The ShadowMusic Web Community

Well strap me to a tree and call me Brenda!!

Really good to hear somebody talk sense.... The video that is !

Considering the name of his company,he was on a mission.
Obvious stuff really, complete with a pop at Gibson.

And there's an - unspoken - sub text here... If necks and bodies are carved by machine, then there are no variations and no mistakes. Which means that, unlike 50's Fenders, for example, there's no guy shaping the necks using a pin sander etc... modern Chinese guitars are simply stunning for the money combining both machine consistency and hand skills. Mind you, my recent experience tells me that the Fender Modern Player series are better set up that an Epiphone 339 Ultra I bought last week...

Regardless of whether guitars are completely or partially 'hand made', I think if I had the money, I would prefer to choose and support an individual crafts person luthier (and I write craftsPERSON there not to be politically correct, but because there are also some excellent female luthiers around these days) and have a custom made one-off guitar to my own design and specifications, than buy a 'name' guitar, custom shop or not, which may only be a compromise with what I really wanted..

However, I don't have that sort of money at this time, so it's a good old Chinese cheap and cheerful Squier job that I use...