#31
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#32
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As a person who has assembled both electric guitars and an acoustic guitar from kits, I agree with the sentiment of the OP.
Of course, this likely is because the most important thing to me in an electric guitar is tone. On order of importance, I would say tone is 75%, playability 20%, and fit and finish 5%. I further posit 2 points that I believe a lot of people will agree to be true: (1) The amp, effects, and speaker have a huge effect on the tone. I believe this easily accounts for more than 50% of the final tone, probably closer to something like 70% or more. (2) Looking at only the guitar, pickups account for a huge part of the tone. I would also estimate their importance to be at least 70% of the guitar's tone. If you accept these points as true, you'll find that once you get good pickups (which need not be expensive, see: Bootstrap pickups), there is not much room for the things that make a guitar expensive, such as tonewoods, workmanship, hardware, finish, etc., to affect the tone. I also think that the effect of tonewoods, etc., on the electric guitar sound is quite chaotic and random. I don't know of any studies or luthier knowledge that really understand how properties of the tonewoods, hardware, etc., affect the sound, unlike acoustic guitars. With acoustic guitars you have a wealth of knowledge of factors that affect the sound, such as the woods' density, stiffness, damping, etc. That's why it seems like luthiers who understand the theory can consistently get "their sound." I don't see the same with electric guitar makers. Further, the effort and labor hours required in building an acoustic guitar is so much more than the effort and labor hours required in assembling an electric guitar. When assembling an acoustic guitar each step requires a lot of precision and care. The electric guitar is a lot more modular so it gives you a lot more leeway for mistakes. A misplaced bridge on an acoustic guitar might require you to pull and reglue the bridge, while a misplaced bridge on an electric guitar isn't fatal unless it is way off. Similarly, you don't have to worry so much about neck angles on an electric guitar, because you can adjust a ton at the bridge. With an acoustic guitar, you will likely find yourself spending a huge amount of time trying to get the neck set just right. This doesn't even include the time and effort that goes into bracing and voicing the top and back of the acoustic guitar, which is completely absent in a solid body electric. Thus, if you only focus on sound, I think it is very reasonable to feel the same way as OP. Diminishing returns in sound probably hit hard and randomly. Of course, if you place importance on other aspects, it may be worth it to buy high priced electric guitars. Electric guitars are a lot more interesting visually compared to homogenized acoustic guitars, so their artistic value is non-trivial. Further, the most man-hours likely go into playability for electric guitar builders, and the difference between a good playing factory guitar and a supreme playing boutique guitar may be significant. |
#33
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Shaneh asked the question:
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It takes a lot of person hours to put on numerous coats of nitro on a carved top electric. |
#34
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I guess you have to separate building somewhat standard electric guitars from building innovative custom electric guitars using new designs, trial and error, adaptive and changing styles and forms, to end up with something truly unique and versatile.
The best example that I can think of is Jerry Garcia's "Tiger" guitar that was designed and built by Doug Irwin. Others have sold for more due to the celebrity attached to their ownership, but I think that "Tiger" was the most innovative of the world record sellers. For better general and technical descriptions than I can provide, I'll use these descriptions from The Metropolitan Museum of Art where the guitar was displayed for a time.. "Immediately after receiving the “Wolf” guitar from Doug Irwin in 1973, Jerry Garcia commissioned “Tiger,” telling Irwin to make the most extravagant instrument he was capable of. The instrument—composed of highly figured exotic woods that are sandwiched and laminated together and embellished with ornate brass bindings and the inlay of a tiger—took Irwin about two thousand hours of work to complete over six years. Garcia first played “Tiger” on August 4, 1979, at the Oakland Civic Auditorium, and he used it almost exclusively until 1989. It was the last guitar Garcia played publicly with the Grateful Dead, at a performance on July 9, 1995." Technical Description: "Cocobolo top and back, sandwiched maple and padauk core, quilted maple on back, three-piece flame maple and padauk neck with brass binding; ebony fingerboard; 25 in. scale; natural finish with brass binding; neck through body with mother-of-pearl inlays, “J. GARCIA” inlaid at end of fingerboard, and brass binding; brass-bound headstock with mother-of-pearl globe and ivory eagle logo; mother-of-pearl tiger inlay framed in ebony and brass on front of body, brass-bound quilted maple circle with mother-of-pearl vegetal inlay and marquetry on back; two humbucking pickups and one single-coil, five-way selector switch, two volume controls and one tone control, two coil tap switches, effects loop output and on/off switch, unity-gain buffer; brass pickup mounting bracket, bridge, tailpiece, tuners, knobs and control surfaces." https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/771880 Doug sold this guitar to Jerry for a ridiculously low price considering the time and materials involved in it's construction. Doug's apprentice at the time now builds a (near) replica of "Tiger" for the neat sum of $32,000. USD. Is it worth it, well, as with all things, that's up to the buyer to decide. We know that Garcia's original "Tiger" guitar sold in the year 2002 for $850,000. USD or $957,000. USD including buyers fee. So to get as close to that magic as possible obviously commands a premium price. Of course, you can buy a "Tiger" replica of for as little as $650., but if you want one built by one of the two original designers and built with the exact specifications and tricks only known to them, then you have that option.
