[seanc]

When I was working in boston. The dead were in town. Bobby's roadie/ guitar tech came in. The disdain for him by the employees was evident. .

Wow - If I was the owner I would be pissed. Rock star sends his roadie to the store to buy shit and the employees look down their noses at him ?????????

Seriously - thats the STORES prob not the tech's.

You have to realize that this was a very well known and very active store.. It was the go to place for a long time. It was the type of place that a co-worker would say to you, Ok the Chili peppers are in town, call me as soon as they come in, I want to meet them. Peter Wolf (J Giles) would come in all the time and hang out in the keyboards, they just got to the point of giving him the hook and asking him to leave.Ok... If Peter comes in, no more than 15 minutes.

A good size club was right across the street, one day Blues Traveler was playing. They pulled to the club, parked their gear truck in front of the gig and the truck with all of their gear was stolen.
They all came in to buy all new gear as they were on tour. I got to meet all of them and got to sell John Popper a ton of harmonicas. And of course he had to try each one to make sure it worked, unbelievable player..Guitar and bass players bought gear and amps, etc.. That was a nice $$ day.

But to answer the unasked question.. The management cared only about the dollars. By and large they did not take them seriously as musicians and could not understand how or why anybody would pay money for any of their goods.

[JonnyBoy]

no offence to you, but those guys seem like Dicks. Why should anyone ever have disdain for a person no matter who he is unless you have an attitude problem.

[seanc]

no offence to you, but those guys seem like Dicks. Why should anyone ever have disdain for a person no matter who he is unless you have an attitude problem.

LOL too funny...
The whole Northeast DOES have an attitude problem (as does SoCal). Maybe it's a over abundance of good players. Competition to find a spot in a band. getting the gigs at the clubs etc.. Maybe it's having berkley, NE conservatory, et all. Ego, Envy, hang ups etc..

[Friesman]

How about an Irwin inspired arm? ..

[JonnyBoy]

Since you didn't ask Thomas or Doug your arm has to go Friesman!!

[Friesman]

Alright Johnny Boy, off with the arm!

[bffreedomlpa]

Gee....how did this thread get hijacked? My original question was who builds the guitar I should buy, not copyright issues and regional attitudes about dead head musicians.

[JonnyBoy]

Gee....how did this thread get hijacked? My original question was who builds the guitar I should buy, not copyright issues and regional attitudes about dead head musicians.

That happens around here with us power thinkers, it has something to do with the doors of perception we opened in our youth.

[seanc]

Gee....how did this thread get hijacked? My original question was who builds the guitar I should buy, not copyright issues and regional attitudes about dead head musicians.

Somebody asks for opinions on what to buy. Instead on the enivitable "buy this because it's what I bought" followed by the obligatory "great job for buying the same thing as me". Some one offers up a realistic haven't drank the coolaid consideration.

I do apologize for going some what off topic to give some of my real life experiences. But feel they are relevant to the topic as a whole. 5k is a lot to spend and 6-12 months is a real long time to wait to figure out if your money was well spent. It really sucks to go through this process to realize too late you made a huge mistake.

[RiverRat]

.

[brutusbuck45]

I'm a bit partial and I did not have multiple $1000's to spend on a custom, luthier-built guitar, but I think Carvin is being overlooked here. I am certainly not naysaying the support of the independent luthier. In fact, I would have considered going that route that if had, say, $5K more to spend. But I think it should be noted (and has been in previous threads), that Carvin makes an outstanding sounding, dependable, and quality instrument that is essentially custom machine-made. Mr. Lieber, himself, expressed high regard for the Carvin product. To order, you simply specify your design elements, materials, etc. and 6 weeks later it arrives at your door. In addition, one of the greatest things Carvin offers (besides the guitar itself) is a 10 day, no questions asked, money back guarantee (less return shipping cost). Of course, it won't be an exact clone but you can build an excellent neck-through instrument that can closely replicate the JGar tones of the Wolf and other Irwin/Lieber builds. My Carvin has a neck-through design, walnut body, maple/walnut neck, and quilt maple top. The walnut is a heavy wood and has excellent resonance. In fact the total weight of my Carvin is about 11 lbs. Heavy.

