Official Luthiers Forum!

Came across this link on kottke.org today: http://blog.nexcerpt.com/2011/09/27/piano-quality/

Do you think the same can be said of guitars? The last line is certainly a bold statement!

Sheesh. Sounds like a grumpy old man shouting "these kids today...." I don't know what he means by "magnificent". We could all probably tell a high quality piano sound from a cheapie, but which sound or feel is good vs. magnificent is pretty subjective to the pianist.
No way this applies to guitars. There are more great builders on this forum than ever before. (someday I hope to be one)
The complexity of a piano limits who can build them. When the old piano factories closed they probably did lose some key knowledge about building a magnificent piano. No one can build a piano in their basement shop, but a single luthier with a modest shop can build a magnificent guitar....however you define it.
Lots of people define the 1930's as the Golden Era of guitars, but I think the golden era is now. The old factories have found new vigor and there are so many independent luthiers out there that the selection is dizzying.

Absolutely not. Guitars, mandolins, what have you are better overall than they ever have been. It's thanks to the simple fact that EVERYTHING is more accessible (except for wood and shell apparently lol) than it used to be. More people can build a guitar in their garage than before, and there's much more information on it, so it's open for those who aren't flat out geniuses too. When technology makes it easier for people to build a better piano it'll happen. Just takes a few VERY skilled people to inspire more to do the same. I hear harpsichords are making a revival, maybe it's just not gotten there yet?

Don't let that curmudgeonly coot get you down!

Probably just takes a hundred years or so for a good piano to 'open up.'

Quality materials are readily available to the small builder, so that DEFINITELY does not apply to the guitar industry. There are still old growth mature spruce trees being harvested and cut for guitar production.
I'm sure Steinway can build a "magnificent" sounding, playing, and feeling piano today, but it would cost a hundred grand, probably, and wouldn't compete pricewise with the plastic Korean pianos, so there is SOME parallel in that regard, as the chinese and korean guitars have taken over the market, lowering the price and quality standards across the board to the average consumer who is buying their first guitar.
At the same time, the disparity between crappy chinese guitars and handmade boutique instruments is also highlighted, and with luthiers such as Kevin Ryan, Erven Somogyi, and Jim Olson raising the craftsmanship and price of the instrument, the median price for a relatively unknown hand builder seems to have actually gone up in recent years.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Don't fool yourself about "Old" pianos either... It reads more like someone cheering the anachronism... That everything in the "Old Days" was so much better than anything done today.....

Most of them weren't exactly high quality, top of the line models.... It's kinda like an 85-year old Sears Plywood guitar.... It wasn't really any good then - and it isn't getting any better with time either....

Prove it to yourself if you want... Rescue a 100 year old cheapo living room piano off the curb... You can literally get them free if you have a truck and a strong back.... "Restore" it fully back to new and you can re-sell it for $35.00..... if you deliver it....

Thanks

I don't buy it even as to pianos.

The dude who wrote this was not alive 100 years ago.

Think about it this way:

In the late 1960s, there were lots of cars made. Most of them were just OK. Some were pretty good. Some were awesome.

Ten to fifteen years later, those cars had largely worn out. The "OK" cars weren't worth maintaining, so they ended up in junkyards. Maybe the pretty good cars were being maintained, but probably not for much longer. The awesome ones were, of course, still being treasured by their owners.

Another ten years later, the "OK" cars form the 60s were almost all gone to junk yards. So were nearly all of the pretty good cars. The only cars from the 60s that were still being driven in the mid 80s were, by and large, the awesome ones.

So, someone who got his license in the mid 80s (such as me) might have thought that the cars from the 60s were awesome, and that the industry had much higher standards than in future generations. That's not true at all. Most of the cars from the 60s were mediocre, but the only ones left in the 80s were the standouts.

This piano guy would have had the same experience. Many pianos do not survive 40 years. After 40 years, the mediocre ones have worn out, and the cost of a rebuild would be more than the mediocre piano would be worth. Even if the author of this article is an old crumudgeon, he may have started playing piano in the 50s or 60s at the earliest. Which means that by the time he played pianos from the early 1900s, the only specimens of those pianos left were the ones worth keeping fifty or sixty years. The author is simply not old enough to have a realistic perspective on what "all" or "most" or "some" of the pianos from the early 1900s were like.

There are spectacular pianos being made today. Not all current production Steinways are incredible, but if you track down a Model D (which runs over $100k new) and pretend that it's not a great instrument, then you clearly have an agenda and no credibility. I have a 1970s model B, which was not their best decade, but it is still an incredible piano. There are some smaller makers today that produce even greater quality.

Guitar players get excited about the tone from a $5k or $10k guitar. Piano players spend twenty times that much for a good instrument. The piano industry has every incentive, and all the technology, to cater to the very high end demand that is definitely out there. In an industry in which players spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single "great" instrument, it is ludicrous to believe that no one is using the available technology to deliver the best possible quality to the highest end of that market.

I echo what everyone else says about guitars. The way knowledge and technology is shared, and with the tools and materials that are available, of course the best builders today are producing the best guitars in history. There is junk today too. There was junk 100 years ago, and plenty of it, although it didn't survive a century so you might not ever see it.

