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PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 9:31 pm 
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I have a lot of respect for factory guitars. They sell a ton of them, and they have to hold up to all the misuse and abuse the general public can subject them to. Additionally, I have a lot of respect for the fact that they are made by a team of specialists, using very specialized equipment. There are a lot of good lessons we can learn from a good factory.

How about Collings? I believe Bill voices his tops just like a lot of small builders do...and his finish quality looks pretty good to me. I'd rate Collings right up there in terms of overall quality as well as tone. Collings isn't pumping out as many as Martin or Taylor...but he's definitely in the factory category.

Jim Olson is a bit of hybrid I guess - he's highly invested in custom tooling, CNC, UV finishes...and all the other good stuff that good factories use. He's also definitely a high end custom builder.

This "hand of the maker" thing is also a bit of a strange concept to me. I guess I come from a factory background...and we would just call them mistakes. In the factory I came from, if they couldn't fix them 100% they cut the instrument up...no matter how far down the line it was. The goal was to build the best sounding and looking instruments possible...not just to crank out X number of instruments.

I think it's a great time to be a guitar builder. There's a wealth of knowledge and supplies available. We can get exotic woods delivered next day if we want. CAD and CNC are affordable enough to have in your garage, if you are so inclined. The internet certainly helps with sales & advertising....we have all kind of advantages that a small builder could only have dreamed about 50 years ago. Maybe the golden age is yet to come...

Trev

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 10:28 pm 
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That is a refreshing post, Trev!


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:15 am 
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I think this factory quality thing is a joke. And let's break this up shall we. Because steel strings and classicals bear about as much similarity in market as electric guitars do to archtops.

If it is the steel string market, we're talking 95% (and I'm being conservative) don't know which end of a guitar to hold, can play no more than 5 chords and many of them buy custom guitars. Notice I never even mentioned finger picking. Barely any can. So who are we satisfying to quality? Seriously guys ... smelling a bit of your own fumes I think. Factory guitars are junk. You selling furniture or instruments? Furniture they look great. Sound ... seriously? 600+ factory guitars under my belt and I seriously would be amused that any of you would compare the quality of sound you can get to these guitars. But again, most steel string players have no developed sonoral pallet. The few that do may be your easiest sonoral customers ... the rest are buying music candy ... take their money, they'll be happy either way (and nothing wrong with it).

The steel string guitar is a folk instrument. I'm not talking about the couple percentile of the population that actually know what they're buying. The educated player is rare in the large. In the classical world it is different. Before you think I'm getting on a classical high horse, I spent several years playing at bluegrass festival ... picking and grinning, so I've lived extensively in both worlds. In the electric world I have no idea, but a Fender is a slab of cheap wood and Gibson necks are so fragile that I'd guess 4 out of 10 in the free world are cracked. Was someone talking about factory quality? If you all coated your instruments with 0.100" of polyurethane it would all look really good regardless. It works for Ovations - they must have cornered the epoxy market. Did someone mention factory guitar quality?

I think a lot of this is barking up the wrong tree. There is a huge market of uneducated people and they buy Ford & Chevy because that's all they know. In this case it is Martin & Taylor & Gibson & Fender. Maybe PRS. It's a huge market of opportunity, but the custom instruments need to move closer to the mainstream and more folks need to develop their pallets. This takes time. 30+ years ago barely anyone knew a thing about wine in America. Growing up in an Italian family we laughed at what people did in this country around wine - basically they thought if it tasted like alcoholic Kool-Aid it was fantastic. "Neanderthals" as my father would say. Well we all know that this is not the case in the USA any more. There are plenty of people that know about wine. And plenty of good wine coming out of the USA - in fact, easily on par if not superior. And not to mention that a whole American culture moved forward from uneducated to educated. I can name a half dozen other niche areas where this has occurred. It has yet to occur in the custom guitar world, IMHO. We are still living in the market of factory instruments being the bomb. Just ask any of my friends that have ordered $5k Taylors over the Internet that sound like cardboard, or my buddy with his new Bubinga Larrivee withe the sound screaming to get out of that overbuilt box. They think these guitars are great! Just like the average person thinks Starbucks is the greatest coffee around. Coming from Sanka, you'd be right!

I'm not bashing anyone here ... I'm challenging some assertions because I believe the opportunities are there, but it requires the community to push forward.

Filippo[/quote]












I'm not bashing anyone here but man that sounds exclusionary...you popped a cap on them
Dem unedumacated.