Anyway, its all just another opinion... but just putting it out there.

~BB45

[jkstraw]

Agreed - BB45's guitar is awesome! I would go that route as well in a heartbeat.

[strumminsix]

Somebody asks for opinions on what to buy. Instead on the enivitable "buy this because it's what I bought" followed by the obligatory "great job for buying the same thing as me". Some one offers up a realistic haven't drank the coolaid consideration.

I do apologize for going some what off topic to give some of my real life experiences. But feel they are relevant to the topic as a whole. 5k is a lot to spend and 6-12 months is a real long time to wait to figure out if your money was well spent. It really sucks to go through this process to realize too late you made a huge mistake.

Gotta agree with alot of this. Hence my first suggestion is to work with someone local. Firstly, you can meet face to face, talk, get a feel for the person, bring in your guitars that you enjoy now, share ideas of what you want in the future, etc, etc. Secondly, you can sit right there and make them fix whatever makes it not ideal for you and be sure the setup is perfect for your needs. Thirdly, it's really fun to see your work in progress in person!!!

6-12 may be a long wait but it's pretty common these days. Seems most of the talented folks are overworked and underpaid, IMO.

5K does seem like alot to me as well. Know lots of dudes doing variations of their base models around the 3K mark. Even Lieber's ABC10 comes in under 5 and this guy has been around, held the originals, in the trenches with them,etc, etc....

Then again who am I to say since I still don't see the point in an OBEL and would just pop a volume pedal at the end of the chain...

[DeadlyHeptet]

Well, here's my take. There's one gentleman here who acquired an old Vantage guitar from the '80s and retrofit it with a few nice pickups. I thought that was great. I worked in a music store in the early '80s and we sold a lot of these Vantage guitars. Great quality and you can pick them up for cheap. There are a few Hamer models and many other overlooked guitars I always thought would fill the bill. Other guys have built partscasters and they look like they can handle anything most of the musicians here could throw at it.

5K is a lot of money and frankly, like anything, those extra thousands get smaller and smaller increments of improvement, if improvement at all. Another hour or two more of practice a day will get you more. Jerry sounded pretty damn good to me back in the day when he didn't have custom made guitars and, in fact, they are maybe my favorite Jerry tones. As I have heard it said, all the great guitar tones of the past were made on equipment that was worse than anything you are playing right now.

WIth no disrespect for the guys building these boxes, but do you really need on-board electronics and OBEL? The OBEL is good for full on hit to an envelope filter, but Kimock's take is that it eliminates tonal options also. Other boxes can produce different tones when you roll back your volume control, and that doesn't exist when they are getting hit with full pickup output unless, of course, you only have the ECF in the OBEL loop, a pretty involved setup to cater to one pedal.

On board electronics seem to me to be more a hassle than they are worth. Murphy's Law, I like to keep it simple and, environmentally speaking, I do not like the use of batteries. Really, how many guitarists at this level run 60 feet of chord and need low impedence? Also,I always found that when people have more and more options (switches, patches, etc) they fiddle more and play less.

And, for a fact, you never know what a custom built guitar will be like until you play it. So regardless of the money you spend, it might not be all you think. I would just acquire a guitar that is inexpensive, feels good to your hand and have it retrofitted to suit your needs. And you won't be awake all night when the other guitar player swings around and put a gash in your $5000 toy.

[paulinnc]

Regardless of what anyone says here, you should do what you want to do and what will make YOU happy. There are a lot of good options for getting a custom guitar so find something you like and go with it. I have corresponded with both Olson and Moriarty and they were both really cool about answering questions about building and trying to help me with my guitar.