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"We're gonna take a break from all this sweat & steam & uproar & tumult and we're gonna break out our acoustic guitars and regale you with some wooden music." - Bob Weir, 4/9/70 |
#35
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For me, then, feel and playability is about 80-90% of an electric guitar I’m considering buying. Sound is most of the rest, with fit and finish last by a large margin. I’ve only swapped the pickups out of one guitar - they sounded fine but we’re the noisiest darn things I ever had to contend with. But I’ve flat out rejected (usually within minutes) any number of electric guitars that didn’t feel good to me on first playing. That difference of opinion out of the way, my most expensive electric guitar originally sold for a little under $1000 - I got it for less, but I’d have been willing to spend that on it. My other one cost me $400, brand spanking new. I’ve briefly owned electrics costing north of $2000 and even one north of $3000 that I didn’t like as much as similar models costing a fraction as much. I sold them pretty quickly, within a few months. With acoustics, though, my LEAST expensive guitar would cost about $2500 today - I paid just under $2000 with a pre-pandemic discount. My other cost me about $3500 several months ago and may have been a few hundred less pre-pandemic. They’re my favorite acoustics ever, except for a 1968 D-28 I paid $400 for in 1979 but would be worth upwards of ten times that today if it’s still in decent shape. I haven’t played an acoustic that costs less than about $1000-$1200 in today’s dollars that I’ve kept for any length of time as anything other than a beater. I’ve played cheaper ones that played fantastic, but just didn’t sound very good to me relative to more expensive guitars. I have a cheap one that lives at my daughter’s place in Oregon so I have something to play when we visit - I’m happy to have it but I’m REALLY happy to get back to my much better sounding guitars when we get home. So, with electrics, I can almost always find one that sounds just fine to me (or can easily be made to), but finding one with the right feel and playability is the limiting factor to me. And I haven’t had to spend much to find instruments I love. With acoustics, I can almost always find one that plays well today (NOT the case with cheap guitars when I started out 44 or so years ago) at most price points, but great sound is the limiting factor. So, yeah, I’m obviously willing to spend faaaar more on an acoustic than an electric, because I’ve found I have to in order to find acoustics I like. And I’ve been much more of (and a better) electric player over the years than acoustic, so, if anything, I’d think I’d be more discriminating with electric than acoustic. But it’s not the case. -Ray
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"It's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a dang metronome in its life" - Benmont Tench Last edited by raysachs; 10-29-2021 at 04:38 AM. |
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I am not an electric guitarist, and so I fail to understand why electrics, particularly solids command high prices, and, probably because I don't play them -apart from the perception of the lnk with famous players, and the mindset about vintage Gibsons and Fenders.
however, I have a friend who runs a successful business building "reliced" versions of just about every solid made. He will speak enthusiastically and at length about what makes a solid "special" and as he sells mostly all he can make - he must be right. see : https://www.eternal-guitars.com/guitars
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Silly Moustache, Just an old Limey acoustic guitarist, Dobrolist, mandolier and singer. I'm here to try to help and advise and I offer one to one lessons/meetings/mentoring via Zoom! |
#37
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I’d like to be able to afford a Collings 290 with ThroBak pickups. That’s about as much as I can see spending on an electric guitar.
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--------------------------------------- 2013 Joel Stehr Dreadnought - Carpathian/Malaysian BW 2014 RainSong H-OM1000N2 2017 Rainsong BI-WS1000N2 2013 Chris Ensor Concert - Port Orford Cedar/Wenge 1980ish Takamine EF363 complete with irreplaceable memories A bunch of electrics (too many!!) |
#38
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The one that puzzles me is the difference between a say $2-3,000 Classical guitar and a $10-20,000 Classical guitar
The rest of them I get |
#39
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IMO, people don't buy with their head (or their ears)....they buy with their heart and their eyes.
