Post
by electricskychurch » Sun Jan 11, 2009 8:01 am
if it's true, then it "s sad news !
in another hand, in the actual world, where it becomes tougher and tougher to produce some instruments like in the old days, partly due to the fact that environmental laws are much more restraining (despite USA and a few other well develloped countries have not signed for some of those restraining laws ... LOL) , also, because it costs much more to produce a guitar like that than it was in the 50's or 60's (salaries and raw material have raised).
also, there are so many companies making guitars out there without even talking about internet that gives access to everyone to nearly everything on the planet, what increases the challenges between companies and makes it harder to survive for many ...
i was really surprised a few years ago (maybe 5 or 6 ) when Gibson really reduced their prices (Fender as well but less if i remember well).
an SG standard was costing 1750 Euros shop prices and it went down to 1250 Euros !!!
a les paul standard was about 2750 euros and went down to 2250 euros or so.
for sure, for people that had just bought an SG standard or a les paul standard , it was really tough news to swallow !
i was really wondering how they could lower the prices so much, and it was the same for the historic collection custom shop instruments !
i felt there was a decline of the quality of some insruments, especialy in the wood selection of the USA serie and less will to make them look as authentic to differentiate them from the historic collection.
i suppose, to remove 500 € (+/- 650 $) on the USA serie instruments, they had to take some money somewhere in the production of the instruments or in the raw material cost.
maybe they also could afford to lower the prices as they had overpriced them for a while ... ?
i don't know but one can wonder about it.
still, i think some custom shop Gibson ri's are great instruments.
to come back to fender, i have to say that the custom shop ones are not cheap instruments, especialy when you pay full price for some of them but are good instruments.
i had not tried many custom shop time machine with good amps, so i couldn't really tell but what i had heard until recently from american standard serie , american vintage and signature series as well as with off shelf Fender other pu's i tried on these guitars , didn't please me so much i could say i was totaly satisfied.
it took me years to realise that, the time to have about 10 strats since the late 80's and my first american standard , discover what is a good tube amp , with the right speakers and finaly hear some very good sounding original ealy/mid 60's strats as reference (very few of these 50's to 70's amps were available here and even fewer of these 50's and 60's guitars although one can find a bit more since internet has broke through !)
i finaly tried some oiginal 63 and 66 ones and fell in love with the tone.
at the same time i decided to find some second hand custom shop time machine series 1st cause they are cheaper and also as in France on top of excessive import prices (due partly to taxes) you can nearly only find Relic ones .
a few words about Relic, i really can't get use to buy a totaly beaten up guitar much more expensive than a NOS whereas i would not even bother if it was a recent guitar someone had bought new recently and totaly beaten up before wanting to sell it second hand !!
i like (Gibson) aged ones or some Fender closet classics but not the relic ones and certainly don't want to pay them even more expensive even if i know it's some extra work for them and i appreciate the work done but certainly not for me (unless i was to fall in love with them if one puts a spell on me but as Ulysses and the Mermaids i try to listen to reason ) ! LOL
i certainly understand it's a way for them to offer trendy products, cope with the fact some like old / beaten up looking guitars and also as it's pure value-added to their products for nearly no extra raw material cost , just hours of work they can bill to customers as long as they convince them to buy those instruments ... LOL
some say the Relic sound better but until i am proved the contrary, i would tend to think they use the same woods but not exactly the same lacquer from what i read , as one has to age faster ).
so, to come back to the time machine overall subject, i tested a 66' time machine strat NOS recently and was surprised with the tone.
i had the luck to find an original 65' enamel winding pu i put in the bridge to compare.
at first i thought it was quiet different (and even told George in an email , joking, that they must be deaf at fender and gibson as their pu's are far from the original ones ! LOL ) but after i put back the stock bridge pu i thought it was not that far !
the stock PU was 5,6 k and the original was 6,4k , so obviously, there was some differences but knowing about that and listening to the two pu's i finaly thought those custom shop pu's sold on time machine serie didn't seem that bad (at least the 66' ones ) .
also, i suppose the wood itself is better (the time machine seem to sound better unplugged than teh other Fender guitars i tried) , the wood selection for custom shop seems to be better and doesn't seem to come from the same supply than regular ones from what i read but despite i searched the internet, i couldn't find any infos on how they select the woods for the custom shop !!
i paid a reasonable price for them , so it's not like if i had to say that because i had paid so much i wouldn't be able to say i don't like them ! LOL
i will have the possibility to try a closet classic strat 60' and a 63/64 original one with formvar pu's as well , side by side , soon, so i will be able to hear if what i experienced confirms or not !
the friend that brought his 63 and 66 original strats said he went through many ones even master built and wasn't satisfied untill he bought vintage but he never tried vintage pu's in custom shop ones to hear the differences !
also, i think Fender might be improving his time machine series year after year, as Gibson is trying to do as well with the historic and VOS , although i don't think it's possible to say that an actual one is really better than one made in the mid / late 90's ; it really depends on the guitar itself .
i havn't tried the Brstbucker 1, 2 and 3 but from what i read, it doesn't seem they are the best PAF repros out there ( and i don't think the classic 57 are either after i had several ones even if they are interesting for some tone / guitar /amps combination)
so, all that to say that for nowdays i think the Fender custom shop offers nice guitars at list or second hand US prices, sometimes export prices as well depending on the models , especialy if you don't buy the most expensive Relic ones .
but if the prices are going up, then it will become more difficult for most people to afford a good instrument like that or even the regular standard and american vintage ones .
do you know if Gibson is increasing their prices as well ?
Last edited by
electricskychurch on Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
