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Thank you Spiral! That's more along the lines of what I was thinking. I agree the company isn't going to rip anyone off.
Originally Posted by spiral
Eastman is probably the way to go. I was also thinking of Loar, but they have quality control issues. Has to be from a good seller. Eastmans, I think are pretty reliable.
In any case, I'm a bit away from that point, so lots of time to figure.
Thanks!
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06-05-2013 08:05 PM
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Hi Tom. You are most welcome. Glad the info was useful. I actually owned a Loar for a bit as well. They are also great guitars. I found that their volume could easily overwhelm the sweetness, but they do have that vintage percussive chunk like 30's archtops. Loars are parallel braced and Eastmans are X braced. Just another thing to consider. I wouldn't worry about quality issues on the Loar. Musicians Friend sells them and you can always exchange. Another difference, especially on the LH-700, is the neck is much bigger (vintage Gibson V) which may account for the volume. Eastman necks are like a soft C or D which aren't as nice (to me). Originally Posted by furtom
Loar or Eastman gets you a great instrument with a wider nut without the concern about a fragile finish, neck reset, or any other of the baggage that comes with vintage.
If you are debating those designs, you may want to start a new thread as there are many happy owners of Loar, Eastman, and Yunzhi around here. You'll get lots of good feedback—or perhaps too much info to make a clear decision.
Last edited by spiral; 06-05-2013 at 08:44 PM.
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Or simply review the ton of threads already in existence for each. It's a thought
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Oh yeah, when I get closer to it, I'll be sure to pipe in. I still have to decide fundamental details like do I want routed or floating, etc. I have one of each, but it's getting time to upgrade. We'll see... Originally Posted by spiral
Hi Tom. You are most welcome. Glad the info was useful. I actually owned a Loar for a bit as well. They are also great guitars. I found that their volume could easily overwhelm the sweetness, but they do have that vintage percussive chunk like 30's archtops. Loars are parallel braced and Eastmans are X braced. Just another thing to consider. I wouldn't worry about quality issues on the Loar. Musicians Friend sells them and you can always exchange. Another difference, especially on the LH-700, is the neck is much bigger (vintage Gibson V) which may account for the volume. Eastman necks are like a soft C or D which aren't as nice (to me).
Loar or Eastman gets you a great instrument with a wider nut without the concern about a fragile finish, neck reset, or any other of the baggage that comes with vintage.
If you are debating those designs, you may want to start a new thread as there are many happy owners of Loar, Eastman, and Yunzhi around here. You'll get lots of good feedback—or perhaps too much info to make a clear decision.
In the meantime, it's fun to talk about!
Last edited by furtom; 06-05-2013 at 09:13 PM.
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Hey, 2B2B, did I tweak you without meaning to? All in good spirit, I hope. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
Or simply review the ton of threads already in existence for each. It's a thought
Peace.
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Next is Manzer. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
First Melo, now Monteleone? Gulp!
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Furtom, Originally Posted by furtom
I've got a feeling the whole copyright thing with guitars may have a grey area that's open to interpretation. Maybe someone
here will read this thread and clarify for us.
About the Yunzhi, I now own one. I ordered it with a Florentine cutaway because I thought their Venetian cutaway archtop
looked too Eastman-like. That kind of echoes the whole issue of copying. I can't give a definitive verdict on how mine performs until I use it in one of the bands, which happens on Thursday.
It's a risk ordering any guitar one hasn't had a chance to play first, but at the prices they're asking, well...It could be worth it. Mine is not without flaws, but by way of improvement it got a Kent Armstrong and K&K transducers. They'll make it with
a solid face, and while it may be shaped it is certainly not luthier-carved as in tap tuned.
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You can't copyright a common shape like a circle or square. Apple tried to sue Samsung for the iPhone shape but it was denied. You likely can't copyright a common archtop guitar shape or dreadnaught. If something is dramatic enough, you could file a trademark and defend it as a unique design (the Monteleone or Pagelli would be possible candidates). Originally Posted by MaxT
Freakonomics » Apple vs Samsung: Who Owns the Rectangle?
They grey area comes in with "consumer confusion". You can argue a certain shape is tied to a brand and may cause user confusion. Gibson can protect their headstock because they have used it consistently and defended it. In the case of the Flying V, they sued Sponge Bob('s parents) because of a Flying V-shaped Uke.
Gibson Guitar Corp. Sues Viacom Over Spongebob Squarepants "Flying V" Ukulele | International Intellectual Property Blog
Fender recently tried to copyright their guitar shapes and failed because the court said there were already too many existing copies … so basically Fender wasn't aggressive enough, early enough, to protect their design and it became too common to defend.
