Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm not sure exactly how to ask this question without seeming condescending but what do they do to factory built guitars - Gibson, Martin, Taylor, Breedlove - to get them to sound so bad?

I was in Guitar center the other day picking up some strings and stopped in the 'high end' guitar room and pick a couple Taylors off the wall and strummed a couple chords and was shocked. It had been a long time since I'd tried a Taylor and I had pretty good memories of their sound but there was this certain soulless, dull tone that took me by surprise. Then I grabbed an HD28 and the same thing, only Martin different of course, and it really got me thinking. "What are they doing?" They are so beautiful yet there's something missing - especially after playing something you built yourself.

I went through the Eric Clapton OM, a couple more Taylors, a Breedlove, a Gibson J200 that I really couldn't figure out why anyone would purchase it, and was pretty much the same
'feeling' I'm now thinking more than anything. No real 'there' there. The last guitar I played was a 941CE Robert Taylor that was very rich and really nice but that was the ONLY guitar that was even slightly interesting.

I'm not a very good player (verging on bad) and I'm really not trying to belittle those guitars or their makers nor am I trying to toot a guitar building horn I do not possess, but I'm quite serious about the question so I can avoid some pitfalls in my own building journey.

Is it just old strings? Though I've played old strings and never heard a guitar transformed with new.

Is it heavy bracing to avoid warranty repair?

Did the Robert Taylor have a soul because someone instilled that soul like we do as builders?

What do you think?

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Thank You and Best To All

I think that guitars are a lot like chicken. You can go to any KFC, and the chicken is going to taste the same. If you eat enough KFC, you might have one bucket that stands above the others. Maybe.
Now go to a restaurant with nice table cloths, and an extensive menu and wine list, and order Coq au Vin. The chef uses the best ingredients, and puts all of his training and effort into making a wonderful meal for you. While having dessert, the chef might even come to your table and ask if your dinner was to your liking. At KFC, they will say, "enjoy you meal".
It is all chicken, but I don't think that there will be any mistaking one one for the other. Now replace chicken with guitar.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

I think many times GC is not the place to buy a guitar. In all the ones I have been in , no one had a clue what a guitar was. When I asked if they would put on fresh strings , they said no.
Yes dead strings don't help. Also the Harrisburg PA store had humidity below 35%
Go somewhere else.

Yes some guitars will sound better to you than others , This is subjective and can't be quantified , one mans junk is another's treasure

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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

Yeah maybe the guitar builders have found a 'recipe' that will please enough people, to make enough sales, to make enough profit, to stay in business.

It is also a given that consistency is a hallmark of any successful brand and places like McDonald's do this in spades. You know what you're going to get - every time. Good or bad it's always consistent.

But I was still surprised at the mediocrity (again that sounds condescending but I don't know how else to put it) and I even thought that maybe guitars are supposed to sound that way - and I was building the aberrant, soul less pieces of wood. But I've heard a LOT of guitars on this forum and began to think that all guitars sounded like that. Mine do not sound as good as the best I've heard here, but they are such a pleasure to play and sounds worlds better to my ears than the better factory guitars - maybe I'm more surprised by that than anything else?

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Thank You and Best To All

Per your request, I have replaced "chicken" with "guitar" in your post.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

VERY true John and maybe it's nothing more than that. Perhaps my tastes simply run different to what is offered commercially - or maybe my guitars only sound good to me. One thing is for certain though the guitars I hear here are amazing things and I don't think that any amount of humidity or new strings will change the GC guitars into a custom built guitar - which they are not meant to be of course. Again I was just surprised, and that may be another reason - listening to the great work here will spoil a man for guitar tone and a factory Taylor or Martin has no chance of living up that standard.

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Thank You and Best To All

I recently went to guitar shop who carried mainly smaller boutique builders. I probably played 25 or so different guitars. A couple of the stand out guitars to me were a cocobolo/sitka Martin and engelmann/amazon rosewood Taylor. I was surprised to see so many smaller builders guitars have a sound that I didn't care for. I was also surprised to see a lot of quality issues with the guitars as well. I think you will find guitars that don't have a sound that you care for no matter what you do. There may be something psychological going on as well. You may have walked in there wanting to find the bad sounding factory guitars to make you feel better about your guitar sounds. I may have walked into that boutique shop looking to find smaller builder`s guitars with flaws and poor sound to make me feel better about my guitars. Its tough to say. I think a lot of the manufactured guitars can sound great. I have been trying to force myself to have a more open mind towards what factories and other builders are producing. If you begin to lump things like that you may lose focus on whats important which is what sounds good to you no matter the builder.

