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04-26-2010, 09:37 AM #101jeffstocksmusic GuestWell my wife didn't divorce me so I am doing ok. It is really a great guitar, one of the very best I have played of any kind. I am looking to learn to play some bluegrass and it seems perfect for that. Plus it is seriously sexy looking. I should be set for a while....famous last words.so this thread helped your case huh? glad to help!
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04-26-2010 09:37 AM
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ah yes, the old slippery slope...
Originally Posted by jeffstocksmusic
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I don't know about that. I think I have nearly my last electric (the 335, and it'll turn into the last one if I put a Bigsby on it), and I KNOW I have my last bass.
Let others lust after knobs and switches and active electronics and more than 4 strings and fancy woods: I have my American Vintage '57 Precision, with one pickup, two knobs, and four strings, straight out of Leo's tinkering and Freddie's drawing board. Saturday night we played an outdoor gig in town and I plugged it into my Mesa/Boogie Walkabout Scout, and that was the end of my search. It was warm, it was present, it wasn't boomy or tubby, or harsh, or anything other than sweet and musical, and, for the first time, people came up from the audience and complimented me on the lines I was playing (I wasn't playing anything different: I think they could just clearly hear what I was doing over the drums and the keyboards and the rhythm guitars and the three vocalists). It was what being an opera basso must feel like!
Now, as far as guitar, I've got the guitar (plus some spares) but winnowing down the five amplifiers may take the rest of my life.
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While this thread seems to be wandering a bit, I thought I'd return to the original point:
I think that these are the contributing factors: Originally Posted by rbdeli
Guitar players seem to need 5 or 6 instruments, minimum. Even high school kids these days are playing 3 or 4 different guitars.
What is it with you guys that you need so many axes?
- Because it doesn't cost a lot of money to have multiple instruments.
- Because guitars are particularly iconic in that we associate certain shapes, colors and configurations with certain players and kinds of music.
- Because amplification is a game-changer that largely decouples form from function.
I'm not saying that these are good justifications for owning multiple guitars. I simply think that these are the reasons why guitars - as a rule - are willing and able to own so many instruments.
That said, I'd like to present some contrarian viewpoints based upon my own experience:
Automation has leveled the field w.r.t. the playability of guitars at all price points. When I was a kid, a $70 guitar tended to be physically painful to play. Nowadays that same $70 (let's ignore inflation, shall we?) gets you a guitar that plays well right out of the box. Going from $70 to $700 or $7,000 isn't going to buy you much more in terms of playability.
The question, then, is "why would you want to spend more money on a guitar than you absolutely have to spend?" Let's set aside secondary issues like snob appeal and bragging rights and focus on the qualities of the instrument itself. The differences between an inexpensive guitar and a guitar that requires a substantial financial commitment are subtle. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that - for most musicians - the cost of the guitar has absolutely no bearing on the instrument's musicality or the musician's ability to create music with the instrument.
Yeah, I know that goes against just about everything you've ever read on the `net... Remember that I said I'm offering a contrarian viewpoint.
What you'll get from a more expensive instrument is some combination of longevity and brand cachet. I'm not going to dip a toe into the murky waters of allocating a balance for various brands. Let's just say that the MI industry wouldn't be an industry without being interested in profit above all other considerations.
Of course, you should (and often do get some increase in quality with an increase in price. As I mentioned, the gains are often subtle. Most important, I think, are two factors which are virtually impossible to evaluate without actually owning the instrument for an extended period: stability and durability. These factors come about through careful selection and handling of materials, through clever and carefully-considered design and manufacturing principles, and - frankly - through a bit of good fortune.
Here are some examples:
A master luthier will know from hard-won experience how to select and work wood for the best results. Sometimes an unfortunate hidden defect in the raw wood will require a reevaluation of the approach to crafting the instrument. Sometimes the master luthier can avoid the material defect through deft adjustment of his plans. If that won't work out, the master luthier is inclined to eat the loss and start over.
