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#31
10-10-2019, 05:26 AM
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Posts like the above ascribe a bit too much alchemy, magic, and/or voodoo to the guitar making process in my opinion. Too much romance as well.
Certainly there's the potential to tune and maximize components of a guitar, which takes skill, experience, attention, focus, and care - BUT it is not magic, nor is it foolproof. Further, it is not fair at all to dismiss "factory" guitars as a universally cheap, cookie cutter product built without any attention to individual components or consideration for the future owner's enjoyment of the instrument. One thing that Martin, Gibson, Taylor, Collings, Eastman, etc. have going for them is that you can actually play individual guitars in shops and simply judge them firsthand. That beats the conjecture and chance you subject yourself to when you commission a build. You might score big time, but you absolutely might not - either because the builder missed the mark, or because you the customer misunderstood your own needs. Bespoke instruments can be beyond amazing, but the value proposition is not for everyone, and frankly most people buying them are not worthy of how exquisite they can be. I'm sure that fact torments many a builder at times.
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Pre-War Guitar Co. Model D and OM-2018 1928 Gibson L-5 
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#32
10-10-2019, 05:31 AM
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Quote:
What makes an Olson worth $20,000 more than, say a Taylor 914ce? Sure, it's a wonderful instrument, but twenty grand? I found a used one on the web for $36,000. I paid less for my Mercedes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not demeaning the guitars, those who build them or those who buy them. But these guitars aren't magic. They're guitars, and the prices of some of them undoubtedly drive some people away...
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#34
10-10-2019, 06:33 AM
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All I can say is that if my Bourgeois Slope D Custom “Banjo Killer” and Martin D-41 won’t do it for you, you have way more refined ears than I do and your demands for a guitar are way higher than mine. I’ve listened to lots of videos of custom guitars and I don’t hear magic coming from them. I think once you get to a certain level($8,000 and up), you’re buying “Exclusivity” , you know, sorta like driving a Bugatti Chiron. A car mere mortals can’t own.
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Education is important! Guitar is importanter!! 2019 Bourgeois “Banjo Killer” Aged Tone Vintage Deluxe D 2018 Martin D41 Ambertone (2018 Reimagined) 2016 Taylor GS Mini Koa ES2
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#35
10-10-2019, 06:39 AM
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I believe your seeing that maybe because most of the posts your reading are for factory guitars .
Not that thats a problem at all ( hope not to offend you ) The upper end factory models of Martin etc- are great guitars. the main problem with luthier guitars -is not that they are of quality and great guitars -but of their high cost and low resale . Great if your buying used but not so if your buying new - I love my hand builts - and honestly their cost used was less than a new factory comperable model . I understand the draw of a custom made guitar for you i did that with years ago - no regrets .
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--------------------------------- Wood things with Strings ! 
Last edited by Tony Burns; 10-10-2019 at 06:46 AM.
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#36
10-10-2019, 08:31 AM
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Since I won't buy an acoustic guitar I can't play first, having a guitar custom built for me would be out of the question. Just not gonna happen. Even with the strict standards in place at manufacturers like Taylor you can pick up several examples of the exact same model and they will feel and sound different. I can't imagine putting up custom-build dollars for something I may not even connect with when I finally get to play it.
Another aspect is I consider the guitar to be a tool. I love beautiful sounding and looking guitars as well as the next guy, but at the end of the day it's a tool I use to make music for a purpose (in my case, ministry). My Taylor 814ce DLX, which I bought used, is all the guitar I'll ever need in that regard and I probably shouldn't have even bought that one. Nothing against the guys doing custom builds - I'm really glad they're there and have a good market, but I can't see myself every going that route.
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#37
10-10-2019, 09:05 AM
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Quote:
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Guitars: Waterloo WL-K Iris AB 1990 Guild GF30 Bld Maple Archback Alvarez AP66 Baby Taylor G&L ASAT Tribute T-style
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#38
10-10-2019, 09:30 AM
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Who said it was magic or foolproof? I didnt say that every luthier made guitar is better responding and sounding than every factory guitar - that was your assumption.
The difference between them is the issue of intent and purpose- the factory guitar is made cookie cutter like while the luthier made guitar is made with the focus to make it excel. It is not an issue of being romantic or fantastical - the whole process is distinguished and differentiated from each other by this difference. There will be a small number of factory guitars that will be amazing sounding from pure random chance. There will be a far larger number of factory guitars that will be just average and there will be a small number that will be very poor. There will also be a smaller number of luthier made guitars that will be exceptional compared to those that those merely good or satisfactory. There will be a much smaller number that will be poor. The relative sizes of these different segments depend on the luthier's skill and conscientousness and experience. This contrasts with the factory guitar where the relative sizes of those segments are determined purely by random chance because no part pf the factory process was devoted to positively skewing the chances of tonal excellence because that was never the objective of the factory in the first place - nor can it in order for the factory to be a factory churning out tens of thousands of guitars a year. You can also play luthier made guitars before buying them by buying second hand or buying those rbat are commissioned by shops for retail sale or those made by the luthier on spec. Furthermore just looking at the agf buy and sell forum will reveal a sizeable number of luthier made guitars for sale used at prices that rival the prices of martin authentic guitars for example. The value proposition where it concerns bang for buck for those guitars seems pretty high to me! Lastly there is no place for the idea of needing to be worthy of ones guitar. If you can afford it you are worthy of the guitar. If the guitsr factories had to rely on players who were worthy even of their products, martin and taylor would have gone out of business long ago - let alone luthiers! Quote:
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In the end it is about who you love above yourself and what you have stood for and lived for that make the difference...
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#39
10-10-2019, 09:31 AM
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You can buy a used luthier made guitar or buy a new one on sale by a shop or by the luthier himself or herself then because you have the chance of trying them before buying them.
