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Estebanana you should sign up for Diego del Morao's master class. There will be a bunch of guitaristas. And if you bring a couple of your guitars, I am sure many will be glad to try them Also offers the Maestro to try your guitar. Maybe if the class is scheduled for a few days, you could let him the guitar for the whole day, so he can try it relax in his hotel room. I'm sure Diego would be glad to try your guitar, and you'll get a good advice from someone very knowlegable. And if he's kind enough maybe you could shoot him while playing ...Man a vid of Diego del Morao playing your guitar would be nice na?? (something like Emilio Maya playing an Eliasson )
Just SIGN UP!! You'll learn some nice falsetas.
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"The most important part of Flamenco is not in knowing how to interpret it. The higher art is in knowing how to listen." (Luis Agujetas)
Anders wasnt too happy about Spain as a country for making business etc. Again if i recall correctly he said something like he would have chosen even Germany, if he had to immigrate in a country a second time.
My old girlfriend lives in Germany with her (insert vomit noise) husband, perhaps I should move to Germany act really creepy and stalk her. Problem is she would like that too much. The attention would be more like a reward.
wouldn't it be hard to setup a business in guitar making everywhere in the world?? Im in The Netherlands, and i know a few luthiers who have been in the business for 15+ years. About all of them sayd it took about 8 years to actually get enough comissions to be building reguraly and amke some sort of decent money.
hey Stephen is great to see your banner here man...i thought Jason played some of your guitars but i wasn't 100% sure...you obviously have a brilliant product people rave about...wish you all the succes you want
I´m considerin stopping as well. (not a joke) I fully understand what you write and your opinions.
If you like building guitars, continue doing so. Raise your prices. If you cant sell, then at least you´ll have the feeling that you didnt prostitute yourself. Always remember that if we sink, its better to sink with the banner up high and the trumpets blowing.
The internet and this includes this forum is full of blah blah bulsh*t. Thats the cruel reality, where we both have to swing around. Take it easy.
(THis with me, Spain and Germany: Spain is an ok place to do business if you dont care about future, insurrance, pensions etc, but its not always a nice place to live. Germany..... well, I find germans to be cute.)
Ruck picked up and moved at least three times that I know of. He was in Washington State for years, moved to Hawaii, and now lives in Oregon. Not fun, but it can be done. If you market effectively, it doesn’t matter where you live. DeVoe moved all the way across the US.
The other option is get an 8 to 5 job and build on the side until you can bag it. John Shelton and Tom Blackshear did just that.
Stephen, You could just change your name to Lester DeVoe....have you thought of that?
I think John Ray has good advise for you. I would only emphasize that very few individual luthiers can make a good living. Most scrape by. Of the number that stay in business (it IS a business) even fewer can do it by making Flamencos exclusively. Most of us have to settle for getting a few orders for them occasionally even where there is a "Flamenco Community". Here in Colorado there are two professional Flamenco guitarists and they teach and travel to get by. Classical guitars will keep you going and there is plenty of room for individual expression there.
Secondly, you have to reach outside your local area and the way to do that is by a really good website. Yours is unique and interesting but it doesn't offer a product with a price tag. Show me some pictures of guitars you make so that I know what to expect if I commit to buy one.
Finally determine if you want to be an artist or a guitarmaker. Maybe those two things are co-existent in your mind but likely they are different out in there in the stark, raving reality called the world . I know you relish traditional Spanish guitarmaking processes but contemporary luthiers typically "brand" their work for market recognition with rosettes, headstock shapes and even acoustic port shapes. If you don't want to do that, which I can understand, then find something else that potential clients can draw a bead on and say "yep that's a Stephen Faulk guitar".
I didn't speak to sound and playability as it goes without saying that they must be at high levels as there are a lot of luthiers out there. I would be willing to believe that you make a competitive guitar but if I'm a client I need to be convinced. At the end of the day maybe you can't find the artistic and financial fulfillment you're looking for in lutherie. I hope that's not the case.