Fender Loses ?Guitar Body Shape? Court Case
There is plenty of guitar copying going on regardless of country, but the direct copies are pretty gross. Obviously the Yunzhi factory is selling exact ripoffs of Gibson, Gretsch, and Fender designs, with headstock and logos to boot. That part is not a grey area. As someone said earlier, if you buy a copy, it's still a copy. Like many young brands i hope they start to shift to their own brand exclusively, even if that means only changing the headstock and inlay. They will sell whatever people continue to buy.
I'm not a lawyer: I'm a designer, so my (limited) copyright knowledge is from that experience, in addition to articles i've read on various articles in the popular culture.
The "next ripoff" it may be this: Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
First Melo, now Monteleone? Gulp!
http://i00.i.aliimg.com/photo/v13/56..._have_side.jpg
For the life of me i can't remember the luthier, but maybe someone can help out. As Mr. Beaumont said earlier, the Melo was an "homage" to the D'Aquisto Solo. Tom Bills and Gary Zimnicki both have very close (if not identical) copies of the Solo.
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Eastman/Yunzhi was making cellos, violas and the like long before they've ventured into carved top guitars.
I've owned a couple of Yunzhi guitars, one I bought used (a 810ce 5th Anniversary copy and a John Pisano copy). As you can see in my avatar I had an John Pisano AR880 and the Yunzhi, so I can attest to how well the Yunzhi stacks up to the Eastman. I kept the Yunzhi.
Were any of you guys complaining ever owners of Ibanez copy guitars. Anyone whose owned an Ibanez L5 or Johnny Smith or Byrdland copy will tell you, they nailed it. And then they moved on to making their own unique and wonderful instruments (AS200, GB10 and many others). COPY, INNOVATE, DIFFERENTIATE indeed.
Yunzhi will likely do the same thing. Their model was bring the Eastman style guitars direct to the customer and save them money. They seemed to have done that well. No question of their honesty in dealing direct with a customer, they are really straight up nice people.
I've always wanted a F5 mandolin shaped archtop, if they can pull this off I'd order one. A buddy of mine was very into Phish and had them build him a Langeudoc copy, this guy was really into the details and given them and a lot of communication they did a respectable job. I'll have to contact Ms Lora about the Artist Deluxe copy.
Mike
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Thanks guys. It's all very interesting.
It's funny, opinions differ, but everyone seems happy with Yunzhi in any case.
Certainly worth considering.
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Big Mike,
Never had the pleasure of owning an Ibanez L5 or Byrdland or J. Smith, but does make a point.
Seems to be like bands that start out playing cover tunes, and then later on introducing their
own stuff.
With the Yunzhi, the craftsmanship is certainly there. On mine, they used natural wood binding
with narrow near-black appearance lines. No plastic, and it looks well. This could be one of their
future hallmarks, if they choose to do it.
Room for improvement....The tailpiece. Basically metal with an ebony facade screwed on, almost looks
ungainly.
Also, an admittedly hefty ebony pickguard, but not straight on the inside edge. I didn't care,
because I knew I was going to swap over to a bigger pickguard.
I rather like those big wooden thumbwheels, I would prefer them to the little dime-size ones, if there
is room, for speed and accuracy of manipulation. I didn't use them only because their impedance
was wrong for the transducers they would've been connected to.
The Florentine cutaway I would describe as more broad than deep, perhaps that is because it's
an 18-inch body.
Incidentally the tuning keys operate very well. Nice and smooth.
For those readers who are curious, the finished instrument in its case was shipped to me in Australia,
under a week's time. Might've been only 3-4 days actually.
Packaging was what I would call a "styrofoam sarcophagus", except with the mummy tape wrapped all
around the exterior. When I cut the sarcophagus lid free, I noticed two complete breaks in the styrofoam
of the main container holding the instrument, up at the top.
The guitar was undamaged, no problem there....Because it was protected by the case.
Bottom line, make sure it's shipped in a guitar case.
i
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Really hearing about the progress Yunzhi is making for you Spook...
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Progress.. Originally Posted by BigMikeinNJ
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Wow! Spook, that's a nice design.
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Now that's looking amazing. What shade is she going to become? The wood grade appears first class.
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Looks great.
im gonna come off as a dick here, but I gotta say it...when I was in art school we were encouraged to try and copy the masters...but it was also understood you never sold that shit...you could put it in your living room if you wanted, but trying to make bread on it was an unwritten "no-no." I have a garage full of Francis Bacon-ish paintings...
sorry for being a Debbie Downer. I'm just...really bothered by this.
