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 Post subject: Bling? Tone? Both?
PostPosted: Fri Feb 07, 2014 3:09 pm 
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First name: Larry
Last Name: Hawes
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I've built a couple of guitars with my version of bling including various inlays and binding schemes and just finished 4 with virtually no bling at all. Simple wood bindings and simple rosette etc.

My question is mainly for the professional builders and I was wondering where the market is now and perhaps where it's headed. Do you build with bling and does that sell your guitars or do forego the bling and build more for tone because that's what sells your guitars? Or is both a mandatory requirement of a high end guitar?

I've certainly seen both. Beautiful guitars that don't really sound that great, and plain jane guitars that sound fabulous.

What's your take?

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 Post subject: Re: Bling? Tone? Both?
PostPosted: Fri Feb 07, 2014 4:13 pm 
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Joined: Thu Nov 21, 2013 2:03 pm
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First name: Toonces
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City: New Smyrna Beach
State: FL
Country: United States
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
This answer really depends on your price range. The more inlay work/bling on your instruments, the more you need to charge. I have seen a number of talented new builders essentially fail in the marketplace because they made extremely complex guitars (think Ray Kraut style aesthetics) and tried to get $5k to $6k for their instruments. The problem is that at that price there are many well known builders with an established reputation and refined product.

To my knowledge, nobody has arrived on the scene the same way Matsuda did. Whatever he does (whether you like his aesthetic or not) is executed in a sophisticated fashion. The problem is often that many of these elaborate designs by new builders still lack in areas of sophistication -- in other words, the body shape might look off or there are aesthetic coherency issues, etc... I personally started out being able to recognize good design but having a hard time creating it myself. Part of this may be that I didn't have any kind of background in design. It took me years of trying designs and making a lot of mistakes to arrive at what I consider a pretty good design sense when it comes to modern guitar aesthetics.

The point to all this is that unless you are able to just completely astound customers with your aesthetics and unless you have a well-established reputation, I personally advise aspiring builders to focus on developing the following things:

1) A Refined Aesthetic
2) High Build Quality
3) Impressive Tone


I would try and achieve those things first before you try a bunch of more complicated embellishments (bevels, inlays, etc.) because the cost of your guitars will rise and then you will be competing with more established builders. If your product is very good and you are a completely unknown builder, then I would start at around the $3k price range and try and build a reputation for a while and then jump into the $4k price range and stay there for about 4 years and then jump into the $5k range. I would also advise to stay well under the radar if your product still needs refinement in the fit & finish department. If you are charging $3k for an instrument then it truly needs to exceed the quality of a Taylor in almost every regard.

A couple more points. If your product is good and looks attractive then you should absolutely be able to thrive in the $3k to low $4k price range. I personally think the market is very supportive of both traditional and modern aesthetics and so you could go either way; however, I think the modern aesthetic is gaining popularity and affords more opportunities to create a unique aesthetic since the traditional aesthetic tends to follow a more standardized appearance.


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 Post subject: Re: Bling? Tone? Both?
PostPosted: Fri Feb 07, 2014 7:39 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:47 pm
Posts: 1624
Location: United States
First name: Larry
Last Name: Hawes
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
Thanks so much for the great insights.

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