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Spent this weekend at a festival, trying to sell some dlcimers. At one point, this nice fellow came up, asked to see one of the cheapest entry level I make, and proceeded to put a chromatic tuner on it and check every fret, every string. He didn't like what he saw (hey, there is a reason the price on this particular one is less than 300 bucks, including a nice gig bag.) Apparently he was telling his friends that my frets were in the wrong place, and informed them that if they saw this in the future, they could take their instrument to someone called a luthier, who would move the frets so it would play in tune. Yeah buddy, whatever.

Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. After that, this so-called expert volunteered to help strangers who were looking to buy. I saw him the next day, putting his chromatic tuner on every instrument at every table to declare which ones were worthy of a further look. Unofrtunately for me, he made sure everyone he helped stayed away from my table. I didn't sell a single instrument.

I realize there is a certain amount of thick skin required to deal with the public, but when someone takes it on themselves to "educate" others that my work is sub-par, well it's a little hard not to take that personally.

So, anyone else ever have this happen?

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

There is a time for hiring people named Guido....

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I think he was scamming you and other sellers. He was there to steer business away from you and others to a particular seller that he was working for. I have heard of this same type of sham at guitar shows. Claiming the frets were not in the right spot. I would have reported him to the festival organizer and threatened not to return. The festival can't make money if someones scarring away vendors. I'm sure they would have taking this seriously....Mike

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Phil, I agree with Mike. This sounds like more than a rude member of the public, although they can be pretty thoughtless at times. It would be hard not to take personally for someone who takes pride in their work. Unfortunately there are those ready to take advantage of the fact that most people are basically pretty polite and non-confrontational. That guy was more than your typical jerk.

Firstly, it does sound like a scam, and he should absolutely be reported to the organizers.
I find it hard to believe the fretting/saddle positions are any different on less expensive instruments than the others, if you are set up for it - which I imagine you would be if you're selling at a show....
Surely it's no more difficult to do it properly on all instruments?
If the frets/saddle position were off, well I suppose Todd beat me to it, BUT -
I find it difficult to imagine anyone on this forum knowingly selling instruments with the frets in the wrong places.
However, having read and tried to understand the Gore books, body resonances can throw intonation off - that I could understand on less expensive models.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

This is not event related, but I had an experience this weekend that I need to vent about. I took my recently completed challenge guitar to a bluegrass jam and showed it around. The inevitable "how much?" popped up and I gave them a number. This guy then proceeds to thoroughly flog the thing with his rendition of Wagon Wheel. Midway through the song as I was concerned that he might break four strings on any strum I said, "easy, man" and he then says, "well I was getting ready to give you the money, but now..." Grrrrr....

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

that's when you charge him for the test drive. Tell him you will just mail him the bill. $20 per song plus tax

Thought I would chime in , stand in front of a mirror and repeat 20 times NO , boldly and loudly. Get rid of freeloaders !

Hey Todd, excellent question.

Of course I didn't knowingly take a flawed instrument. The frets are exactly the same as the "good" stuff I make, to the best of my ability. And, when checked with the tuner, all open strings and harmonic positions (7th fret on a dulcimer) were dead on. At one show, I asked a player for her honest opinion to see what areas I might need to improve. She played one, then said "Wow, yours play in tune up the neck. These never play in tune up the neck!" So I have been happy with my fret placement. The story on the cheaper instruments is simply this:

When I began making, I made the absolute best instruments I was capable of. I did my research and figured there was a place in the market for a higher end model, somewhere between run of the mill (150-200 dollars) and master quality (over a thousand dollars.) So at the shows, people would gawk in amazement at what I had, ask how much, then set them down very slowly and back away. These instruments were in the 500-600 dollar range, which was very reasonable considering some had hand carved head stocks, wood binding, and all had a hand rubbed shellac finish. But with no takers (at one show, I overheard another vendor close by tell people not to look at my stuff, because it was over priced) I decided to put out a lower cost instrument to generate some sales.