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I understand where you are coming from. Are you equally offended by the dozen of L5 copies (and variants), D'Aquisto solo copies, Trigg's Stromberg, or D'Angelico New Yorkers from Western luthiers? As a Tele player you must go nuts as every other new guitar maker that pops up is making a copy. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
It seems like unless you are using the exact headstock and logo it's just part of the culture of guitar making (i posted a link earlier to D'Angelico's Gibson copies). If this ends up having a "Monteleone" logo and headstock i'll be in 100% agreement with you because then it's a fake ... with a Yunzhi headstock it seems to be fair game.
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Not really.
I feel like John is an artist at a whole new level...truly unique designs, never making snuthing with the idea of it being mass produced...there's just something not right about copying that.
I can't say I'm comlpletely against similar designs...hell I play a Heritage 575 (which is actually superior to any 175 I've come across...for me, that is)...but somehow encroaching on the teritory of a cat who makes a few guitars a year by hand is just...not cool.
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Yes! That's the one. Thank you. Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
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I wasn't celebrating the rip-off. I was saying "yes" to you found the original and "thank you" for clarifying. If you are trying to align me personally with stealing other people's work you are way off base. Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
I was questioning the selective outrage. Why is it bad to copy John Monteleone but OK to copy Gibson or D'Aquisto or Fender or Benedetto? Aren't they nice and don't they work hard? There are guitar copies everywhere. Where are the torches and pitchforks for the "What's the best L5 copy" threads?
A Monteleone copy presumably isn't going to play or sound like the real thing, nor will it be worth anywhere near the original. It has the external shape and veneer of a Monteleone but that's not even half the design. I would hope the value of owning a real one is more than just pretty decorations and fancy woods. Like i said before, if they stuck the same headstock on and "Monteleone" inlay on it, then i would be outraged because it is deceptive and an attempt defraud Monteleone the person. It isn't done so i reserve my outrage.
For a second there i thought you were trying to say something about Radio Flyer the wagon company. They are 7 minutes from my house but wagons aren't made there anymore (Made in China y'all). Then i realized that was a guitar name ... wait, did he rip off Radio Flyer? Kidding.
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I think Benedetto was doing floral soundholes before anyone else. Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
Benedetto "I Tre Fratelli" (The Three Brothers)
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As for the guitar, it should be interesting. I'm guessing it will sound pretty much like my other Yunzhi 18" (a Benedetto copy). I don't think the the F5 upper bout grafted on to a standard archtop body is going to make lot of sonic difference. Looks cool though. I'm thinking a K&K definity to amplify.
Last edited by Spook410; 08-03-2013 at 04:32 AM.
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Comparing a design copy of a guitar with pirated software or DVDs is an oranges and apples comparison. No one in their right mind is going to mistake a Yunzhi for a Montellone. You're giving Yunzhi far too much credit to suggest the like shape of an archtop means it cannot be distinguished from the original.
There are far greater issues in life where ones indignation is better served. Imitation is still the purest form of flattery. Unless that is ones ego is easily offended and of course the next thing you know you're going to war over perceived slights.
In the grand scheme of things, i.e., the bigger picture, there's far bigger fish to fry in the world than some small shop in China creating a handful of Montellone knockoffs. Oh say like global warming for starters. Take your pick.
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Nor is the world necessarily fair.
"Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” - Wayne Dyer
Morality police providing their own example on how to live, rather than throwing judgement stones, is a far more peaceful place to be, for reality is no one can control another's decision(s).
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It's all the same. The arguments, the tirades, the righteous indignation. I remember when the Japanese guitars came out. Tokai, Ibanez, et al. Many strong opinions and some lawsuits. Little changed. They could make copies, just not exact and they couldn't market them as 'pretty much like a XXX'. The guitars were tweaked and went on their way. Many of these models are now highly sought after without any moral hand wringing I can see.
This time it's different because it's art or a small maker? I have a tough time connecting those dots. Has Benedetto been financially hurt by Eastman or have their copies diminished his standing? From what I've seen $2K guitars don't compete in the $25K guitar market. Nor do $1250 guitars compete in the $85K and up market. In fact, as less expensive guitars get more players started with archtops it may ultimately help the high end.
As for all the rest, some would find their purchase being characterized as an accessory to theft offensive. No doubt meaning from Orville Gibson and Lloyd Loar since most archtops are derivative. Instead, I choose to read the whole thread to a background of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' which seems to put it in context.
This guitar was $1250 without a case. I heard about it in this forum and bought one early on. It's turning out to be labor and material intensive so I doubt they will sell any more for that amount. I don't know what they go for now. Still, there won't be many of these made and I'm going to enjoy owning it. It may not be a world class great guitar, but it will be a good guitar.
Last edited by Spook410; 08-03-2013 at 09:47 AM.
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