I said a fop is his own entertainment while saying something else in this thread bet ya can't tell me where...but then again maybe you can and maybe I'm misunderstanding the above but it sure feels full of negativity...

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 3:13 am 
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Howard, apologies if I misinterpreted your post - re-reading, I see where I went wrong, but I would still be interested in a pros, view on my point about access to instruments...

The thread seems to be back on track ;)

The player v factory v hand made/crafted thing is interesting, but i dont believe that many folk that buy a $5000+ instrument are that naive - no disrespect, but perhaps thats a UK perspective. Its very likely that in the US there is a far larger pool of players who have disposable income to afford a 'quality' instrument, even if they are not serious players, just occaisionals, and for whom the brand value of Martin, Taylor or Gibson on their accoustic headstock is as important as the tone... that's not a criticism, as if you can afford it, great. I just believe that in the UK there are less folk who have the spare 5k to support an occasional hobby... please correct me if i am wrong. But its something that is reflected in sales figures...

Over here, as in the US, there are also probably planty of players who DO know the difference, understand that there are huge benefits to custom instruments/hand crafted, but because in many cases a $5-6k purchase is a major investment simply struggle with the concept that the moment they take delivery, the depreciation kicks in... whereas a Martin will hold a good part of its value - a vicious circle in a way.

In my local guitar store, an excellent shop that as well as Martin, and Lowden etc also sells preowned high end luthier crafted instruments, its sometimes painful to see... They currently have a beautiful Cocobolo Dread by Roy Noble, priced at around £3000 ($4500) which in my opinion is a steal... it is mint, sounds amazing and looks beautiful, so why did nearly every player agree, play it with huge smiles on their faces and yet buy a Martin? Resale value and the brand ID.... Brand loyalty is very common with players and/or collectors... just look at the great Fender/Gibson divide or the Martin/Taylor divide. To dismiss these as 'lesser' instruments is a mistake as they are aimed at and marketed towards the mainstream players - at their best they can be very very good and on average they produce good perfermance instruments at a reasonable price which will hold their value, play well and give you a little Kudos - I felt the same when I got my Martin, its a good guitar, has that spound and I like it. Is it as good as most of the handcrafted instruments I have played? Yes in some cases, better in others and miles away form the quality of the best skillled makes have to offer...but here's the rub.... 'In my opinion'

Players, are as different to each other as chalk and cheese and where Martin and Taylor get it right is that say they 'make a model for you' and they are right for about 80% of those looking for a new instrument... because it will do what they need it to do at a reasonable price.

What the hand crafter should be aiming at is the other 20%, of which 98% still buy a Martin or Taylor, but who WOULD be happier with a custom guitar, IF they had the confidence to go and do it - These are discerning players who will probably try 20 or 30 instruments before buying the one that suits them perfectly, irrespective of the name on the headstock... and that is the other problem... being able to try many different instruments from stock to find what works best... something that only a very few hand builders could offer. The 'risk factor' in the purchase is another issue - in some cases you could wait 2 years + and although it can be returned and refunded when sold (in most cases) its a hell of a long wait that's not risk free for a working or professional musician..

I guess its like all things in life... its about education. Sharing the wealth of knowledge and experience builders have with the public, with their market and building the trust with as wide as possible group of players - Sure individual shops cant afford major ads in the big publications, but they could collectively, or say via a forum such as this...


Last edited by Frank Cousins on Tue Aug 03, 2010 3:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 3:17 am 
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Before you get to mad STOP AND THINK because I know I am but a fool/jester entertaining my self.

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 6:32 am 
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Filippo, I'm impressed: you unleashed the nattering nabobs of negativism!
While there's undeniably a sliver of truth in your assertions, I think you greatly exaggerate (on purpose?).
There's a fair amount of crossover between buyers of luthier, production shop and factory guitars.
As I wrote before, it's very much a market of collectors, sometimes (wealthy) musicians. For now, I am grateful they exist.

And while we're discussing production shops, I'll say it again: for those who are thinking of getting into this business professionally, I highly recommend trying to get hired by a small production shop like SCGC, Pantheon, Collings and so on. The best path to this is through one of the luthiery schools. It's not easy, demand is much, much greater than available jobs and you'll be paid peanuts. But it's a good opportunity to see how a business operates, to see, touch and tap vast quantities of tonewood and actually see this wood become guitars. Most of those shops operate at a level much closer to an artisan than a factory.

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 7:29 am 
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my point is you I FEEL you overstated much...

also the high end is not the only market...Go to Al's website and tell me what you see...

I see a very Intelligent diversity.

