Once you go custom, can you go back?

[tommieboy]

If you are custom building for ergonomic reasons, then it may be hard to go back to the norm. Custom builds that include a Manzer wedge, fan frets, customized sound port(s), asymmetric neck carves, etc. might end up being a one-way street with no return to the norm.

For the last year and a half, my current custom build is pretty much the only guitar I play. I have since sold and gifted away the rest of my guitar collection. If I ever feel the need to add another guitar, I'll most likely go custom again.

The cost may be high, but many of my collector grade vintage guitars far exceeded the cost of my current custom build.

Tommy

[Methos1979]

Originally Posted by TomB'sox

Interesting to post this in the custom section where luthiers making their living building custom guitars hang out. I do not feel the bold is justified at all as it is your opinion and I am not sure any of our opinions are worthy of that as they are merely that, our opinions.

My opinion is completely opposite of yours and I have had many custom builds with the last one running right now. I have never once gotten a guitar that was not head and tails above any factory built I have ever played and when I hold them, there is special meaning to me beyond the guitar itself. There is the memory of working with the luthier, the design choices, the excitement as it nears completion, the first notes you play from it, noticing details weeks later that you had missed and too many more things to mention.

Having said that, do I have factory guitars I play, certainly, yes, I have a Yamaha LL 45 that is fantastic sounding, but does it carry the emotional aspect as do my customs, no it does not.

The bolded parts were done so as to inform others considering full custom builds to be aware that there are potential pitfalls to going that route that they might not otherwise, but very much should, consider. I went out of my way to include in my post - twice in fact - these are MY experiences. That said, I know for a fact that I'm not the only person that went the full custom route and the final result did not live up to their expectations. There have been other posts that cover this from time to time. It is less about the builder or guitar itself and more about it not living up to some dreamy expectation of perfection.

In my personal experience, no guitar is ever perfect. There's always just a few things that I think would make a really great guitar perfect if only this or that was just a little more to my liking. These are usually ergonomic things - a shorter scale, a different neck shape, a bevel here or there. This is how I ended up going down the full custom rabbit hole, trying to create the perfect guitar. I'm in no way suggesting that all others have not or will not be happy. I'm just offering a personal opinion based on my personal experiences which is what the OP was asking. I think it's always healthy to consider both sides of the coin.

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

Do you mean "custom" as you having ordered a guitar to be built to your own specs? Or do you included buying used guitars that were from a boutique or custom small-shop builder?

I've never had any urge at all to custom order a guitar. But once I started playing used "custom" guitars or ones built on spec by individual builders I certainly lost interest in ever owning a Martin or Gibson or whatever.

For me it was the experience of playing guitars with lightly built, hand-made, unique voicing and construction that was the can't-go-back moment. I ended up with a John Walker Lolo Creek that wasn't built specifically for me but as the second owner it feels like if a guitar had been built for me, this is what it would feel like.

I also played but never owned guitars by several other individual luthiers that were just qualitatively different than any factory built guitar ever made.

I would like to try one of those Lolo Creek Specials!

[alohachris]

Aloha,

Now I can see where your perfect, balanced, custom smaller fingerstyle body shape may not be able to compete in a circle of Bluegrass dreadnaughts for amplitude. Of course, different guitars have different places in the wide spectrum of guitar & musical applications. Some smaller guitars are designed to have huge voices, like my loud & deeper, oval soundhole OO, 12-fret all-Koa.

Though I can barely play anymore, for five decades, I have been physically unable to return to playing just about every other guitar except the ones I made for myself, starting in the early 70's.

Note: I can barely play a few chords on the '70 Martin D-28S 12-fret that showed up & stayed long ago. It goes 1.9" nut width & 2-3/8" saddle spacing. Now THAT"s the guitar you take to a Bluegrass guitar jam. Blows away ALL larger guitars in a circle - on chords or notes. Ha! It's TOO loud. And barely playable to me. That D-28S was given to me for free with a broken-off, slotted headstock, which I slowly & painstakingly rehabiliated. What a great surprise when I finally cleaned & strung him up! A MONSTER CROSS-PICKING & STRUMMING GUITAR! He became my "beach guitar." Not busted up at all. FYI: Why I call that D-28S "him?' Cuz he's got some "Big Laho's!" kine sound & SOOO Loud!

Sure, I would love to play other guitars, but my hands are so darn big - 11.5" across, w/long fingers! - that I simply cannot play a first position A chord or many others, or clear arpeggio's or rolls on factory-made or most custom necks too for that matter.

My ideal nut width is 2-1/8"+ & a saddle spacing @ 2-3/8+." My personal guitar necks are bigger than ALL classical necks & I still can play the top three strings down with my thumb!