I am not in your shoes and am not in your situation, but it seems to me that you need to have some sort of plan to reach the kind of success you desire. Art is a funny thing as artist's and artisan's real drive is to create, construct, build (verb not a noun), etc. Trying to develop a some sort of business plan almost never comes first. There are luthiers of all types of guitars that do well and there are those that build awesome instruments, but struggle and end up taking on other types of work or leave the art completely. Most of the successful luthiers really develop connections with players and get guitars into their hands. Building hype in this day of age is essential, no matter how crass some think of it. There are so many luthiers (or wannabe) out there today that competition is stiff. The quality of instruments available these days is astounding- nylon, steel string, archtop and electric. On the other hand though, guitar players are often conservative and struggle going out of the box when choosing an instrument. Classical players and many archtop players don't seem as stubborn as flamenco and rock guitarists though. So, again, it seems to me that a luthier really needs to get as much exposure as possible. Look at Lester Devoe, he lives in some tiny town in Central California and prior to that he lived in a small town in Maine- both are not flamenco hotspots. Yet, he seems to really work on the marketing and this has led to him being well-known.
I am sure you know all of this and I am regurgitating to the choir. Will moving to another "flamenco locale" really change things? Having played in numerous bands over the years I learned that we had to hustle and and hype ourselves to stand out and get gigs. Look at the flamencos in the bay area and one can easily see who gets the most gigs and how they do it.
Both the previous posters really have great advice. One thing to consider is to take a course on developing a business plan. My wife took one when she was developing a business and the work they did on developing a plan, marketing, etc was invaluable. Most of the women taking the course were artists/artisans who were getting help on developing the business end of their passion. The course was a huge amount of work, but in the end they all had solid and well thought out business plans.
I have played two of your guitars and frankly, I think they are great - a friend owns one and he really loves it. In this day of age the flamenco guitars coming out of places other than Spain are just as good as those in Spain, imo. I thought yours really stand up sound-wise and appearance. Your rosettes are really beautiful as are your decorative embellishments. I really like the sound of your guitars as well - I remember playing one and thought what a great dry and strong sound with a wonderful balance in the basses and trebles. The video Don Soledad posted is a great example.
Secondly, you have to reach outside your local area and the way to do that is by a really good website. Yours is unique and interesting but it doesn't offer a product with a price tag. Show me some pictures of guitars you make so that I know what to expect if I commit to buy one.
Yup...
People want to know what it is and how much does it cost these days.
I buy a lot of Electronic spares etc....and as soon as I see "Enquire for price", I immediately drop the website and move onto another which can show me what I'm getting and which states for how much.
Tell them that you can do "bespoke" preferences to order, but at least offer a couple of standard models at a given price. Show them detailed pictures of what they will be getting along with a text description and end with some references from folk such as Jason McGuire.
In fact just today I was looking at some websites to get a rough idea of the cost of an in-line extractor fan (for a home project). I read the blurb and looked at the price and selected it. Immediately a screen came up saying..."You might want to look at these things too for a complete installation". Sure enough, there were things like ducting and joints and clip bands and switches and timers and cowlings that I would need also...so I ordered those too. Smart marketing...and made it easy for me. (I never even thought about doing a price comparison which I would have done if I had been looking for those parts separately...)
This "bespoke" service only with no price indication is of a bygone age and puts a lot of people off IMO.
Things are tuff all over, you definitely know your sh!t and are a top notch craftsman. In todays age diversifying yourself employment wise is not such a bad idea. Hope everyone gets a good chuckle out of this pic as I did, I think it's the first sign of the luthier apocalypse
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One successful luthier I know of decided to only build flamenco guitars upon request and focus on classical guitars. He described the majority of the flamenco guitar community as having more of a "grinder" culture, "They want it as cheap as they can get it". In addition, there are far fewer flamenco players than classical players.
There's probably a good amount of truth to what he said.
Definitely stands out, but hows does one market that guitar. Reminds me of some that I have seen at guitar stores that sit there for years without any interest.
Seems like the flamenco "grinder culture" is alive and well here on this forum as everyone is always looking for a deal - who doesn't want an awesome guitar for as little as possible. Yet we all know that prices on flamenco guitars don't necessarily reflect how good the guitar is - reputation, marketing, hype, etc.
It does seem to me that building a reputation on flamenco guitars would be much harder than classical guitars - far fewer flamenco players. Stephen obviously has the skills, ability and know-how to build many different instruments other than just flamenco guitars.