Get the Gore/Gilet books and your question will be answered quite thoroughly.
A lot of it comes down to plate resonances. In a factory, guitars are built dimensionally, as in a brace this big gets glued here on a top this thick, disregarding the properties of the specific pieces of wood involved. As a result, the final plate resonances are a random crap shoot. Out of ten, one is great, ones a dog, and eight are mediocre. Theoretically, us hand builders are taking the wood's properties into account and controlling the resonances. That's not all there is to it, but it's a real good start. Get the books...
There are good factory guitars out there, and mediocre hand builds as well...

Good points and no doubt a possibility but I think my experience and mind set were quite the opposite. I have always really enjoyed the Martin/Taylors/gibsons in the past and was really looking forward to playing them and was surprised they didn't meet my expectations - which perhaps does indeed make your point.

I have to add I am a VERY unsophisticated player and builder so my experience will be much different than others as will, of course, my tastes.

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Thank You and Best To All

This probably answers the first question most directly and is the primary reason the guitars sound (8 out of 10) mediocre. Now to that theory that us (lower skilled) hand builders even KNOW what a plate resonance is might be stretching it a bit but good advice none the less.

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Thank You and Best To All

I was surprised to see so many smaller builders guitars have a sound that I didn't care for. I was also surprised to see a lot of quality issues with the guitars as well

If a luthier has to sell through a music store, even a "high end" music store, he/she isn't doing anything better than the factories, and likely many things will be lacking. Honestly, if you build something that is superior to the factories' offerings, you instantly find yourself with a long backlog. Musicians are -wanting- better guitars, but it's rare that you'll find one in a store, unless you're there the day it arrived, because I bet the truly superior ones don't hang on the wall but for a day or two.

And dead strings is what I want on a guitar if I'm evaluating it. Fresh strings can hide/mask a lot of sins, but a truly great guitar will still sound great with even the deadest strings....

I had that coming! I'm so used to people not doing what I ask that I forget that I'm not so smart. Thanks for helping me out, Tony, you're a Prince!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Never thought of that - maybe that's why my guitars sound decent.

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Thank You and Best To All

Rubbish, Grumpy.

You're saying every guitar in a place like, say, Dream Guitars, (or 12th Fret, or...) is by definition a piece of crap and that's why it's there? Where a guitar is sold has nothing to do with how it's built. Building great guitars is only one piece of the puzzle, people have to see them to buy them.
It's like saying writing a good song automatically makes you a rock star.

I have seen some really poor guitars made by major manufacturers as well, and had store employees rave about them. For instance a gibson jumbo that had the neck so miss aligned it couldn't be played above the seventh fret; I was two shocked to tell the salesman to send it back to Gibson for a neck set. Getting back to your main topic I think the main thing that is going on is that you are developing a "pallet". It's a lot like food, back in kindergarten macaroni and cheese, and goldfish crackers was many peoples idea of a good meal. Once people grow and there tastes develop they wonder how they used to eat such things. Congratulations.
p.s.Its been many years since I have been able to walk into a guitar store and just pick up a high end guitar and enjoy the experience, instead I pick threw the low end instruments looking for a pleasant accident.

When you build to a formula rather than on a build to build basis, it is easy to miss the mark. And there is that warranty thing.

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ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
http://elevatelutherie.com
&
http://ensorguitars.com

Tony, Tony, Tony................................................What are we going to do with you?????
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I was surprised by Tony's response. I expected him to replace "chicken" with "goat". That guy is so unpredictable.

Back to the thread, I've been resisting buying Gore/Gilet books. I wanted this (guitar building) to be just a "right" brain thing; I used my "left" brain my whole career in environmental science, but I think I will have to commit some brain cells to the science. I'll order the books today - thanks "meddlingfool" for the push.

I believe that is givin a little bit too much credit to plate resonnances. Only some luthiers take it into consideration when building, and only a few out of them actually have an idea of what they are doing and why they are doing it. The fact that most factory built guitars sound less than most luthier made guitars is more generalised.

For myself, I believe all lies in the lifetime warrantee. In order to reduce to a minimum the number of guitars that come back with a problem, most factory will overbuild there guitars. In their defence, some customers believe having a bulge behind the bridge is a problem! When you have several towsands customers, it becomes an issue to handle, business wise. Even if most luthiers also have a lifetime warrantee, most of us only have a few hundreds customers at most, which makes resolving warrantee requests easier to handle.

