stardaruni Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Hi everyone, Just an observation. We all speak about the hit and miss factor or rather the consistency that manufacters have when trying to produce fine instruments. Lets take guitars for example. I don't know what the exact numbers are but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Gibson makes 20,000 acoustic guitars a year in total. I'm sure they made much less than that figure in 1940 etc.... Stands to reason that even if the ration of good to mediocore guitars was 5 to 1 for past and present, that we would have more mediocore Gibsons coming out of the factory in modern times simply because of higher production numbers in modern times. A vintage guitar is not a guarantee that it will have tone to die for, I've played several acoustic and electric vintage guitars that were mediocore at best. Same for new guitars. For me the lesson is simple. A good guitar is a good guitar regardless of vintage. Now if you're a collector it's a different ball game. For collectors it's all about vintage pedigree, rareness, originality etc.... Sound and tonal qualities are a distant second when selecting a collectible instrument. Anyway. As always, just my three cents..... Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duluthdan Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Been said here before - sometimes old wood is just... old wood. But sometimes, it can be rather phenomenal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modoc_333 Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 i guess it all depends on what you call a "hit" or a "miss". the more you play, the higher that bar goes. in reality, very few are misses. almost every one is a good guitar. the more "great" ones you play though, the higher that bar goes and you start to see the "good" ones as sub-par. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesKing777 Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 i guess it all depends on what you call a "hit" or a "miss". the more you play, the higher that bar goes. in reality, very few are misses. almost every one is a good guitar. the more "great" ones you play though, the higher that bar goes and you start to see the "good" ones as sub-par. I'm with Modoc on this one.... I don't have a bad guitar theses days - they are just all VERY different.....for the different mood. I have to thank this very forum and UMGF for tips and pointers. BluesKing777. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I honestly do not think there is a mathematical formula for this kind of stuff. All of my six string guitars are old - dating from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s. I am not a collector - more of an accumulator as there is no rhyme or reason for what I own and most of what I have would be classified as player's guitars. I think with older guitars though where folks get in trouble is jumping on the first one they run across. I have always figured this was driven more by the worry that they would have trouble finding another one than by the fact that it was an example of the best of the breed. problem is it is hard to even know that unless you have played a bunch. Years ago I got the chance to play three 1956 SJs in the course of less than one year. All were in similar condition and all at roughly the same price point. I also got to take all three of them home to string them up properly and give them a decent test drive Thing is I would have been hacked off when I got to the third one had I bought either of the first two. Not saying they were dogs or anything but there was enough difference in sound and response that I would have felt I had made a mistake buying either of the first two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmonsh Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 well im batting a 1000% with gibsons. a 60,s les paul I had in the early 70,s and one of the 1st j-35[new ones],s. both are stellar examples of the only gibsons i have owned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fsharp Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Like anybody in manufacturing, and especially with so much precise, manual labor involved, they are going to build a certain number of imperfect instruments. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of issues/guitar goes up and down with the addition of new employees. What really matters is how good the Q/A department is at catching the mistakes before they slip out the door, their willingness to throw away a couple thousand dollars worth of marginal products and finally, the ability to figure out why the mistake happened and how to prevent it in the future. The difficulty with guitars I would imagine, is that its relatively easy to catch the cosmetic or measurable issues (bad finish, strings too high or too low, excess glue around a stiffener...) but it must be very difficult to decide that any given guitar is visually perfect yet just doesn't sound right. The sound is so subjective. Its obvious that when buying older guitars, not only do you have the potential for a bad one from the factory, you also have to deal with their history. If they were put in a closet and never played, then the sound isn't going to be any more open than a new one. Who knows - maybe beer bonds with the finish over time to produce sweeter sounds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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