People forget that several famous models were deliberately designed to be cheap serviceable working-man guitars. They were deliberately meant to be cheap guitars and now we pay much more for current ones than much better guitars. I am very familiar with a discontinued electric guitar line and they are wonderful guitars and fortunately very reasonably priced and can be upgraded very easily. You can pick up these guitars (which I know very well) for $600 if you shop around. Yet I see them listed (and apparently selling) for $3000 simply because they have a pretty colored top laminate. It's LITERALLY the same guitar underneath that pretty figured wood grain top piece. People pay thousands thinking they are getting some exotic Mona Lisa of a guitar.
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Fazool "The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter" 000-15 / GC7 / GA3-12 / SB2-C / SB2-Cp / AVC-11MHx / AC-240 |
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Must have been the early 2000's, a buddy and I walked into a music store and played a early Fender Custom shop "blackguard thinline" (a model that was never made back in the blackguard days).
I remember it priced around $4k. We both agreed it was the best (new) "T" style we'd played. Neither of us were neophytes, we know our guitars. The guitar store would have paid a bit more than $2k to Fender for the guitar. Let's say you spec-ed out a t style guitar w/ USA built top shelf parts and did the finish yourself. Just for instance, the tele bridge and saddles I use are $180 retail. Premium/boutique quality parts for an individual would be in the $800-$1000+ range and then figure what your labor is worth,..If you sent that tele off to be finished by a pro, $4-500 for the neck and body in nitro,.. Of course, you can also buy a Wilkinson Modern-T Guitar Kit from Stew Mac for $500 ($650 when not on sale) and you could be happy,.. Last edited by stephenT; 11-10-2021 at 12:29 PM. |
#41
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I collect/play both
Good guitars cost.
Skill, time, demand, materials make up factors in the cost. I have several I've built myself....parts for a top shelf strat are running around 1500 or so, can spend a lot more or a lot less. Sales value when I'm done with it is around 1k and it better play like something special to get that 1K...no errors in construction. A Gibson style, set neck like a a Paul or a jazz box, would take much longer, require special tools, again top shelf parts/materials can run over a few k, some skill is needed and the more the better. How about a great finish in nitro? Takes a bit of time and skill as well. Easy to get a very nice one with some aftermarket value, used or new....solid body 2k and up for the good stuff give or take or hollow body 3k and up...it's a lot but not a bad value as the market has a nice resell, value is relative. Acoustics are all over the map in pricing from custom made wonders to cheap mass produced ones...did you want and Adirondack top? figured woods? Flame walnut? Brazilian anything on it? finish? nice case? We are lucky to have so many choices and prices are mostly in line with costs unless collectors items or high consumer demand....or right now broken supply chains and high shipping and labor costs. Inflation is built into the system that we all live in. Things go up, if you have a problem in the system and there is still demand then prices will reflect it. |
#42
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Since folks often use the term 'cork-sniffers' on this forum, try substituting 'wine' for electric guitar.
The largest group of people will say they are happy with a 10 dollar bottle and don't understand why anyone would pay more, because THEY don't see the value. (Many of these are really not much into wine.) There will a smaller group who might pay 50 dollars tops. After that it is the same bewilderment. As the price goes up, the groups of people who 'get it' grow smaller. Which group is right? The one YOU are in The point is, it is a human tendency to devalue that which we don't understand or have not fully experienced. It's how we are wired. The OP said that they weren't much of an electric player. The unfortunate truth is that no one will ever be able to explain the price disparity to them, except by resorting to inaccurate and unhelpful comments that say more about the commenter than about reality.
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-Gordon 1978 Larrivee L-26 cutaway 1988 Larrivee L-28 cutaway 2006 Larrivee L03-R 2009 Larrivee LV03-R 2016 Irvin SJ cutaway 2020 Irvin SJ cutaway (build thread) K+K, Dazzo, Schatten/ToneDexter Notable Journey website Facebook page Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art. - Leonardo Da Vinci |
#43
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#44
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a video
This video isn't about guitars, it's about basses, but it's one of the better explanations of the things you're asking about. There is, as someone else already said, a point of diminishing returns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQCdzomDN48 |
#45
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"It's only castles burning." - Neil Young |