estebanana -> RE: Is Manuel Reyes Sr. overrated? (Mar. 9 2017 0:39:21)
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quote: Pretty depressing until you think that you can get a good guitar for $5000.00 and it will last a lifetime and appreciate in value if you buy well in the primary market. Although true, the key phrase you use is determined by being able to find value at any range in price. And this is not always an easy search. Stephan, you, Anders, VAHE, others on this list, are players who can search out certain idiosyncrasies in tone and this helps to finalize a guitar's voice BEFORE we pass it along to customers. And although this doesn't take away from other master builders abilities to formulate sound, I think it does give some advantage. But to the point of collecting instruments. It has always been toward a small company to grow with that ideal in mind. And if they grow larger, then it's always going to be the market that determines the price. And to the larger factories, it's a crazy world out there to everyone who has vision to compete in the market place. Finding a good guitar today is pretty easy, there are more builders who have ten to twenty years experience, and more factories that make a serviceable guitar- and on top of that more quality at the lower price ranges. The biggest problem today is guitar players who have "Princess and the Pea Syndrome" - They are spoiled by a market supplying high quality goods in surplus at rock bottom prices. But there's more, the guitar players today might have less disposable income for guitar buying. Among those with no shortage of means, the world is full of fabulous guitars, the idea that only a few sound good is preposterous, beginners are turning out fairly nice guitars by # 10 or 12 because of all the books, classes and the online coaching on forums. Guitar making is going gangbusters with quality and competition. Today all a guitar player has to do is decide which up an coming maker they want to patronize and watch them develop and step in and order a guitar when they get good, but have not yet increased the asking price. That is the game today. I've watched players game the beginner level building so many times that I can almost predict when they will order a guitar from a certain maker. And at the upper level of those who have slugged it out for more than ten to fifteen years and really learned to build, and paid dues as makers, there is still a lot of competition and not as many makers wash out as used to happen. The market today is a players paradise. It is a players market. As far as sound, I don't take anything for granted anymore. I've been advised by some top players that they are not looking for refinement, or sophistication, or complexity. They want guts, rawness, unevenness, character, punch, stopping power, quietness, and not fussy over thought sound shaping. They want dry, plain, drum sound. And not in a fancy over dressed package of elite priced binding and purfling options. They want a stripped down hot rod that sounds like narsty grit filled, bruised ill tuned snare drum that plays chords. Now there are only so many players with that level of wisdom. So we cater to the folks who like the mellifluous tones of a guitar maker speaking eloquently about the refinement they bring to the art and how they are making guitars modern and better and elegant, and and and .............it's all total hogwash. You make the guitars you make if you build with your heart, and you're dammed lucky if someone wants to give you money for one of the cussed things. You make what you make despite yourself. That's it. "Por favor, La puntita, nada mas" he begs of her. Everything else is dogdammed talk. The players choose, we're just whores they use, we're just great big whores. We're not secret geniuses, or keepers of any mystical information, we just make by the seat of our pants and put our guitars in shops, like prostitutes being shopped out by guitar shop pimps. The Pimps talk about how super duper we are and inflate, conflate and discombobulate our lives and goods to make reputations. But in the end the payer has to turn the transaction and give you money for a guitar. There are a lotta whores, a lotta pimps and a lotta people who want guitars. Some of us are back seat Betty's, and some of us are $5000.00 dollar a night escorts. But we're all whores. And the vice squad only wants us to pay the rent, they want a cut of our action. Pay to play. The trick is that some of us are better at being whores, by that, I mean making guitars. Reyes, sure, high end escort. Is it really worth it? Ask yourself.
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