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Post by samspade on Jul 3, 2023 17:52:22 GMT -5
Any thoughts on the new tele-like model and the Myles signature?
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Post by reverendrob on Jul 3, 2023 19:43:07 GMT -5
I'm in the "Why?" camp - the world didn't really need another Tele clone.
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Post by samspade on Jul 3, 2023 20:01:06 GMT -5
Yeah, I agree with that, plus also a steep price. It is strange when major company copies brand's another model vs designing a new one. Another observation is the signature guitar is now going from what a player is known to play (making that model available to public) to a pattern of creating a new model. I guess this is probably true with the Ernie Ball Music Mans.
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Post by Pinetree on Jul 3, 2023 21:01:26 GMT -5
I'm a big Myles Kennedy/Alter Bridge fan.. but this guitar is fugly.
Really.
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DrKev
Wholenote
It's just a guitar, it's not rocket science.
Posts: 418
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Post by DrKev on Jul 4, 2023 11:59:40 GMT -5
Yeah, I agree with that, plus also a steep price. It is strange when major company copies brand's another model vs designing a new one. I don't think anybody will ever mistake these new PRS guitars as Fender Telecasters. The headstock, body shape, pickups, and control layout all say "not a copy" to me. Inspired by, absolutely, but a copy? Nope. And I don't see many people complaining that John Suhr copies another brand's models. Or James Tyler. And what about G&L? And let's face it Fender's entire signature line is basically the same darn guitar with a famous name and stupid price tag added. They only thing they own is the headstock shape and model name. So I don't get why PRS get it in the neck so hard. Make it make sense, people. In other news, I've seen a lot of reviews that are very positive. People really like them, they sound and play great. It's another choice on the market and nobody loses anything, so I don't get why some people are whining about this. |
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Jul 4, 2023 13:27:10 GMT -5
The Silver Sky found a niche, even though it was basically just yet another strat copy. Maybe this will be similar.
I've said a few times I get tired of designers just playing "Mr. Potatohead" with guitar designs, but if you can be particularly good at it, why not go for it. That is where I really like Suhr - somehow those manage to be more than the sum of their parts, and not just someone's Warmoth project. Not sure what this will be like. PRS pickups tend to be kinda flat sounding, so I can't imagine this having much personality. The scale length/bridge/wood selection basically point towards it being just another tele copy, so I'm largely with Rob on this. The biggest market I'm seeing is a hardcore PRS fan that wants a tele but can't settle on any of the other options.
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Post by samspade on Jul 4, 2023 18:34:28 GMT -5
So I don't get why PRS get it in the neck so hard. Make it make sense, people I think it's because Suhr and Tyler stuff kind of started out copying Fender stuff, for PRS to do this lately with Strat/Tele type models is what I'm trying to make it make sense  |
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Post by langford on Jul 5, 2023 21:30:49 GMT -5
To be honest, I don't see a whole lot of Tele in that guitar. I'm sure it's a good instrument, but the "PRS does a Tele" thing is lost on me. Good marketing for PRS on the brand-recognition front, though.
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sirWheat
Wholenote
For a better future, play Stevie Wonder for your children.
Posts: 319
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Post by sirWheat on Jul 12, 2023 18:54:23 GMT -5
Meh...
I don't care about them trying to grab some tele market-share, I'm just one of those who think that no guitar could ever look good with that headstock. The few I've played were nice enough, just didn't grab me and while I can appreciate figured wood, most of what PRS fans rave about is just gaudy to me. And, being a woodworker for my job, the extra charge for the fancy wood is way off base (not that PRS is the only one guilty of this).
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Post by LeftyMeister on Jul 12, 2023 19:10:17 GMT -5
$2,900 for a bolt tele with mini buckers? Dang!
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tomcaster
Halfnote
Posts: 91
Formerly Known As: strat-hacker
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Post by tomcaster on Jul 14, 2023 14:22:28 GMT -5
$3K for a guitar and you get a gig bag?
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Post by samspade on Jul 14, 2023 20:25:46 GMT -5
the extra charge for the fancy wood is way off base I've never seen a case for a famous player guitar or my own experience where fancy tops made any difference. Liberace guitars are not my thing, I rather have something I'm not afraid to leave on the sofa and not in the case. |
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Jul 15, 2023 12:11:13 GMT -5
the extra charge for the fancy wood is way off base I've never seen a case for a famous player guitar or my own experience where fancy tops made any difference. Liberace guitars are not my thing, I rather have something I'm not afraid to leave on the sofa and not in the case. Yeah, solid body guitars have different tonewood rules. I see it a lot. People get stuck thinking about "high quality" vs "low quality", not realizing that trees don't grow by "quality", they grow for their own purposes, not about the carcass they leave behind that we might find useful. I'm not going to say wood doesn't matter on a solid body instrument (it absolutely does), it just doesn't matter the way people think it does. Lots of guitars get built from very dense, oily tropical woods that are just tonally dead, then you make one out of knotty pine and it sounds amazing. Just because a parlor guitar made of X wood sounds amazing doesn't mean a tele is also going to be improved, and vice versa. |
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Post by Leftee on Jul 15, 2023 13:06:53 GMT -5
I'll build you a weird guitar for a grand.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Jul 15, 2023 13:22:42 GMT -5
I'll build you a weird guitar for a grand. Oh, don't get me started!
