Keira-WitherKay
in last 6 months i have bought 2 new guitars , as in from the dealers and out of the box............ and both were in a bad way regarding setup and playability right out of the box.............
a few months back in june last year i bought a brand new Fender american standard tele , from a music store .....and the guitar came with a badly setup nut and intonation that was hideously out ....... dispite this being a guitar which in this country carries a retail of 20 K and after discount it's 12 - 13 K BUT i still had to spend extra on a setup ........ on top of the inflated fender price which is only $1000 in states ........ i expected better set up guitar out of the factory .......
BUT i thought this was pretty isolated......till this week
i bought yet another brand new guitar this time a $1100 dollar list price and $700 street price epiphone emperor regent archtop jazz guitar which i paid R6200 which is in line with the usa street price NOT like the fenders .........
BUt i got to see this guitar 2 days ago.....when it arrived at marshall music ..........and it was so unplayable that it buzzed at the 5th fret and many other places .....shocking to think it left the factoty like that ..............
BUT THE GREAT NEWS , and huge thank you to Marshall music woodmead , ( stuart and garth ) cos when i pointed this out to them they immeadiatly offered to sort it out at their expense .... the guitar which is beautiful and really well made (construction wise) was just not set up at all..........
so Marshall music paid for it to be sorted for me........... and they did pay ..cos they have JD running a workshop there on the same premises but he's a private biz....not part of marshall music .....so jd would actually invoice marshall for any repairs and so JD got the guitar 2 days ago ........... after i basically said i would NOT buy it in the state it was.........and the guitar had a full fretdress , a pro setup with my choice of strings and the stock plastic nut which was cut badly was not just recut but replaced for me with a graphtec nut ..........so i reckon about a grands worth for the setup /fretdress and new graphite nut and they (Marshall) music covered the costs ,,, without too much screaming and shouting from my side
so yes i went to fetch the guitar today and it's awesome .......... on arrival..... fussy as i am........ i got them to lower the action even more and tweak the truss rod one last time...but now it's a lovely flat action and sounding sweet and not one buzz or dead note .............. love it love it love it
but i appreciate that Marshall took the responsibility to get the guitar sorted for me to my liking .......... and i sing their praises for this.........
but later on speaking to them i hear most guitars come out of the factory in a hit or miss state quite often shocking ......sure we not talking bad craftsmanship BUT just NO or bad setups when they leave the factory
you know if i buy a guitar off gumtree or 2nd hand i expect to spring for a setup .....BUT NOT when i buy a new guitar at the asking price..........
so yes the tele i fixed at my expense , but thanks to my big mouth .......and not just accepting a below average setup instrument , and thanks to Marshall music putting their money where their reputation is ..............i have an awesome jazz archtop which plays like a dream
But what woulda happened if i was too shy to bitch and moan .........
and i think it's attrocious that guitars can leave the factory in the state they do ...and the guitar buying public accept it ........ or is that "just the way it is" ?
Gearhead
A factor might be that the weather/climate around the globe can be different enough to f up a good setup. No reason not to set a guit up before shipping, but if you're going to skimp somewhere...
MikeM
Not to mention stores putting strings on that are different from the gauge that the guitar was made for. I am not sure if many stores even do this anymore though?
AlanRatcliffe
It's been going on the last 40 years Keira - where you bin? ? Labour is expensive and setup is labour intensive. So very few mass produced instruments are properly set up. At one point Gibson wasn't even doing the basic, by the numbers setup you get from the Asian instruments these days (I think that was the main reason a lot of stuff slipped through their QC).
singemonkey
cough-MIJ-cough!
Ok. No one is perfect. You can find dud MIJs too. But Japanese made instruments do pay more attention in this area in particular. As Japanese industry does in other fields as well. You just won't find the same number of poorly finished instruments from the land of the rising sun. At least not for the past 30 years.
It's a rare manufacturer outside that country that puts in the same amount of dedication to this particular area. And I don't just say that for the brands I'm allegedly "shilling" for. Hell, even Gibson's Epiphone MIJ Elitist line are allegedly spectacular out of the box. ?
Bob-Dubery
Like Alan says, this is nothing new. Gibson/Epiphone have a particularly bad reputation in this regard. The attitude seems to be "we make them, the store can set them up". I haven't heard as bad about Fender.
Some brands are very good in this regard - McGibbon's were offering a free set up with every Tokai but (they told me) they didn't have to do very much at all because those guitars left the factory in such good shape. Larrivees used to arrive at McGibbon's in pretty good shape. When Andy had Eastmans in the shop the top range models were pretty well set up, but lower down the range they did need some work.
Tokai-SA
The problem is, it's impossible for music stores to setup every guitar that's in stock.
If a store has a guitar tech on hand, he'll never get a chance to tweak every guitar.
By setup I don't mean perfectly setup, I mean just tweaked to be playable, the final setup can be done once the guitar is sold.
So, they rely on the guitars being reasonably well setup & finished from the factory.
No excuses for bad finish/quality and nasty setups, it is possible, you'll rarely see a USA PRS or Tom Anderson arrive at a store with a bad setup or finish.
Strings? lol, the day a music store voluntarily changes a set of 'old' strings on a stock guitar is the day I take you all to Sun City for the weekend. ?