When others play my personal custom necks it really feels foreign to them at first. But it feels perfect to me playing my own necks made for these "basketball hands." And all that pickin' space up the neck is sublime for fast-run arpeggio's in fingerstyle. Note: My ukulele & banjo necks feel "freakishly wide" for other players. Ha!

These huge hands are the real reason I got into luthiery a long time ago. I just had to make my own guitars to be able to play (standard nut width then was 1-5/8" to 1-11/16".) Then orders came in & I made a total of 218 more customs - all sizes & types - & all sold before they were built. But even then, my hands let me down - dropping inlays that took hours to cut (not much dexterity holding little things with these hams) into a pile of sawdust time after time, til the Shopvac later "found" it - K-ting! Sheesh!

So like our AGF friend Lefty Sinistral & his incredible new lefty wonder guitar from Michel, when I finally made my own guitars, it finally made playing a guitar feel like it was a whole new thing. So much easier & rewarding.

So... I can't play anything other than my own custom guitars. Is anyone else in a similar situation out there, playability or otherwise that is?

alohachris


Finally, the best part of playing my guitars for many decades? I reap the full benefits of a fully mature, played-in-by-me guitar.

With so many AGFer's swapping out custom after custom guitar every few years, they NEVER get to experience the incredible results that only time can play in the lifecycle of a great, oft-played guitar. Try to make your own custom & hold on to it for decades.

ALL MY PERSONAL GUITARS were made over 50 years ago. I enjoy their full, mature, played in sound every time I play them. Inspiring. And since I actually cut, milled, dried, & "luthed" the local Island trees & woods - like Acacia Hawaiian Koa, Mango, Milo, Kamani, Mahogany, Ohia Red Palm Coconut, Nai'o, Eucalyptus, etc., for all my guitars, I feel like I am part of that continuum. We also planted hundred of thousands of trees - endemic species - mostly Acacia Koa - on the upper elevation ranchlands that we milled on our watch.

And my self-made guitars will be bequeathed to designated younger great players/friends after I go - all in the tradition of crafts & musicianship - to live hopefully for at least another hundred years, bringing people together through music.

It takes time friends, to get the best out of the natural, musical things in life - especially custom-crafted, wooden instruments like guitars. Be Patient. -alohachris-

[Aspiring]

A good guitar is a good guitar regardless of the name on the label. That said after narrowing down to neck specs, details playability and tone on my customs it is harder to find mass produced guitars that match up.

But not impossible ... My neighbours Gibson J45 is lovely and I very much enjoy my Enya X4.

[Gordon Currie]

Depends entirely on why you went custom and what your experience was.

For me, the biggest thing it did was raise my floor - the minimum I expected from any guitar.

I plan to do custom again, but it may morph into a boutique builder easily. It's all about the tone and feel, and I've experienced that with custom, with luthier-built, and (extremely rarely) with 'factory' guitars.

Low likelihood that I'll buy factory again. I've been spoiled.

[Guitars44me]

What a great post above from Alohachris!!!

How cool is that? WAY COOL IMO

I have quite small hands, so my search for playable (by me) necks has led me to work with John Kinnaird to build me killers with short scale, slightly asymmetrical V-ish neck carves and 1.8” nuts. Which is pretty wide for small hands, but still allows me to fret with my thumb over

The other ergo features are a plus for continuing to play unamplifed solo gigs.

The tone is spectacular, even if my playing is not! Hahaha

Interesting thread, and my congratulations to those who search for their own Grails.

Cheers

Paul

[s2y]

I just played this Michael Kennedy fanned fret, which was basically built around CGCGCD tuning. Most of my acoustics were built for me and were built to serve a purpose that something off the rack can't do.

That being said, I still have many higher end guitars and basses. I'm basically keeping walnut Taylor 12 fret because I wrote a lot of songs with it and I'm thinking my kids can learn on it since it's small and hands down lowest action I've ever encountered on an acoustic. My Ibanez, Taylor T3/Bs, old Kramers, and USA Peavey basses are more than adequate for getting the job done.

[joeld]

What a charming story, AlohaChris! I felt happy after reading your post.

Not that I have talent or play enough to be deserving, but my two primary guitars are customs. Provided one considers Santa Cruz to be custom, which I do. They stand out for their sonics, playability, features, looks.

But... I'd be content with many Martins out there. A carefully chosen D28 12-fret would leave me wanting nothing.

So I guess I could go back.