In the world of mass production, a billet of wood goes into a CNC machine on one end and comes out the other end a fully-formed part of some guitar. The machine sees only registration marks and a program for the cutter. If the result is suboptimal because of issues with the wood, the defect is subjected to triage. All but the most unsalvageable defects will be dealt with by filling voids and covering with an opaque finish. (In recent years certain manufacturers have introduced low-cost guitars with gorgeous tops by printing a highly-figured woodgrain pattern upon a solid base painted on substandard wood.)
But looks are only part of the story. A small builder will hand-select every piece of wood, then age it before using it in an instrument. Aging takes time. Aging is important because it contributes to the long-term dimensional stability of the wood.
Wood is hygroscopic. It contains a certain amount of water. As soon as the wood is cut from the tree it begins to lose moisture. This continues very gradually for a long time until the moisture content of the wood reaches an equilibrium. Until equilibrium is reached the wood will shrink as its water content escapes.
Have you ever bought a guitar that felt good in the shop, but developed "fret sprout" (a condition in which the fret ends poke ever-so-slighly beyond the fretboard, exposing sharp edges that scrape your hand as you play) after some number of months? This is exactly what happens when wood is turned into an instrument without proper preparation. Other symptoms include necks that develop a twist, setups that seem hypersensitive to seasonal changes, frets that pop up, and bindings that delaminate.
There's no good way for the MI industry to deal with these problems. Time is money; guitar manufacturers can't afford to buy stocks of wood on speculation of the instruments they think they'll build a few years from now. That's what the small builders do, since they're production-limited. They know that they can only turn out a certain small number of instruments each year. A corporation, though, is a slave to profit. Material sitting in inventory is a liability. No CFO wants to get caught with materials in inventory for instruments he can't build and sell. Neither does he want to get caught with too little material inventory to supply an uptick in demand.
This leads to cutting corners. Or more precisely, to finding ways to beat the odds. The patience of the master luthier is anathema to the corporate way. The big MI manufactures have to work with materials that aren't really ready to be turned into instruments. Tricks like accelerated drying sometimes work; sometimes not. There are ways to cover up fret sprout. Think about that that for a minute - you'll recognize it when you see it, but probably never realized that was the reason for that particular construction detail. Warranties, unsophisticated buyers, and a healthy channel for reselling B-stock instruments, cover the rest.
Anyway, this is turning out to be a lot longer than I had intended. The short version is this: if you like guitars as iconic objects, or if you tend to buy and sell based upon your whimsy of the moment, then there's no reason you shouldn't accumulate a collection. I don't mean any disrespect by this. I've been there; done that. I've learned about this stuff the hard way at rather significant personal expense.
I'm happy to say that my days of owning lots of stuff seem to be winding down, at least w.r.t. MI gear. (I have other hobbies...) Along the way I've paid close attention to what works best for me. That was always part of my plan: buy gear, play it, learn the distinguishing details, flip the stuff that I doesn't inspire me and buy higher-quality versions of the stuff that best meets my needs.
At this point I have three guitars. I play two of them regularly. Since I've focussed my attention on these two instruments, my grasp of music, composition and technique has steadily improved. There's something to be said for making the choice of instrument a non-issue. (My two main guitars are practically twins, differing primarily in pickups and tailpiece.) When I want to make music, I don't have to invest any thought into which instrument to play, nor do I second-guess my choice by wondering whether there's a "better" instrument for this session. The guitar, in a sense, has become a part of me rather than an accessory to my musical endeavors.
And that's why you might want to think about not collecting guitars...
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TDD:
You post infrequently these days but you sure add intellectual and practical value to those sparse posts. I expect to re-read your post about three times in order to extract all of the common sense from it
Nice -
randyc
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Good one Archie!
Now TDD has hit several nails on the head. But there are those of us... well, maybe it's just ME... but I went for DECADES with only one or two guitars and I was gigging on a regular basis. The only reason I had more than one electric was because I needed a backup in case a string broke, or whatever. Our shows were pretty "speedy" and we hated breaking the momentum too soon.