The problem is that it takes money to set up a complicated website and I frankly can't afford it right now. In the mean time l've set up a blog to show what I have been doing. At some point I'm sure I'll set up a more elaborate site, but for now a blog is the best I can do.
All the instruments I make or have made so far:
Flamencos Classicals Seven string and six string Renaissance period four course guitars Vihuelas Ukes
according to you guys, to be a good and honest luthier, its all about marketing, a good website etc.
well first of all our opinion was kind of invited in this conversation when he posted it here ...so we are all trying to offer it.....and btw u dont need marketing and a good website to be a good honest luthier...you need it to let people outside your neighborhood know about your guitars...and if money is something that you are looking for
second ...
you dont have to do anything... i really dont care one way or the other ....choice is yours what you do...as long as you are happy with your results......he didn't sound like he was...so we all offered an opinion
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All this blah - blah bulsh*t makes me sick.
thats what goes on on a forum amigo...a whole lot of blah blah...is pretty much all you can do...
Yeah yeah, we all know the shift between being creative and doing marketing is more difficult for some easier for others and it's much easier to pay someone to design a good website.
On this I'm with Anders, and lets get real- all the guitarists here I'm sure would rather perform, practice or rehearse than spend time marketing. I think Peter makes good guitars, but I seriously doubt a slick website helped him learn the craft.
Let's put the cart after the horse.....
In a certain way a guitar is a product and marketing it is lot like marketing a brand of shoes or something. But ti put it in the ace of a guitar maker that they have to do marketing is difficult for some of us to take. We're really more about thinking how a piece of wood feels then we thin it or how a neck feels. And this is important to the player. the player needs to understand that is our primary job, and it is often very difficult to shift between explaining what we do and being engaged in it.
Hopefully the player would rather have a guitar maker primarily engaged at that level of being in touch with the craft and the materials than primarily judging them on how their website works. We do have these contraption called telephones and Skype and you can call us up a talk to us, like live.
'm sure would rather perform, practice or rehearse than spend time marketing
that's right...but sometimes you have to do those other things to pay the other artists in the show too, their airfares, or to make some money to allow you to buy strings or a guitar, food, pay bills, rent, petrol... the more tickets i sell the longer i can work or practice on my music etc...since is what i love doing...dosent take a genius to know i should be trying to sell some freaking tickets by any means possible to me
i would think its stupid of me to spend hours of rehearsals , use my own money fly people here from other cities , organize a flamenco concert and not advertise the show or use some marketing to try sell some tickets
but at the end of the day i dont really care offered my opinion..take it or leave it..
but how would you like someone to put someone elses website in your face?
sorry i am not sure what you mean ? do you mean someone used someone elses website here as an example to you ?
Dominic is a guitarist in Melbourne, friend of mine, was a member here years ago......he got one of your guitars a few years ago and speaks very very highly of it
I would love for none of those things to matter and to be able to tell you what you guys seem to wanna hear that the only thing that matters is that you are good at what you do...and i can if that will make you happy...but unfortunately it wouldn't be true, wouldn't do you any favors...i didn't invent this...this is how things are today...marketing is a normal part of anyone trying to sell anything ...times 50 with the internet...if you dont do it the next 100 other guitar makers will...your competition
hopefully soon you will realize that all the advice offered weather you find it useful or not was as a way to try and be helpful to you not to knock you or insult you
Very funny!! Seriously, I don't see how this thread is helping you; in fact, it is hurting you. Maybe you could consider some of the advise given here and channel some positive energy toward your careers. As professionals, it is very hard to separate yourselves (Stephen and Anders) from being one of the guys, you're not. This is a public forum and your names and websites are attached to everything you write. Public catharsis is probably not a good idea. Think about it. Dennis
Dominic is a guitarist in Melbourne, friend of mine, was a member here years ago......he got one of your guitars a few years ago and speaks very very highly of it
Could you please get him in touch with me privately, that might be the one guitar I've been looking for. That it ended up in Australia is kinda cool.
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...Man a vid of Diego del Morao playing your guitar would be nice na?? (something like Emilio Maya playing an Eliasson 
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