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OK Ben. So, you got game with your ovens. Cool!! But, just don't go off trying to cook any of your moderately priced guitars in your high priced ovens!! That is NOT what we mean when we reference "cookin' up some jazz guitar".
Originally Posted by thrush40
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08-26-2013 10:19 PM
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I am a beginner in jazz guitar. All below is my opinion....
"Drivability".. When i had money i owned a porsche cabriolet briefly. Beautifully made car, but compared to a go kart on a track, no fun at all, heavy, much less connection with the road, and ponderous. And if i drove it for a short time like i would a go kart on a track i'd kill myself or someone else. lesson learnt. I now drive a $2000 citroen estate, and if i wanted driving sport i would go to the track and for $50 get proper "drivability".
Playability... For me this means the neck suiting my hands, the action being low, the intonation being right, the guitar not falling off my lap when i let go of it when I'm seated, the thickness of the guitar body (thicker is less playable), the accessibility to the upper frets if I want it, what strings are on it and the weight of the thing. I played a brand new awfully set up $2000? gibson 175 the other day in a shop that felt awful for me to play on. A $300 Hagstrom Viking on the other hand, with 1mm at the 12th fret, and not in a shop was for me as playable as anything. I have played 2 guitars worth $20,000. Neither of them suited me.
Sound quality plugged in is for me first the the amplifier then the pickups, and even then there enough blind tests of jazz guitars on the web showing that we often cannot even tell a 335 from L5 shape, let alone what pickups or how much the guitar cost.
Re quality electronics. You can buy and fit the "best" quality wire, caps, pots and switches for $50.00 on any guitar. Then it will work as well as any guitar in the world.
Re pickups... that's flavours, not better or worse, I have discovered. My strat has ceramics that I love more than the boutique Lindy Fralins i had in another strat i used to own. For $200 You can have "better than" the "quality" neck pickup of the most expensive guitars in the world if you really want to. not a lot of money really.
And then we have how the guitar is made. Can a man cut and shape wood as well as a machine? A good question, but in this day of computer technology, if I had made one (say a $50,000 hand made jobby) and needed it repeated identically, i would back the machine, with its brain and its scanners and its lasers.
Wood quality.... ah a thorny issue. Does it even exist? Eastman's blurb about how they choose their woods is beautiful. I have also read one guitar repairer of long-standing say on the web that 80% of the repairs he gets in are Gibsons with broken necks. humm. No gibson for me then. Strangely one of the $20,000 guitars i have played was a Gibson sg. It is now a $12,000 guitar once the neck that is now in 2 pieces is repaired. the owner ( a friend of mine) dared to adjust the truss rod for 11's tut tut.
I have owned expensive usa strats, my present guitar is a lowly mexico squier series strat with the best neck of any guitar i have ever played FOR ME. Thin and narrow for my small hands. And it had cheap electrics that had worked for 25 years perfectly so i swapped them out for "the ones" by cts etc. 6 months later one of the hallowed cts pots physically broke!!! My strat cost me $180. you yanks can get them cheaper on ebay..
Another interest of mine is hifi, audio equipment. You can spend $200 on a single capacitor if you like. i have owned many older very expensive bits of kit, but am coming round to a friend of mine's opinion (he's an electrical engineer who's repaired high and low end audio equipment and guitar amps for 30n years for a living) that amplifier technology hasn't changed much in 50 years. And he says high end vs low end is usually very tenuous when you open the kit up and look inside and know what you are looking at... some of the things i could tell you about some of the "best" $1000's amplifiers...
A lot of smoke and mirrors...
I would love to try a few boutique hand-made archtop...
But i would gladly play only the cheapest hondo of all time til i died if i could play it like pat metheny.. and noone on their more expensive guitars would have more mojo or soul than me... and maybe i could on the weekends play Jimmy Hendrix soul and mojo... man i'm gasing for that hondo..
One last thing. I read about how long it takes the hand-made archtop makers to make a guitar, and the years of experience they need to get there, and from that point of view some of their guitars are not expensive at all. I think it is sad that modern technology and the big boys of consumerism are eating the little boys for lunch and the artisans for afternoon tea on the lawn...
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The value of a guitar really depends on the context of owner. I would however contend that from a purely musical output (sound) capability there has got to be diminishing returns as the price significantly increases. There are so many variables that affect sound that any of them can have a profound effect, pickups, amp, cables, room, plectrum, etc. The same guitar played but different players through their own rigs with their own technique are going to sound different.
The player makes the biggest difference. I have a friend that drag races street motorcycles. He spends thousands of dollars to gain a few extra horse power. My friend is also seriously overweight, probably in excess of 75 pounds. I'm pretty sure his best efficiency would be gained by losing body weight. I draw this analogy to a guitar. For many of us that are continuous learners when it comes to guitar and jazz, the best bang for the buck would be to continue to improve our musicianship.
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Many of the little boys and artisans are doing just fine for themselves. Originally Posted by gilbodavid
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Hand made archtop guitars - ERMAN GITARREN, SLOVENIA:
www.glasbila-erman.com
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I think a really nice budget "jazz" guitar is the Washburn J6, it sounds good,looks great, is giggable and if stolen or broken isn't so expensive that it couldn't be easily replaced. that being said I think the real "value" guitars in the used/ebay market are Heritage guitars...great handmade American solid wood archtops used, rarely priced above 1600 bucks. I have played and owned many 'budget" guitars and once I bought an expensive $2300 Heritage brand new I realized that there is a huge difference between that and an epi Joe Pass and a Washburn J6, Ibanez Artcore, etc. etc.. tone tone tone consistency of tone lack of feedback lack of rattling etc. etc. So if you are looking to buy an archtop and want to spend less than 2 grand I'd seriously consider a used Heritage you won't be disappointed.