Have you done any research that confirms

The vast majority of them only know about what hangs on a wall at Guitar Center.

such a broad brush...

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 10:41 am 
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K.O. wrote:
Before you get to mad STOP AND THINK because I know I am but a fool/jester entertaining my self.


you to eh!

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 1:44 pm 
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sorry can't resist...


Nah we three...


The paste(make up) and futre(spanish for fop/dandy) are but constructs(images in a mirror)by which the the thought( the thought is the man thus the fop) celebrates....I IS(obvious).

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:34 pm 
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Frank Cousins wrote:
...The 'risk factor' in the purchase is another issue - in some cases you could wait 2 years + and although it can be returned and refunded when sold (in most cases) its a hell of a long wait that's not risk free for a working or professional musician..

I guess its like all things in life... its about education. Sharing the wealth of knowledge and experience builders have with the public, with their market and building the trust with as wide as possible group of players - Sure individual shops cant afford major ads in the big publications, but they could collectively, or say via a forum such as this...


What is the largest market for custom builders to target? Surely, custom builders don't target ALL guitar players. I assume most builders have some target market in mind. Frankly, I would be surprised if professional players would make much of a target to SELL guitars since so few of them have enough money to afford to buy one. (I laughed with the person who wrote that professional musicians are crazy and have no money, because it hits so close to the mark on so many, but certainly not all.)

I wonder what the market looks like in numbers considering all 100% of the STEEL string guitar players? Here's my take on it:

25% Beginners (5 out of 20 players) just starting and needing their first guitar (24.9% are shopping for $150 to $500 factory guitars; 0.1% for high end factory guitars)

70% Beginners (7 out of 10 players) who started playing years ago. (1.93% are shopping for known brand factory guitars. 0.07% are wanting a custom built guitar and 68% are not shopping. None of them know much of anything about guitars. Tiny amount of custom interest in purchase.)

4% Intermediate players (one out of 25 players) (only about 1/6 (0.67%) of these really know guitars. Many can afford custom built guitars, but maybe only a sixth (0.67%) are knowledgeable and interested in a custom guitar.

0.5% Advanced Players (one out of 200 players) Only 1/3 (0.2%) of these really know guitars, but maybe half (0.25%) can afford and may be interested in a custom built guitar)

0.5% Professional Players (one out of 200 players) Only 1/3 of these really know guitars. Only a half a tenth of them can afford one (0.025%) beehive

100% total

From my figures above here's my summary of who can afford and is knowledgeable enough to be interested in a custom built guitar from a small builder:

nil Beginners just starting [xx(]
0.07% Beginners playing for years :(
0.67% Intermediate players [:Y:]
0.20% Advanced players :)
0.025% Professional players [xx(] :shock:

0.965% Total of all steel string guitar players who could afford and be knowledgeable enough to want a custom built guitar. gaah

That is less than 1% of all guitar players. Not surprising is it? The biggest target market is intermediate players (70% of the 0.965%). Advanced players are worthwhile (21%). Beginners are not very relevant (7%). But notice that the professionals only make up only 2% because they do not generally have the money. It would appear that the professionals are mainly good for promotion and advertising instead of expecting to be much of a target market for profitable sales.

Of course, this is right out of the head of Ed. :mrgreen: My gut feel with no market studies to back it up. Its just my humble opinion. Feel free to use it for your marketing plan! wow7-eyes

Ed


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 3:37 pm 
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Wow charts too eh? i been dabbling in the wonderful world of Bluegrass and there's a good sum of artists here who are rather good and have custom instruments made by someone. I think the artists most always know what they're talking about and/or looking for but some find that advertising is a relevant way to make more money, which some need. Others actually seek out a custom instrument tailored to their own playing style and sound and cost doesn't matter as much as having something they can connect with through their career,and those are the people we look for because they're already looking for us. ;)


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 5:02 pm 
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Did someone say declining number of responses...???
Tom

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 3:08 am 
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Ed Haney wrote:
Frank Cousins wrote:
...The 'risk factor' in the purchase is another issue - in some cases you could wait 2 years + and although it can be returned and refunded when sold (in most cases) its a hell of a long wait that's not risk free for a working or professional musician..

I guess its like all things in life... its about education. Sharing the wealth of knowledge and experience builders have with the public, with their market and building the trust with as wide as possible group of players - Sure individual shops cant afford major ads in the big publications, but they could collectively, or say via a forum such as this...