I will take exception to TDD's point about $70 to $700 to $7000 affecting the playability. If you can get a $70 guitar set up as nicely as a $700 guitar, then that's cool, but I don't think that's the rule. More an exception. But you can USUALLY get a $700 guitar set up as well as a $7000 one and that's where I see the COST/VALUE ratio come into play. Especially if you have access to a luthier with a PLEK station! (For instance, the Heritage Super KB, Kenny Burrell model we have at my local shop. At almost $10K I found it not at all to my liking, mainly due to the amount of plastic binding which just gave the instrument an "overall cheap feel" that I really can't describe. The tone is also thin and it just didn't "speak" to me as much as the Heritage Super Eagle that is also at the shop. The fact that I already have far less expensive guitars that out perform both of those, only gives me more confidence in my own selections so far.)
BUT, as my income rose (finally), my taste in different kinds of music also grew. As a result, w.r.t. my ability to purchase other guitars, I not only purchased ones that I needed for specific purposes, but also ones as "investments". Though never expecting to make a LOT of money off a guitar, I rationalize that if I sell a guitar for at least what i paid for it, I've owned that guitar for "free" for as long as I needed/wanted it.
I am down from 20 to 16 now and at this point in time, I am content with the collection I have. It's nice to pick one up and write a piece of music specifically from the "voice" of that certain instrument, whereas I would have to "look" for that "certain sound" that I realy didn't have a name for until I found it. It's also great for when I get in a "rut". I can just pick up another guitar with a different tuning or efx, and suddenly, things get flowing again.
I would have no problem going back to one or two guitars, but at this point in time, I really don't feel the need to. I LIKE searching for and finding my "pawn shop prizes". But I do feel that my collection is limited only by the space available to store them and once that changes, my collection may increase again. That and when my daughter ever gets out of college!
W.R.T (love using that acronym!) amps... I can't imagine even getting into that collection, but if I played live more and had the cash, I wouldn't put it past me. Just picking up my Micro Cube last week has me playing more than I was. So, my feeling is; "Whatever helps the music come out as often as possible is what you should do... within REASON, of course." I'd LOVE to have a certain $32,000.00 L5CET, BUT I'm not about to sell all my other guitars, my car and my kids for it. Well, not YET anyway...
Last edited by Squint; 04-28-2010 at 11:40 PM.
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The real question shoud be, "how many guitars does your wife allow you to have".
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I'm glad you called me out on the $70 / $700 / $7,000 point, Squint, because I never did get around to finishing my thought about instrument stability before I got tired of writing...
Here's the thing: out of the box, so to speak, I'd expect the $700 guitar to be noticeably easier to play than the $70 guitar; I'd expect an imperceptible difference in playability between the $700 guitar and the $7,000 guitar.
Bear with me while I spin this a couple of different ways...
First, the guy who's in the market for a $70 guitar is almost certainly not the same player as the guy who's going after one of the higher-priced instruments. I'd dare say that the buyer of the $70 instrument would be unlikely to notice any benefit from a more expensive instrument. It takes a while to develop one's touch on the guitar.
That said, the $70 guitar is unlikely (nowadays, as opposed to 40 years ago) to be an inherently "bad" instrument. It's certainly going to suffer from low-grade and ill-prepared materials and from an indifferent setup straight from the factory. But the fact that a modern $70 guitar has been machined to close tolerances by CNC tools means that - unless the designer and tool programmer were inexcusably negligent - the instrument will intonate properly (which is more than I can say for a lot of the guitars I played as a kid in the `60s) and that the overall playability will be reasonable, even if inconsistent from instance to instance.
What that means to me is that there's potentially a $700 guitar waiting to be tweaked out of that $70 guitar for someone possessing the knowledge and patience to do their own setup. Adjustments to the truss rod, bridge height and saddle positions and pickup and pole-piece heights goes a long way to improving playability. Riskier and more skill-intensive tweaks like cutting a new nut (or in some cases filling and recutting an existing nut) and performing judicious fret leveling can bring an inexpensive instrument's playability right up to the level of any professional instrument. I know because I used to do all those things to my inexpensive guitars.