Les Pauls being so expensive has always made my brain hurt. They're solid body instruments. The only complicated part is getting the top carve right, and CNCs have been able to do that for us for the past 30 years, we just need to not screw it up through the rest of the body prep. Fitting necks on those is a bit weird because of the way the fingerboard extension is (and they're likely losing a lot of time in the factory), but by 2023 this shouldn't be that hard either.
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Post by langford on Jul 15, 2023 21:06:18 GMT -5
Oh, don't get me started!
Les Pauls being so expensive has always made my brain hurt. They're solid body instruments. The only complicated part is getting the top carve right, and CNCs have been able to do that for us for the past 30 years, we just need to not screw it up through the rest of the body prep. Fitting necks on those is a bit weird because of the way the fingerboard extension is (and they're likely losing a lot of time in the factory), but by 2023 this shouldn't be that hard either.
Please, go on. I'm all ears. |
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Post by samspade on Jul 15, 2023 21:38:41 GMT -5
I wondered that too. So they carve the top with CNC which is a separate maple piece and then weight-relieve the mahogany by cutting some wood out and gluing the top on, right? Still easier than a hollow/semi-hollow body
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Post by reverendrob on Jul 15, 2023 23:27:27 GMT -5
Most of the Gibson pricing (and Fender for MIA stuff) is a combination of "luxury good markup" plus the ever-increasing costs of manufacturing in the US.
It AIN'T cheap.
At least on the Gibson stuff I'm getting finishes and set necks where I can tell the difference between them and the el-cheapo knockoffs.
A Fender bolt on, the difference is MUCH lower.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Jul 15, 2023 23:48:55 GMT -5
I wondered that too. So they carve the top with CNC which is a separate maple piece and then weight-relieve the mahogany by cutting some wood out and gluing the top on, right? Still easier than a hollow/semi-hollow body Close. The maple/maho glue joint is done before any CNC work when you're just dealing with slabs of wood. Laminated maple/maho slab is probably rough cut on a bandsaw, and put into the CNC machine. The CNC will carve the top in a way that it leaves tooling marks and ridges that have to be sanded out (our compatriot Peegoo does this at PRS), which is more tricky and tedious than it sounds, but not awful. You shouldn't need to be checking with curve templates like if you were hand carving an archtop or something, so you're just looking at scratches and making sure you don't go too crazy and make the shape weird.
(edited to add that it should be much easier at Gibson than PRS... PRS has those really deep recurves which probably slow it down a LOT.)
But, yeah. No braces, no side bending, no center block with the kerfs to attach back and top, no laminations. The mortise and tenon will be rough cut pretty close on the CNC, but the neck angle and final fit have usually been done by hand. I'm not aware of any major improvements in process at the factory, so this is probably still the case. That means getting the clean lines around the neck heel, a decent neck angle/center line projection, a good neck joint fit, and a good surface for the fingerboard to be glued, but that is PROBABLY planed down at an early point of assembly, and might be a non issue.
If they're matching necks/bodies very early, then there might be hang ups in work flow - neck has to get the peghead veneer and inlay (when applicable), body has to be sanded, not sure when they do the neck carve/final sanding in relation to the joint fitting - but if the pieces move in tandem, there could be too much standing still or too much handling of materials not being worked on in a given department in order to keep those pieces together.
Assemblers/adjusters (after finish putting it together and setting it up) are notoriously rushed through their jobs on all instruments, and they get a lot of turn over in those departments. Finishing is also strange over there... not a lot of cure time, way too many drop fills and other things than should be happening. They're probably losing a lot of process time needlessly, so in a way it probably is costing them that much to make a guitar, but not in the right way.
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Post by samspade on Jul 16, 2023 11:25:45 GMT -5
Thanks...makes sense, weight relief and maple/maho joint first. I'd like a factory tour...like the step where they stop for 10 seconds and charge $900 lol
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Jul 16, 2023 13:35:52 GMT -5
Yeah, you wouldn't be able to figure it out on a factory tour.
Some of it could be high amounts of rework. Stuff that has to go back for refinish, bad neck angles that have to be fixed or discarded once someone in assembly tries setting up, stuff like that.
Other stuff could be weirdness in the product line. They may have to over charge for a Les Paul because they're under charging on other guitars that are very hard to make and lose them money every time they go out the door. They may not fully realize it because they're not doing enough data capture to know the real cost of the instrument - some manager might tell them that a given process takes 30 minutes on the guitar and they set the price on that, when in reality the average is 2 hours and the best worker might crank one out in 40 minutes once or twice a month, and that is where they got the 30 minute figure, because they wanted to impress everyone. This is why process time needs to be constantly observed rather than having "time studies" where you get optimistic numbers and just get annoyed with every employee who fails at hitting time goals. Even Amazon has this problem in warehouses and among delivery drivers.
Or, spending outside of manufacturing. Maybe too many returns to the factory. Maybe too many side projects/pet projects (robo tuners anyone?).
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