What is the largest market for custom builders to target? Surely, custom builders don't target ALL guitar players. I assume most builders have some target market in mind. Frankly, I would be surprised if professional players would make much of a target to SELL guitars since so few of them have enough money to afford to buy one. (I laughed with the person who wrote that professional musicians are crazy and have no money, because it hits so close to the mark on so many, but certainly not all.)

I wonder what the market looks like in numbers considering all 100% of the STEEL string guitar players? Here's my take on it:

25% Beginners (5 out of 20 players) just starting and needing their first guitar (24.9% are shopping for $150 to $500 factory guitars; 0.1% for high end factory guitars)

70% Beginners (7 out of 10 players) who started playing years ago. (1.93% are shopping for known brand factory guitars. 0.07% are wanting a custom built guitar and 68% are not shopping. None of them know much of anything about guitars. Tiny amount of custom interest in purchase.)

4% Intermediate players (one out of 25 players) (only about 1/6 (0.67%) of these really know guitars. Many can afford custom built guitars, but maybe only a sixth (0.67%) are knowledgeable and interested in a custom guitar.

0.5% Advanced Players (one out of 200 players) Only 1/3 (0.2%) of these really know guitars, but maybe half (0.25%) can afford and may be interested in a custom built guitar)

0.5% Professional Players (one out of 200 players) Only 1/3 of these really know guitars. Only a half a tenth of them can afford one (0.025%) beehive

100% total

From my figures above here's my summary of who can afford and is knowledgeable enough to be interested in a custom built guitar from a small builder:

nil Beginners just starting [xx(]
0.07% Beginners playing for years :(
0.67% Intermediate players [:Y:]
0.20% Advanced players :)
0.025% Professional players [xx(] :shock:

0.965% Total of all steel string guitar players who could afford and be knowledgeable enough to want a custom built guitar. gaah

That is less than 1% of all guitar players. Not surprising is it? The biggest target market is intermediate players (70% of the 0.965%). Advanced players are worthwhile (21%). Beginners are not very relevant (7%). But notice that the professionals only make up only 2% because they do not generally have the money. It would appear that the professionals are mainly good for promotion and advertising instead of expecting to be much of a target market for profitable sales.

Of course, this is right out of the head of Ed. :mrgreen: My gut feel with no market studies to back it up. Its just my humble opinion. Feel free to use it for your marketing plan! wow7-eyes

Ed



All very fair and good points Ed... but IMHO, surely the purpose if you want to expand the market is to improve teh knowledge of the customer base in as many of the above categories as possible... and thus increase the market size? Is there a market for lower priced (amateur/hobbyist built) instruments at a lower price point that makes hand built iunstruments more accessible? Bit like how apprentice built violins are about 25% of the cost of the master built instruments if you go to small shops in Germany and Austria etc... ? Is there a way in which such a model could work with guitars, and appropriate education of the customer base help at least get folk interested... Marketing plays such a big part in this. Martina nd Taylow with their big budgets are masters - Martin play on their history and legacy, Taylor on innovation and live performance. Hand build surely has some very strong messages for these players, but most shops have minimal budget for advertising and Mkt campaigns... so the question was is there room for a more collective approach that would benefit all? (or does that sound too'red' for my US cousins? :twisted: ;) :lol:


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 3:43 am 
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one of the stupidest marketing stratagies is to assume that people are stupid.
http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=190901

the Dude must think he had everyone hypnotized...

could get them to do his will...

I swear I hear Howards voice...

"thats right finish what you started, just point it at your foot Gently pull.."

Dude must be hypnotized

cause he does Eat Drink Eat Drink .

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 6:59 am 
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Laurent Brondel wrote:
Filippo, I'm impressed: you unleashed the nattering nabobs of negativism!
While there's undeniably a sliver of truth in your assertions, I think you greatly exaggerate (on purpose?).
There's a fair amount of crossover between buyers of luthier, production shop and factory guitars.
As I wrote before, it's very much a market of collectors, sometimes (wealthy) musicians. For now, I am grateful they exist.

And while we're discussing production shops, I'll say it again: for those who are thinking of getting into this business professionally, I highly recommend trying to get hired by a small production shop like SCGC, Pantheon, Collings and so on. The best path to this is through one of the luthiery schools. It's not easy, demand is much, much greater than available jobs and you'll be paid peanuts. But it's a good opportunity to see how a business operates, to see, touch and tap vast quantities of tonewood and actually see this wood become guitars. Most of those shops operate at a level much closer to an artisan than a factory.


Well said, especially the last few sentences. And the pay is not worse, in general, than that of an independent luthier.