But there's no free lunch, so to speak. You can invest a lot of time an effort into tweaking a cheap guitar to "play like butter" (I dislike that characterization, but it seems appropriate in this context), but that effort won't hold for the long run. The wood will shrink or twist, sloppy joints will move, and all the other problems endemic to an inexpensive instrument will render one's best efforts moot for the long term.
Forty years ago as a kid with more free time than money, buying the guitar I could afford and making it play as well as I could was a reasonable tradeoff. I learned a lot about the things that guitar techs do (although back then, I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as a guitar tech; I assumed that all guitarists did their own setups) and ended up with some fantastic instruments. But I was always re-adjusting the guitars because they weren't (for reasons that I outlined previously) stable instruments.
Now that I can afford to spend a bit more money on nice things, I prefer to pay someone else to deliver a professional quality instrument that'll remain stable from session to session and season to season. Part of having that kind of disposable income comes from sacrificing the copious free time I had as a youngster. Today I'd much rather make music than be a part-time guitar tech.
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Thank you for the kind words, Randy. Most of what I write amounts to thinking out loud about a topic that holds some interest for me. It's an unexpected bonus when someone else finds some value in my ramblings... Originally Posted by randyc
TDD:
You post infrequently these days but you sure add intellectual and practical value to those sparse posts. I expect to re-read your post about three times in order to extract all of the common sense from it
Nice -
randyc
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TDD:
Always include me as a respectful reader of your comments - I read your old posts (appreciatively) for a year before I joined this forum. (And, if I haven't previously said so, thanks for making constructive comments to my spreadsheets regarding the vacuum tube design material !)
The majority of thoughtful members of THIS forum continues to amaze me. I do regret something that I believe needs to be discussed - I see less participation from the original members - the European members - of the forum.
I fear that opinions of people like me - a typical loud-mouthed American - suppresses original attitudes of the forum. ("Just talking out loud", as Paul Theroux frequently wrote.) Maybe we need to start a new topic about this - structured in a manner that minimizes political/economic discussion and encourages across-the-water dialogue?
There have been a couple of useful instrument reviews recently; maybe that format could serve as a template for discussions that affect us all as musicians and people? Just a thought. I know a few people from both political aspects and from several countries... perhaps they may want to get a few words in on the topic.
Let's think about this - all of us - for a bit; maybe something constructive can result? I will contact those that have been participating in the musical reviews and also those other members with whom I speak privately on other issues - time to expand the "evaluation" to topics other than musical ones?
Cheers, TDD !
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Much of what TDD said directly applies to why I now own two Gibson electrics instead of several lesser (yes, I said "lesser") guitars: their robust and attractive designs, their reputation for seasoning and drying wood, and their long experience in bringing products to the marketplace that outlast their owners.
This is quite apart from whether I'm a "Gibson fan" -- there are many active threads on different forums that conflate the personality of the CEO with the quality of the instruments, and prejudge the owners of Gibson guitars on that basis -- it's a matter of Gibson manufacturing the most satisfactory guitar, for me. Like you, before I was able to pay for a nice guitar (and the services of a tech) I learned to do set ups, dress frets, repair electronics, generally deal with whatever else befell my inexpensive guitars, just as I (then) repaired most of the failures and breakdowns on my car. TDD's point about entry-level guitars being far superior to those back in my day is well taken, by the way.
These days, I have the luxury of being able to do those things I enjoy, such as playing music, and to farm out those things I don't, such as replacing shock absorbers on my car.
There is a sweet spot located somewhere among all the marketing slogans, sales tactics and "bling" that, as we get older and more experienced, we learn to navigate toward more reliably than when we are younger. For me, that sweet spot (in the case of guitars) is a Gibson 335 and an SG with a Bigsby, a selection of amplifiers, and (in the case of cars) a Toyota Matrix.
I'm past the point of needing either a guitar or car that doubles as mating-dance plumage, which is probably one reason young males are attracted to multiple flashy guitars, so I am happy with my tools.
Old ain't dead: my Toyota is bright red.