The difference with the cheapies is simply a few ways to save labor. I used a simpler head stock design that probably saved 30-40 minutes of carving time, one piece backs that saved joining time, a simpler finish, and used store bought plastic nuts and saddles instead of ones hand carved from old piano keys, like I had been doing. And, to save some time on set up, I set the action just a bit high. Not really enough to even notice compared to most insruments, but a bit more than the best ones I've made. To my ear, and to everyone who played them, they sound fine. And for all this, I cut the price by half. So I had a good, playable instrument that was now the lowest priced at the festival, and I even undercut the price of the mass produced factory model by 50 bucks.

So to me, all this fuss over this model, when he didn't check the best ones which had several hours of set up work on each one, seems to support the plant theory. Because without a chromatic tuner, you'd never know. And his pointing out that the notes furthest away from the 7th fret were sharp toward the nut and flat toward the bridge, well I guess that sounded mighty intelligent to the novice players he had around him.

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

My first thought reading this was similar. Was the criticism accurate?

Of course, one has to react to the personality defect of one walking around a trade show confronting builders in that manner, but if this happened to me I'd quickly get past the hurt and come to the point of asking, "did I just get busted?"

This incident may force a broader discussion of how many of a builder's "progress pieces" should be shown to the public. I'd answer NONE....not to be dishonest...but in my mind, trade shows are for displaying your best work. If you have to spend any time defending your craftsmanship at a show you're certainly also planting a seed of doubt in a potential customer's mind. The better course is to be in the position of saying, "I can deliver you THIS" and then go home and make sure you do.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

One also has to react to the personality defect of one walking around a trade show with a chromatic tuner in his pocket! What a weirdo!

On a serious note you have two options when this happens. One is that there is no issue with your instrument do you can quickly explain away any criticism because clearly you made the instrument and know much more about it than the confronter. And two is that there is a problem and you thank the man for finding the issue and then take it off the table and put it away to asses at home how you will prevent this issue in the future.

One of these days that guy may be looking at his chromatic tuner with the single remaining EYE HE HAS LEFT! Seriously though, the thick skin is the thing. I don't do shows because I only have time to make the instruments that folks ask for. If I were to drum up business I'd have to quit my paying job. But this guy is sowing some dangerous seed and will likely reap the crop in the form of a chunky, hairy luthier who hasn't had his coffee that day.

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http://www.presnallguitars.com

Oh, and grammar apology..."the single remaining eye he has left" is redundant...it's not like me...

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http://www.presnallguitars.com

It absolutely IS a scam.

He was pressing the strings too hard to make the sharp on purpse or else slieding his finger forward a hair to make them flat, just so he could say he checked it and you would seemingly have no grounds for complaint, since he was obviously right.

The festival organizers would have taken it VERY seriously if you had told them what went on and refused further festivals, as suggested.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I would get away from store bought plastic nuts and saddles ......

So after all this, I have a question. Do any of you check all frets on your instruments? And how do they turn out? How many cents off is considered acceptable for a fret, in the real world?

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

For guitars, there is a table of this in Trevor's book. The deviations can be pretty serious until you get into combined nut and saddle compensation.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

My very limited experience with dulcimers is that I would not expect much pitch shift due to resonance coupling.

Neither would I expect any half decent maker to be putting the frets in the wrong place; error is more likely in nuts and saddles (at least on guitars), combined with intonation errors due to inadequate compensation.

So the question remains, does it play in tune or not and in tune to what?


It's easy enough to shift a note 10 cents just in how you finger it and the fact that the guy was there over two days suggests scam to me.

A suggestion to anyone subject to this: take the tuner off them and ask them to tell you which notes are out of tune. We play with our ears, not our eyes.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

"A suggestion to anyone subject to this: take the tuner off them and ask them to tell you which notes are out of tune. We play with our ears, not our eyes."

Or better yet, take the tuner off them, snap it in half, hand it back to them and tell them you think it's defective. No sense being passive- aggressive.