Quote:
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In the end it is about who you love above yourself and what you have stood for and lived for that make the difference...
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#40
10-10-2019, 09:38 AM
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Comparatively few luthier made guitars cost as much as an olson so why are you using an olson as an example? Everything that is able to be bought or sold has an upper range where the highest prices are paid. It is as valid as citing a Ferrari and exclaiming how unrealistically expensive cars are and arguing that everybody needs to buy motorcycles instead as transportation. Despite the fact that there are hundreds of models offered by so many manufacturers of cars that are exponentially cheaper than a Ferrari!
For olson type guitars that are made by a luthier, you could get a used charis or Applegate starting from 4k plus depending on materials, for example. There are literally scores and scores of luthiers who charge relatively lower base prices, and who build for different types of guitar and at different levels of trim and ergonomic features. Quote:
__________________
In the end it is about who you love above yourself and what you have stood for and lived for that make the difference...
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#41
10-10-2019, 10:23 AM
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There isn’t a shift away - there are a large number of very good luthiers out there, and a lot of really fine guitars being built. But the factories will always pump out many, many more boxes each year, and they’ll spend 100s of thousands on marketing to make you believe their product is equal to a handmade guitar - or even that it really is handmade. Or that the endorsement they pay for so you believe the musician using a brand X guitar is playing it because they love it, rather than because of how they’re being compensated.
There are probably fewer discussions of small builders and solo luthiers just because many of us who love small shops and solo builders know we can’t sway anyone who’s already decided they aren’t willing to consider anything other than an inexpensive assembly line product, aren’t going to convince anyone of the real value of a fine instrument, if that value isn’t centered around resale. There are names and shops that are priced far above comparable instruments - but thats true with many items where the name on the product is of more value than the product itself. But if it makes you happy - who cares? If you REALLY love to play guitar, you owe it to yourself to really listen and try different luthiers instruments - not just compare recordings. You may someday find one that knocks your understanding into a whole new universe, and you’ll never need to worry about trying to understand it all, and just enjoy playing an instrument thats greater than the sum of its parts -
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More than a few Santa Cruz’s, a few Sexauers, a Patterson, a Larrivee, a Cumpiano, and a Klepper!!
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#42
10-10-2019, 10:39 AM
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Quote:
Top quality factory guitars are not cookie cutter (a derogatory term). They are proven designs that can be, and are, reliably replicated in a production environment. In that respect, they generally tend to meet or exceed their inherent, and relatively well understood, potential. That is part of their value proposition - they are a known quantity. To many musicians, that's more important than spec'ing a 1 23/32" nut or a bracing pattern that produces a soundboard resonant peak at A = 432 Hz. I only partially jest, as you probably understand. A Martin dreadnought of the 18 or 28 variety may not be "special" enough for some players, but there is no doubt that millions of person-hours of inspired music are rehearsed, performed, and recorded on them every year literally since they were invented in the early 20th century to present day. Luthier guitars don't have that kind of track record, and can't approach it. There are gems and duds in every category, so let's ignore those extremes in this discussion. For the record I've commissioned a half dozen custom instruments over the years, so I'm not blindly defending Martin, Gibson, etc. My experience is empirical. You state you've not been interested in a factory product since your first guitar, so perhaps you have less hands-on experience with the best examples.
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Pre-War Guitar Co. Model D and OM-2018 1928 Gibson L-5 Last edited by rpguitar; 10-10-2019 at 10:52 AM.
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#44
10-10-2019, 10:51 AM
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Market reflection. the stock market has been roaring upwards for the last several years, but is now cooling off or trending lower. A lot of disposable income for the 'boomers - the age group probably most into guitars these days. So a lot of $$ has been flowing into both Luthier built, boutique, and high end factory guitars. I expect that to change as the stock market cools and retreats.
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______________ ---Tom H ---
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#45
10-10-2019, 11:12 AM
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I dont think we r talking about the same thing actually. You referred to the design of the dreadnought as a tried and trusted design and there is no question it is - many luthiers have used the same shape for their guitar builds!
What I am referring to is rather the optimisation of a guitar built to that design to the stiffness and damping characteristics of the woods used to build that particular guitar. This is necessary because every set of spruce wood for example can vary very significantly in stiffness etc from another set - even another set that was cut from the same tree. All factories do not cater at all to this requirement - they will follow a standard template of thickness measurements without exception. Factories do not have time to employ eg deflection testing to arrive at a custom set of thickness measurements for example to ensure that the set of wood is properly thicknesses in relation to its actual stiffness. The factory arrived at the particular measurements of its standard template by primarily ensuring that the thickness will be sufficient to cover almost all the range of variation that is involved with that species of wood to reduce warranty claims to an acceptable margin while not being too thick to make too many of the resulting guitars dead sounding. This inevitably means that it will be too thick for a substantial portion of the wood sets that are used by that factory to build that guitar model. That is why a factory guitar is akin to a cookie cut by a cookie cutter it is not pejorative to describe it as such because that is what it is. This is also why the factory can replicate the design reliably but the factory cannot replicate tonally excellent guitars made according to that design with reliability - instead the latter is entirely a work of chance and probability since the factory processes did not cater to that purpose at all. That is why so many on this thread alone have commented about the need to play many factory guitars before buying the one that is good. On the contrary there are various methods of optimisation that a luthier can use to better match the tonal needs of the instrument to the character of the actual sets of wood that he is using as well as the thickness of the bracing used etc. Since you have owned several customs I trust that you should know of the above because this is after all the core reason for buying a custom made guitar by a luthier (other than special aesthetic or ergonomic or musical needs). Quote:
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In the end it is about who you love above yourself and what you have stood for and lived for that make the difference...
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