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

Mkellyvrod

You won't regret it. I was only able to understand a bit of the math, but using the chapter summaries I went from ? To ! In four guitars.

Alain,

Controlling the plate resonances may not be the be all end all to it all, but it's a real good place to start.

I agree,they have to build enough to "get lucky" with the confluence of the materials, although I still feel even the good ones aren't great sounding. Maybe they just need to open up?
Taylor seems to have incorporated enough design flaws into their guitars to make them all bright and tinny sounding, but I bet they rarely go back for warranty work.



GC NEVER sends guitars back to Gibson for warranty work, and Gibson won't stand behind them on the store level, at least not at GC. They have to be sold, and then when the customer notices and calls Gibson, they might fix something like that. So in effect, the stores have to sell whatever they have on the wall. The store I was an independant contractor in (before they went in-house with the salaried GC Garage techs) routinely sold guitars that I had evaluated as needing neck resets, new bridges, new necks, finish flaws,all kinds of problems. The employees were telling people "Yeah, our tech looked at it", without telling them the problems I found. Sometimes the customer would come over and ask me what I thought, but most of the time the salesman was able to steer them away by saying I was too busy to talk to them.
Thinking back, I don't know HOW I was able to open up my own shop off-site, considering the impression people must have been getting of me when they took their guitar somewhere else to have it REALLY evaluated.
The biggest offender was Gibson, with most of their guitars needing something major, the second was Martin with most needing nothing more than a better setup with only the occasional neck reset, third was Breedlove, and last Taylor with most only needing a minor neck tweek.



Both factories are making a LOT more guitars today than they ever have in the past. They've also made quite a few design changes to accomodate the fact that they can't be as picky about the materials as they used to be.
Couple that with the dull room GC has you try them out in and you have a recipe for mediocrity.
I remember not too long ago a member posted about Martin's grading process, and then posted a picture of the guitar he had made with the 1-in-a-hundred top he picked out. Well, it looked like just about EVERY top I have as far as silking goes, except most of mine have some striping or other character that I prefer to the plain tops. It just shows that the tops supplied to the factory guitars are processed very quickly and the preparers can't take the time to split and cut them properly.
As builders, EVERY top we build with can be a 1-in-a-hundred top, and I believe a quality top is the FIRST ingredient, although even the lower grade tops can sound great if worked correctly.
I just don't see the point of pouring my heart and soul into lower grade materials.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I am nutty as a fruit cake. Agreed.



You asked for it. How could I deny you?



I think you hit the nail on the head.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

That would make it "finger-pickin' good" I suppose.

Sorry, I realize I'm stomping all over Tony from NYC's territory here, but I couldn't resist.

Steve

OK Steve, I know where you live.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Rubbish, Grumpy.

You're saying every guitar in a place like, say, Dream Guitars, (or 12th Fret, or...) is by definition a piece of crap and that's why it's there?

First, it's perfectly fine to disagree with me, but please, when you read one of my posts, read the part that I quoted along with my response, as I often reply to a specific line, as I did earlier.

I didn't say that everything in a store is a POS. factories have to put their instruments in sores, as they build large amounts of them.

What I said was that small builders/luthiers who -have- to sell their wares through a store aren't doing anything better than the factories(and face it, many of the factories DO put out a good product, though you often have to wade through a lot of decent ones to find the standouts). Back to my point, if a hand made instrument has been hanging in a guitar store for more than a couple of weeks, it's obviously not standing out in a way that will compel a hapless musician to part with his/her hard earned cash, or even stand out enough to make the musician dial-up a friend or two and say "hey, come down to Bob's Bazooka Hideout right now! I think I found the guitar you've been looking for!". Yes, even the greatest instruments won't find a home until someone plays them, but they get played in those stores, and since nobody fell for them, well... That speaks clearly, don't it? In some cases, it may have been a custom build for a specific customer, and as such, may have a strange neck size or profile, one-off inlays, extra depth, etc..., and that makes it a tough sell; these are different.

All it takes is ONE great guitar to get "found", to build a career upon. That first one gets found, then the owner tells others, others see and hear it, and they want one. Once they get theirs', they tell their friends, others see them, play them, hear them, and in no time, you're looking at a loooong backlog. Someone who's been building instruments professionally for more than a few years and still has to sell through stores needs to re evaluate what he/she is doing, because there is -something- that they're not doing well enough to stand-out from the crowd.