I can handle constructive criticism , That guy would have been getting his Chromatic Tuner surgically removed from his hind quarters .... I applaud your ability to use Tact ....

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I didn't confront him, for a couple of reasons. I am now starting to think that was the wrong thing to do, but a mantra of "keep your skin thick and your smile wide" kept running through my head. That, and the old notion of "the customer is always right" even when he is an idiot, in which case you just ignore him and hope he goes away. In this case, I picked up real quick this guy was talking way over his head. The two reasons:

1. I overheard him telling others about people called "luthiers" who will move the frets on your instrument to make it play in tune.

2. He showed me his personal instrument, of which he was extremely proud. He even anounced it was a top of the line, finest made from a well known builder. He showed it off like it made him special, as if only someone of his caliper was worthy of such an instrument. He even proudly told me how much he paid for it - 1200 dollars. That is around 4 times what most intruments go for, and I've never seen a dulcimer that actually sold for that much. Anyway, so it was nice. What convinced me was the possum board he installed. For those not familiar with the term, a dulcimer has an active back, which is muted when played because the instrument sits on your lap. Not much, but what some people do to increase volume is to make a cradle, with a flat board on the bottom. This cradle holds the bottom of the instrument a quarter inch or so off your lap, just enough to allow it to sound better. Some dulcimers are even made with double backs for this purpose. So this guy made his own. He traced out his high dollar instrument on a cheap piece of plywood, cut out the shape, and gave it a quick cheap stain. Then he glued a block to each end, and put velcro on the top of the block. Then the move to end all moves: he glued the matching velcro to the bottom of his instrument.

So I picked up real quick that I was dealing with a self professed know it all who actually glued velcro to the gorgeous koa back of the most expensive instrument I've ever seen so he could make it play batter by putting some cheap plywood on it, believes luthiers move frets to improve intonation, and wandered around looking for people to impress and educate with his advanced knowledge. So when he pointed out my "flaws," I simply told him there is a lot more going on than what he is seeing, threw out a bit about set up like string height at the nut, string stretch, tension, diameter, bridge compensation, and tunings. He muttered something about too bad, because he really was interested in that one, then he walked away.

I was glad to be rid of him. Pissed, but glad. Unfortunately, I did not forsee him steering serious buyers away from my instruments for the rest of the event.

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

Interesting story.
How do we know his chromatic tuner was accurate?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

Filippo is correct. The customer is definitely NOT always right. There are many customers who believe this axiom and take it to the extreme, like our friend with the chromatic tuner. The internet is a very dangerous thing in the hands of a moron. They will read some information on, lets say, using a chromatic tuner to intonate your dulcimer, and they will then immediately run out and tell everyone how their dulcimer is crap because many of the notes are 2 cents sharp or flat.
Someone else said it earlier, we listen with our ears, not with our tuners. Fretted, stringed instruments like guitars, and I would assume by extension, dulcimers, have inherent shortcomings in their ability to be perfectly in tune at every fret and on every string. We compensate the saddle and nut to get as close to perfect as we can, but all of the builders here would agree, I hope, that you can not get every single not on every string to be perfect. What matters is that they sound good and in tune when played and stay in tune.
As I said, a little information (i.e. one article on the internet on intonation) is very dangerous. Every nurse and doctor going through school will think they are dying of some rare disease at some point because they think they have symptoms of the disease they are currently reading about. It is extremely common for this to happen and even has its own name, hypochondriasis.
So this dope, if he was NOT a plant, which it seems like he may have been, had a small amount of info and felt he needed to enlighten the other attendees. He should have been thrown out. Plant or not, he was making life difficult for the exhibitors and it should not have been allowed to go on.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!! I'm sure I have this!

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

This guy sounds just nasty. I've, fortunately, never seen anyone at any show like this! And if I did I would not accept it. Nobody has any business speaking badly of the work of others like that.

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
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