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TDD, some nice thoughts on the subject. I don't know a great deal about guitar manufacture, but I had a question about the following:
I mean wouldn't the big manufacturers, making the higher-end (think $700-$7000 of your example) instruments be able to get the wood from suppliers that have already prepped the wood? I'm just supposing that they obviously buy in all the materials they need from other suppliers, and since those suppliers presumably have quite a big demand for, say, alder, wouldn't there exist within the industry a market for wood prepared sufficiently for making into a guitar? So it's already reached it's 'equilibrium' in terms of water-content? Originally Posted by TieDyedDevil
I'm not trying to knock luthiers vs mass-produced stuff (not at all!!), I just wondered if this wood-drying thing is an issue for the mid-high-end stuff from the big boys. I haven't experienced it, but then I haven't played large numbers of guitars.
On another point, I think of guitars, or really anything, like wine. A $10 bottle of wine is not twice as good as a $5 bottle, it's maybe 50% better (or whatever) and a $100 is not 10-times better than the $10 bottle etc etc etc. I think you always have to pay larger and larger amounts of money to get a marginal increase in quality. From that perspective, paying $1000 for a guitar vs $100 only makes sense if you think it's worth the extra $900, given that in order to acheive that jump in quality you have to pay $900 more.
Another way to look at it, if you have a $100 guitar, you may decide that upgrading to a $500 guitar is a waste of money as the extra $400 doesn't get you far enough away in quality to justify it.
I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's the way I think of it!
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I am down to one guitar; my trusty 1944 Epiphone Zenith with floating pickup. I do, however, have access to a 70's Ibanez ES-175 clone, and a Godin Radiator. Still, most of the time all I bring to a gig is the Epiphone.
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AND the steel, right?
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Randyc
regarding your comments below - the main reason that I like this forum is that it gives me useful stuff for Playing Jazz Guitar. That's what interests me, and I want to get better at doing what I do.
What I'm not interested in is a set of arguments about the American domestic economic situation, and unfortunately that seems to be spreading from thread to thread as you and 82Benedetto seek new opportunities to go at one another. You want to know why there's less participation from this side of the pond; well, there you are. If I want to discuss that particular matter (and I really don't, thanks), I'm sure that there is an applicable forum somewhere on the net. This is where I come to ask about melodic minors and Guild guitars and Jim Hall.
No, I don't regard myself as having my head in the sand. I have opinions on all of this kind of stuff, and I consider myself reasonably well-informed. However, I don't feel the need to inflict said opinions upon forum members and I really don't think that it's an appropriate place, even in the context of imported/domestically produced guitars.
That's my 2p worth done.
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Oh, so we're counting "alternative" guitars too?
I guess I should mention my 1919 Gibson mandolin in the interest of "full disclosure".
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As I said (somewhere) above,
I have 5 relatively modest guitars: A Tele clone, an A/E Hybrid, a 335 clone, a pure acoustic, and a piezo-equipped travel guitar.
I have 2 amps: One is great for jazz, but works for rock; one is great for rock, but works for jazz.
I (think I) need them all, but that's all I need - covers all the bases for me. But that doesn't mean that I don't want (lots) more!
Oh, and I had a trombone once, but I didn't need it (and no one else wanted me to have it)!Last edited by Tom Karol; 04-29-2010 at 11:33 AM.
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I am currently lusting for a guitar at one of the local pawnshops. It's a 1961 Epiphone Sorrento 3/4. 12 1/2" wide, 22" scale, single P-90. It would be the perfect guitar for someone like me dealing with arthritis. Oh, and I looked it up: 55 total shipped, and just 12 in '61.
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I understand what you're saying; it's a valid argument. I suspect that we're both right. Originally Posted by abracadabra
On the one hand, the high-volume manufacturer will certainly take reasonable care to ensure that a quality product goes out the door. On the other hand, it's not inconceivable that the corporate profit imperative will cause managers to bend the rules when push comes to shove.
That absolutely makes sense. The concept even has a name: The Law of Diminishing Returns.On another point, I think of guitars, or really anything, like wine. A $10 bottle of wine is not twice as good as a $5 bottle, it's maybe 50% better (or whatever) and a $100 is not 10-times better than the $10 bottle etc etc etc. I think you always have to pay larger and larger amounts of money to get a marginal increase in quality. From that perspective, paying $1000 for a guitar vs $100 only makes sense if you think it's worth the extra $900, given that in order to acheive that jump in quality you have to pay $900 more.