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 7:30 am 
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Todd Stock wrote:
So one thing about Filippo...he looks at problems unlike anyone I know...and I know a lot of very bright folks courtesy of my several careers. Read his stuff a couple times before even thinking of replying...

Took me three years to produce a guitar that Andy wanted so badly that he temporarily forgot that he buys only higher-end Martins (tens of thousands of dollars a year worth of Authentics, Ditsons, NB's, vintage minty stuff, etc.). Now he's talking about a second guitar after getting feedback from his pro buddies on his new Jumbo.

The way I see this is not that I managed to pick off another middle-aged, upwardly-income mobile professional that was ripe for a Klepper or Brondel or Proulx, but rather that I enlarged the pool of folks that see a custom guitar from a hand builder as demonstrably superior to factory-built instrument. Bigger pie versus more slices, etc. With custom guitar buyers representing a tiny fraction of all sales, enlarging the target market seems a better bet that competing directly with all of you guys plus Collings, etc.


Interesting post.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:26 pm 
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Howard Klepper wrote:
"Sheesh, Alan. You took that sentence out of its context and pretty totally misinterpreted it. And I've read Pye more than once."

I, too, have read Pye more than once, and I'm interested in your take on how I misinterpreted him.

Todd Stock wrote:
"I'm not sure what evidence of hand work might be. Slight gaps in purfling? Blocky heel-to-neck transition? A little ragged fretwork? A slight misfit in a miter? Is this Bryan Kimsey's tell-tale file mark or a little bit of clumsiness in shaping a volute? If it's a slight assymetry...why? Easy enough to tweak things to get them right if noticed before the body closes."

How about the guy who complained on one newsgroup last year that the bridge on his hand made guitar was 1/32" off center? Note that it played and sounded OK, and he had to use a ruler to figure out that it was closer to one side than the other.

And, yes, I've seen production guitars where the bridge was off by much more than that in the sense that mattered: too far from the 12th fret to be able to play in tune.

I recall a talk by Bob Taylor in which he told about throwing out a batch of necks that had gotten an extra coat of finish because they didn't fit the CNC routed pockets. When man-hours are your most expensive input ANY variation can be as bad as any other. But variation is the hallmark of hand work. The point is not to eliminate it, but rather to eliminate those variations that matter in terms of real quality. Looking at the bridge example, any of us can tell which displacement from the 'perfect' location is the real problem.

Carleen Hutchins mentioned once that she'd looked closely at Strad's 'Il Cremonese' violin in the Civic Museum, and noticed that none of the eight corners of the plates matched any other. They looked right, though, and most of us would prefer that sort of variation to the identical and static output of a CNC router. So I have to ask, what's wrong with a little asymmetry if it looks right?

After nearly forty years of making these things, mostly by hand, my tool chops are pretty good, but once in a while I can't seem to avoid some little 'defect' like a bit of space in the side of the brace pocket. How about the fact that I don't usually take the time to fine sand my braces, leaving the smooth planed surfaces with the tiny facets intact? In some cases the amount of wood I'd remove by sanding could, IMO, adversely effect the sound, so should I go for cosmetic 'perfection' at the risk of tone, or just leave the surfaces alone? And that's not even counting the fact that, often enough, the braces end up asymmetric, because that's what the wood 'wants'. Should I re-shape them to fit some 'ideal', such as a perfect parabola, or just leave them 'unbalanced' to get the sound right? That's a no-brainer to me.

So there you go. That's what I meant by 'risk' and 'certainty'. If I'm really going to make the best sounding and playing guitar I know how from each set of wood I'm going to have to make changes in the design. Some of them will be such that it won't be possible to set up a jig to make the cut, and that necessarily introduces a level of risk in workmanship in order to reduce the risk in tonal outcome. As long as I'm making musical instruments I'll keep making those choices that way. Maybe when I start making jewelry boxes I'll move artificial standards of cosmetics to the top of the list of my concerns.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 3:06 pm 
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Laurent Brondel wrote:
And Howard is on the money, if not generous in his assessment. Very few builders make as much as what is even considered lower middle-class income. I don't, but I'm fine with it.

But Howard wasn't talking about all builders. Howard was talking about all the builders that display at Healdsburg. Are really only 12 from 130 of them making it doing luthiery? All the names I recognize in the list, must be. Somagyi, Fox, Petros, Running Dog, etc.

Right?

Right?!?

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 3:10 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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Alan Carruth wrote:
Howard Klepper wrote:
"Sheesh, Alan. You took that sentence out of its context and pretty totally misinterpreted it. And I've read Pye more than once."