Jack-Flash-Jr
While I agree I think most guitars will need to be tweaked for individual preference anyway... not that that is an excuse for a terrible set-up. Good on MM but I wonder if they'd have done it for a customer they didn't know and love ?
Keira-WitherKay
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
It's been going on the last 40 years Keira - where you bin? ?
? alan truth be told in last 25 years i've bought all but maybe 5 including these 2 guitars new ? a prefer old guitars and buy only electronic gear new . So i've never really been exposed to this new guitar experience and truth be told , i don't like what i see . Both my purchases were fixable problems , but both were so bad that without the setup the guitars were unplayable so much so i would not take it to a gig . I almost didn't buy the epiphone if it was not fixed at their expense . I don't mind a tweak or two but in both cases we taking serious setup issues , i mean needing a fret dress right out of the box is a bit beyond a truss rod tweak . I won't be in a rush to buy new gear again .
Bob-Dubery
Tokai SA wrote:
The problem is, it's impossible for music stores to setup every guitar that's in stock.
If a store has a guitar tech on hand, he'll never get a chance to tweak every guitar.
By setup I don't mean perfectly setup, I mean just tweaked to be playable, the final setup can be done once the guitar is sold.
So, they rely on the guitars being reasonably well setup & finished from the factory.
But I think there are some manufacturers (not all, but some) who work on the opposing assumption - that it's the job's shop to set the guitar up.
camba
Hi Keira,
glad that you got it sorted out, I saw your guitar at MM, when I took my (new) Ibanez AF75 in, so that they could lower the action a bit, it also has a bit of fret-buzz (esp. when the action is very low), but I left that repair/fix for later. Also, the truss rod was quite loose!
Frustrating that the factory cannot do a proper setup.
AlanRatcliffe
X-rated Bob wrote:
But I think there are some manufacturers (not all, but some) who work on the opposing assumption - that it's the job's shop to set the guitar up.
He has a shop too? I know he had a lot... ?
Final setup I can agree, thanks to differing climates. But my argument with the manufacturers who don't do any setup at all is that it is impossible to do any meaningful QC checks if the guitar is not set up. For instance: If either the action is high or the truss is not set it is impossible to check neck angle, bridge position, intonation or frets properly.
dee
Tokai SA wrote:
No excuses for bad finish/quality and nasty setups, it is possible, you'll rarely see a USA PRS or Tom Anderson arrive at a store with a bad setup or finish.
Even my PRS SE came perfectly set up out of the box. And I literately mean when I went to pick it up I was the one that broke the seals and unpacked it. The store has not even touched it yet.
Maybe this is a numbers thing like Alan said, where the big producers simply don't have the time to properly check each individual instrument, and assumes that the local stores will deal with it as the guitar gets sold. Maybe the small number of "bad" guitars that gets sent back to them makes its financially viable as opposed to having an in depth QC process.
Averatu
Eish, not cool.
My Gibson on the other hand came with a signed certificate of inspection and all was good. I was rather impressed.
AlanRatcliffe
Averatu wrote:
My Gibson on the other hand came with a signed certificate of inspection and all was good. I was rather impressed.
Custom shop? I ask because the standard US models were the worst offenders when I was doing all their warrantee work in the '90s.
DonovanB
With any mass production process they don't check everything but a sample or set of samples.
It works in that you can start out checking every guitar and find no problems. so then you check every 5th guitar and so on. which means for every guitar you check, there are 4 that go unchecked. The process of manufacture is the same so the guitars shouldn't vary as much as they do.
as long as they can be set up afterwards I'm sure the manufacturers don't mind.
Averatu
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Averatu wrote:
My Gibson on the other hand came with a signed certificate of inspection and all was good. I was rather impressed.
Custom shop? I ask because the standard US models were the worst offenders when I was doing all their warrantee work in the '90s.
No, just a melody maker V.
Manfred-Klose
i use to go and test out guitars at my local shop as they arrived out of the box.
and the 2 guitar brands that were always pretty much perfect was the PRS SE range and Corts.
MoJo-JoJoe
I feel that where a brand hasn't done a good setup at the factory, the local distributor should be ensuring delivery of well setup instruments to the shops. This is in the best interests of THEIR brand.
Also one has to recognise that the higher-ticket guitars usually are shipped from factory with decent setups. Obviously some of that higher price is due to the extra QC and finishing/setup time spent. I've unsealed many PRS guitars both USA made and Korean made SE models and never been disappointed. In fact the guitars have ALL even been close enough in tune for one to play it without having to touch a tuner button. ALL PRS guitars are final-checked and setup in the USA at their Maryland factory - including all Korean-made SE models. I've never had a problem with a Fender Custom Shop instrument's setup when unsealing a box either. Can't talk to Gibson as I've only ever bought those 2nd hand.
Bob-Dubery
Where does the buck stop? If you buy a new Ibanez or a new Tokai from Music Connection then that's not THEIR brand. If the guitar needs setting up then should they bear the cost? Are we expecting them to inspect every guitar that comes in to their shop and do the necessary? And are we willing to pay the extra? Setting up every guitar in the store is going to cost them money. Which is why some manufacturers don't do it - to cut costs.
I don't know where the answer is, but I do know it's going to involve a cost to somebody.