Another way to look at it, if you have a $100 guitar, you may decide that upgrading to a $500 guitar is a waste of money as the extra $400 doesn't get you far enough away in quality to justify it.
I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's the way I think of it!
This applies to virtually everything we might buy. At the lower price points you pretty much pay your money and take your chances. Most of the time you get reasonable value for your money. On the rare occasions when something goes wrong, you're likely to write off the experience as bad luck; you don't have enough invested to make restitution a worthwhile avenue to pursue. This, of course, helps keeps costs low for all of the consumers interested in the low-cost product.
Price goes up with an expectation of quality and consistency. At the higher price points the consumer is increasingly likely to insist upon the vendor meeting both explicit and implicit expectations. The costs of creating those expectations in the first place (through marketing and advertising) and of ensuring that as many customers as possible are happy with their purchase (through warranty exchanges, product service and customer care in general) all contribute to the higher initial cost of the product.
In other words: anyone can slap a higher price tag on a product, but it takes money to get customers to buy the product in the first place and to remain happy with the product (and the vendor) in the long term.
The higher-priced product has some incremental cost due to the use of improved design, better materials and more stringent quality control, but these costs are frequently dwarfed by the investment needed to sell and support a premium product.
To take an example from my other interest, photography, let's take a look at the range of prices for Canon Digital SLRs. From their web site, the list prices range from $549 for the low-end entry-level camera, through $899 for the top-of-the-line entry-level camera, all the way up to $6,999 for the top-of-the-line professional camera.
All of these cameras share the same system architecture, the same underlying sensor technology, the same overall mechanical and electrical design, the same image processing and memory chips, the majority of their firmware, and many other common traits.
For the extra money, of course, you get more: higher burst rates, larger buffers, larger sensors and more sophisticated features. The professional cameras, in addition, have three times the rated shutter lifespan, a far more rugged chassis and weather sealing to keep out moisture and dust. But these attributes and materials don't account for a nearly 13:1 spread in list price.
Again, this is the Law of Diminishing Returns at work... If you, as a photographer, need the best, you pay for it. In return, the vendor sells you a camera that represents the best possible implementation of all their latest technologies and gives you fast-track access to the most qualified and knowledgeable customer care representatives.
Meanwhile, those of us who feel that low cost is an important buying decision get a very competent camera that will last for many years with reasonable care and will allow us to take the best pictures we can visualize. But our first-line support experience, should we need it, will be with a trainee that doesn't know much (if anything) beyond their corporate-issue customer care script.
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The Artcore AK-85 I bought yesterday is number 6 for me. Others are
-Ibanez Roadstar RS100 - my first guitar. These days it's set up for bottleneck
-Ibanez acoustic - cheap "camping trip" guitar
-Ibanez RS1300 - bought this one off ebay for sentimental reasons. Long story short, I had one back in the 80s as loan collateral from band mate. It went back to him a long time ago and was subsequently destroyed in a fire. It's a rare axe that I've always wanted to replace, saw one, had to have it. Quality/condition-wise, it can serve as a decent backup.
So I now own 4 Ibanez guitars. It's more coincidence than any particular affinity to the brand.
The other 2 are
-Larrivee OMV-05E - I bought this guitar about 10 years ago and still marvel at how much I love it. It blew away the Martins and Taylors that I checked out in the same price range.
-Gibson Nighthawk Special 2PUP model - About as versatile a solid body as you'd ever want. I see these on ebay now and then for several hundred dollars more than I paid new.
There are a slew of others on my wish list. But the fact of the matter is that I've got all the bases covered, anything else would be pure indulgence. Not that there's anything wrong with that... as long as I can get my wife to see it that way
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Less than 2??? Let me see...M-36 acoustic, Yari Nylon string, Seagull gloss top. Les Paul, Es-335,and Ibanez 105nt. Not me!
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