I, too, have read Pye more than once, and I'm interested in your take on how I misinterpreted him.


Me, Alan. Yo. Moi. You quoted and misinterpreted me. Considering how this thread has gone, I'm reluctant to say more.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 3:15 pm 
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Koa
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Alan Carruth wrote:
because that's what the wood 'wants'. Should I re-shape them to fit some 'ideal', such as a perfect parabola, or just leave them 'unbalanced' to get the sound right? That's a no-brainer to me.



Ummm... Alan best not be saying things like "what the wood wants"...like Alan your very highly regarded on dis here forum...Now me listen to me wood too and they say me gotts no brains ether...is no big deal but ya never know, ya know. "Listening to what the wood wants" Ya me get behind that.



Filippo Morelli wrote:
"it depends". And depends is a complex proposition that happens somewhere between your fingers, your ears and your noggin.

Filippo


Well thats a nice "depends" trinity you got goin there Filippo. Now would any of that depend on the wood me wonder? Me prefer "me fingers, me heart and the wood" little more intimate, don't you think?


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 4:12 pm 
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enalnitram wrote:
Are really only 12 from 130 of them making it doing luthiery? All the names I recognise in the list, must be. Somagyi, Fox, Petros, Running Dog, etc
Best would be to ask the interested… The point stressed, obviously, is that it's difficult to make what is considered a decent living at it. You'd be surprised at the number of builders who do this at a professional level, but as a side gig of sorts.
The point I was trying to make in an earlier post is that it is perfectly possible to lead a meaningful and happy life below what is considered "middle-class" level. It all depends on expectations, location and personal abilities.

Padma, always something absolutely uninteresting to write, eh? Wood talking, eh? Sure, why not… To who?

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 5:24 pm 
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Mahogany
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the Padma wrote:
it is perfectly possible to lead a meaningful and happy life below what is considered "middle-class" level. It all depends on expectations, location and personal abilities.


I completly agree with this. Luthier is a "style" of life with some great sides, and some bad. In the end it only depends on you if you can lmake it. Very few get rich making instruments, if any. But Lutherie isn't about money: it's about passion.

Wether you will fall into money's slavery and our societie's stereotype pushing us to believe that happiness has a price, a brand, six pack and the look of Barbie's lifestyle is your decision.
Personnaly, Having spent quite sometime in some very poor countries, I met some very poor people who sometime had barely enought to eat but were still a lot more generous and happy than most of the richest poeple I know.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:08 pm 
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Koa
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Laurent Brondel wrote:

Padma, always something absolutely uninteresting to write, eh? Wood talking, eh? Sure, why not… To who?



Laurent:

I was taught "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

If you don't find my posts interesting, again please be so kind as not to read them.

Now if you really don't like them then put me on your black list in your preference settings.

That way you won't be tempted to read them and get triggered to respond with such rudeness.

What ever happened to the forum rule about "being nice?"


blessings
duh Padma

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:13 pm 
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Koa
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Aerith wrote:
the Padma wrote:
it is perfectly possible to lead a meaningful and happy life below what is considered "middle-class" level. It all depends on expectations, location and personal abilities.


I completly agree with this.




Aerith, I'm glad you agree with them words. However they are not mine. I believe they came form Laurent Brondel

You may wanna say something to him about misquote.

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duh Padma

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:42 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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If you are going to measure success in this business in dollars and cents , I would say that real success in any career isn't about money , it is about a life style. In my case , I pay a mortgage , have a nice place and I do what I love . What more can you can in a business that most of my customers become friends.
This and any business is about preparedness , opportunity , and a business savy. I am now totally unemployable. I cannot tolerate incompetence , and that often runs rampant in many production companies. The individual is no longer valued in Corporate America. There was a time , years ago when the USA was a world leader in manufacturing , science , engineering , education . That all came to a screeching halt when they decided we must all fit a Corporate mold . Ne true discovery was ever made by status quo thinking.
Break the mold become your own boss. Live and die by decisions that you make and influence your life. Find a passion in your life that you love to do and do what it takes to make it succeed. If it takes 10 years , then start today. In 10yrs you may have it , and you may discover that you can have success .
Where I used to work I was paid to earn 2 degrees in Engineering , yet they never let me use it . I was turned into a "group leader" . A term that I would more or less call a high paid bay sitter. Oh well I digress. Have a good weekend I will be in Nazareth for Nazfest. Hope to see you there.

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