[Mandobart]

In my case, yes, I had no problem going back to "off the rack" instruments after two custom builds. These customs were NOT guitars though. One was a custom 10 string F4 style mandocello and the other a custom 10 string Hardanger viola.

Both were built by Tom "TJ" Jessen of Minnesota. I had previously bought an F4 body octave mandolin he'd built on spec and a 10 string A4 style mandola he had built for another customer who ended up not buying it. He has always been great to work with.

I was and still am very happy with these instruments. When I decided I wanted a good bluegrass dread I travelled to several shops and festivals where lots of guitars were available to try, including several boutique brands and small shop customs. I narrowed down what I wanted to a Martin style with rosewood back/sides. A little while later a nice used HD-28 became available and I bought it. For me it meets all my needs and desires for a bluegrass dreadnaught.

I've bought three more "off the rack" guitars since then - one new Gold Tone Paul Beard round neck resonator and a used E2OM-CD and a used 000-15SM (both from the AGF classifieds). Very happy with these as well.

I do some minor "customization" to all my instruments - adding SBT pickups, adjusting saddle/nut, changing the tuning machines or buttons, changing strap buttons, change out bridge pins, polishing matte headstocks, de-glossing the neck, adding an armrest, etc.

I don't currently have a desire to get anything else, "off the rack" or custom.

[gfirob]

I only ordered a custom guitar once and it was a fairly big disappointment, took a long time to build and cost a lot. Every guitar is a unique individual no matter who builds it. and time and energy is much better spent playing a lot of guitars and finding one that rings your bell, in my opinion. After all, the pre-war Martins that cost $50,000 were built in factories. Everybody produces duds at one time or another and the trick is not to buy duds. As an aside, I don’t think anybody needs to spend more than $2500 for a guitar of professional quality that directly addresses personal desires like tone woods, nut width, a neck you like and so on. And you will find them used, but you will have to play a lot of guitars to find the one that makes your heart sing.

[Guitars44me]

Originally Posted by tommieboy

If you are custom building for ergonomic reasons, then it may be hard to go back to the norm. Custom builds that include a Manzer wedge, fan frets, customized sound port(s), asymmetric neck carves, etc. might end up being a one-way street with no return to the norm.

For the last year and a half, my current custom build is pretty much the only guitar I play. I have since sold and gifted away the rest of my guitar collection. If I ever feel the need to add another guitar, I'll most likely go custom again.

The cost may be high, but many of my collector grade vintage guitars far exceeded the cost of my current custom build.

Tommy

This is pretty much my situation. But I have four customs with many ergonomic
Features.

very VERY few instruments out there with my specs. (Or SOUND)

And NOTHING built in a factory has them.

And, I get to support an ARTIST/Luthier in his efforts, too! Thanks John

Cheers

Paul

[jt1]

I'm a shallow guy. I just like cool stuff. But I'm also not a wealthy guy. So, I limit my cool stuff to guitars and bicycles. (I drive old, tired cars and wear old, tired clothes. And, well, I'm old, tired, and cancer-ridden).

The only guitars I own are custom guitars I commissioned and vintage guitars. "Vintage" for me, means no later than 1945 and only Gibson, Martin, and Larson (among acoustics). Oh, I want one of those $50,000 pre-war Martins someone mentioned in this thread. Any treasured model--000-28, OM-28, D-28, and 42s and 45s of those models--will cost at least 3 times that sum.

Because my ears are tuned to vintage guitar tones, only 3 or 4 modern luthiers can serve my ears. Well, there is one modern luthier, once profiled in the New Yorker, who builds boundary-busting guitars, whose instruments I also covet. Fortunately, I'm now in (temporary) possession of his 4th ever guitar, built in 1977.

As for ergonomics, well, because I play my modern guitars and guitars from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, I really don't care. If the guitar plays well and sounds good (to my ears), it's good ... for me.

[canehorn]

Sure, you can go back to the farm after you’ve been to Paris but….it will keep calling! That said, my fav small shop guitar has certainly found its way back into heavy rotation post acquisition of a couple very fine customs that had benched her. Took almost a year but she’s still much appreciated. Doesn’t mean I’ll be ditching my queens anytime soon!

[jmagill]

As I get older, and hopefully better, custom features (or the lack of them), in any guitar I pick up bother me less and less.

I've had seven custom guitars and a few mandolins built to my specs, and have no problem moving between them and my Martins, Pre-Wars and Collings. It's physically enjoyable to play all of them and they all sound great.

Look at Carl Miner's many videos for Carter Vintage, playing every imaginable kind of guitar, custom or stock, and making all of them sound sublime. It ain't the guitar, folks.

Technique, arrangement and repertoire are my focus these days.
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