 AM
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