I think the article is nonsense.

I used to restore both antique and contemporary keyboards, from clavichords to square
grands to modern pianos. There were great, great pianos made 100 years ago but the
greatest now are even better, in my opinion.

Yeah, basically the old goat (yes, I'm assuming) just needed to bellyache about something piano like.
Don't think he was right at all.

Best piano I ever heard was a spanking new Bosendorfer back in the late 70's.
Gorgeous, too - every metal part was gold plated, and the hand rubbed black lacquer looked about a mile deep.
The piano was huge - like a hulking aircraft carrier in a fleet of little brown Steinways and Kawais.

We sold it to a cowtown museum who used it on weekends for reenactors in a saloon.
The cowboys danced on it, but it thundered away like a champion.

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

Most people won't buy a quality instrument as a first instrument anyways.

A real musician will spend the money to get a good instrument however.

So to any prospective guitar builder out there: Don't let the flood of cheap Chinese/Korean guitars discourage you. Make the best guitar you can possibly make, and charge accordingly. Do not short sell yourself as you'll hurt the industry more than yourself...

A factory made guitar (a good one that is) has very little man hours applied to it, most labor intensive tasks are automated (like Taylor's clear coating/buffing rig), and a cheap guitar are made in China because of very low labor cost and cheap material as well as lack of quality control.

"Custom Shop" guitars are little more than a factory guitar with a little more work done to it, they are not really meant for players, but rather they're meant for collectors. Some are a bit like those ripped up jeans that are sold for 3 times the price of a new one...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I would still maintain that the difference between the high end factory instruments and the Cheapos is in the Design.... The "Quality" meaning raw materials and execution of construction method is very, very good in "Factory" instruments..... It's not really until you get to the experienced Luthier level where the hand of the maker actually makes a significant difference on top of the "design" they use.....

Quality wise... I honestly don't think I could make any sort of case that the Spruce I have is any better or worse than on a $200.00 China guitar... Those guys buy a whole lot of spruce.. but that's not what makes it sound good or not....

I fully believe that a Chinese factory could easily knock off a $3,500 D28 and it would sound like a D28 - it's built to a spec and a plan..... Look at the BRW Pre War Dread Blue Ridge guitars coming out of China as an example...... They don't because they understand about price points and markets.... People don't want to buy the good ones out of China - they want $13.00 guitars out of China... and they want them to sound like $13.00 guitars too....

Same with those cheap pianos... They were DESIGNED to sound some specific way... They were never designed to sound like a Steinway....

Well said. They don't build 'em like the used to.....and they never really did

I will agree with the gentleman that the consumer grade "upright" and "baby grand" are inferior in sound to the old pianos. There are compromises that have been made in the interest of "furniture" and having them conveniently fit into modern households.

The key word is knockoff. No one is going to buy a knockoff from ANY country, even Germany.

The Chinese can and does produce amazing original works, just take a look at some of the Chinese chisels from Dick Tools (and their prices too).

Guitar, being a world wide instrument, is no longer confined to a specific country anymore. China can produce very good guitars, as long as they don't try and produce a replica or knockoff, and people will buy them due to their uniqueness. Yes China has honed their reverse engineering skill so well that they can produce very good copies, but the reason people won't buy them is because they're copies.

I heard something about Chinese luthiers unable to get any Western customers because "made in China" has become a mark of inferior product. This is mostly due to profit minded businessman producing inferior knockoffs to sell to the masses, so that they can generate short term profit and not think about long term reputation. However I really think if the said Chinese luthier has a unique sound because he doesn't build to an exact plan (apart from functional aspects that all guitars share), then people will buy them, even if the price is higher than a guitar produced in a Western country. People like these should be respected because they help to improve the general reputation of a country's product.

Just 50 years ago "Made in Japan" meant junk.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Of course, but the price for rebuilding an old piano costs 2 or 3 standard uprights from today

I am a piano technician and rebuilder, and I don't totally agree with this article.

Although my job is to restore Steinways and Pleyels being built between 1900 and 1940 mostly, these pianos are old, and will remain old.
They have a certain "light" in sound, tone, but they are weaker than newer pianos.
Some folks change the soundboards in 100 years old Steinways, claiming afterwards that old pianos are better.. Ok but with a new soundboard we cannot call it "old piano" anymore!
I think there must be a natural process causing the wood to weaken a little bit, but making it become warmer at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, I like rebuilding old instruments, but I consider them as old and special.

What happens with vintage Martins is incredible: if I understand it well, a vintage OM or D model in good shape being built in 1937 can cost several hundred thousands $ !
Even a fully restored Steinway Concert grand (model D) built in the golden piano era will not be sold more than half the price of a D model being produced today, although the process of building and rebuilding takes much more time and money to be done!

Greetings from France,

Quentin

instruments are as individual as humans. Sure there are really great old instruments out there and there are great new ones out there . I think nostalgia isn't 20/20 . We always seem to remember the good and forget the bad .

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

[shakes cane in the air] When I was yer age we used to have to ski to school up hill... both waya! [/cane shaking]

I think it's ridiculous to say "no better acoustic piano will ever be built, at any time, ever again."

And yes as others have sad this definitely does not apply to guitars.