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I can only presume that expressions of any position that runs counter to your view of how the world should be have to be shouted down.
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@erman - the archtops are beautiful. A fretted double bass? Are those position markers or actual frets? Man, they look a lot like frets but I cannot imagine the reason; if frets, how can it produce a decent growl or wide, full vibrato, pizz or bowed? If markers, are they removable (like an overlay)? Nothing turns up on a Google search.
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some early music bass players use fretted upright basses, with tied-on frets of nylon or gut.
Last edited by fritz jones; 09-02-2013 at 03:00 AM.
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Fretted violin family instruments were usual before the baroque period. The Viola da Gamba had those gut frets. The change set in in the "glory" time of Crmona violin making (Amati, Stradivari, Guarneri).
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Ouch, those Erman guitars ... i'm gonna faint ... so classy looking, i bet they sound gorgeous
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Checked out the Gallery page at www.glasbila-erman.com for more nice examples of what appears to be pretty much a custom-build operation. Very nice examples. Hopefully, maybe we'll be hearing more about these instruments. Originally Posted by ah.clem
Anyway, I, too, was curious abut the bass fingerboards, and so I copied and pasted some of the Slovenian text into Google Translate, and... it came up with this on one particular chunk of verbage off the bass page:
"Possible choices:
• Samples on the fretboard of a square or circular shells
• fretless fingerboard
• Electronics Custom (Schaller, Fishman, Shadow, piezo)
• Highest quality carrying case
• Thomastik strings, Pirastro, Labella ..."
So, from the text above, I'd have to say that "fretless" is an option, and from the photos that I looked at up close, well..... IMO, it looks to me like they probably utilize frets as their stock construction since I'm pretty sure the light glinting off the 'frets' indicates more of a 3-D fret edge rather than just being inlaid lines. IMO.
Maybe the Erman rep will be back for some follow-up discussion here...
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[QUOTE=Groyniad;246498]
I just wandered back into this thread. Wish I hadn't. While I can appreciate that Groyniad was kind enough to say that his post above wasn't necessarily aimed at me specifically, it could have been. I find it to be sad, annoying, objectional and short sighted all at the same time, that there are those . . . about 3 or 4 on this thread alone . . . who still believe and openly post stupid comments like . . . a player should be able to play up to the dollar value of his/her guitar or they have no right to own it. If statements like that aren't spoken out of shear envy and jealousy, then they are just plain rediculous and stupid. Originally Posted by Patrick2
The ability of one's playing skills should have no bearing what so ever on their guitar selection . . or how many guitars they choose to own. The comparisons of not needing Ferraris to get to work when a Chevys will get you there just the same are equally stupid. "Why wear a Rolex when a Citizen will actually keep more accurate time?" I've heard all of the anologies and quite frankly I'm pretty much sick of hearing them. Who is anyone to judge how a person chooses to spend his/her money?
"Are the guitars actually worth the money?" They certainly are to a person willing to spend what ever it takes to own those guitars in question.
Sometimes I take this shit personally, but I shouldn't. I realize that it's not always aimed at me . . . but it could be . . because I probably have more money invested in high end guitars than 90% of the top notch super star jazz guitar recording artists active today. Should I not own them because I don't and never will play at the level of those artists?
Gimme a fuckin' break man!!!!!!!
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Thanks for the comments; I know about gambas and gut string frets, I played in Early, Renaissance and Baroque ensembles at Uni. I was wondering how a contemporary double with frets could sound like anything other than a Fender, and what the point was. I've played the double bass as well as Fender fretted and fretless basses most of my life and I was just wondering what the market was for a fretted double bass. It's just bizarre to me and I can't imagine the sound of a fret-stopped double bass string in a jazz duo or trio. I just don't get it. It's like fretting a cello, viola or violin - they'd be different instruments, in my opinion. To each his own, as they say.
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Yeah, I'd have to agree with you. (I've not played much double bass but I have played lots of both fretted and fretless electric.) Originally Posted by ah.clem
I think it's probably more along the marketing line of thinking that: Here's a unique product that nobody else (apparently) makes.
I also suppose it might make a viable introduction for a bass guitarist making a move over to a double bass (if they were of a mind to think in this direction). Or maybe it's just for 'looks' for some players.
My take? Why bother, just GO there to a DB, but still, I'm betting some folks are buying them with the frets.
Anyway, whatever they choose, there's also always the "fretless" option available, too.
Interesting...
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the weirdest thing I have seen is this:
Little Guitar Works | Torzal Natural Twist
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Cool! Makes sense to me, I suppose. Originally Posted by fritz jones
Hey, if yer gonna have fanned frets, then why not this?!
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[QUOTE=Patrick2;356477]
Originally Posted by Groyniad
I agree. I think the logic applies better to a parent funding a child's instrument. Once you're an adult you can buy a Benedetto or a bass boat or a Harley or a vacation to Bora Bora or whatever...
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Yeah, that can happen when the pattern buffers get mis-aligned o___O Originally Posted by fritz jones
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[QUOTE=mr. beaumont;244335]Play what you like, be it a $300 Ibanez or a 30k Ken Parker artwork.
Human beings are judgemental. The quicker we all get over that, the quicker we can all just make music. Nobody has to earn their guitar. There's no graduation ceremony, no "Yay, you can play 'Giant Steps' now, that's a level 5 song, here's what's now available to you."
I play the best stuff I can afford. I have nicer stuff now than I did ten years ago, and I don't need it, but I like it, it inspires me to play. I don't look up to or down on anybody based on what they play.
In fact, the only musicians I look down on are the liars who perpetuate judgements and myths, and the snake oil teachers.Those folks aren't worthy of
Hey Jeff . . . I could probably get Heritage to build you one of those.a cigar box with a broom handle and some fishing wire.
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