Keira WitherKay wrote
oh please don't anybody get me wrong .... heheh i think for all the work a luthier puts in it's prob worth every cent......
but i know a flamenco guitar i fancied from a luthier had close to a R60 000 price tag .... and before i even put a pickup system into it .....way beyond what i could spend ....
but yeah worth every cent in my mind ........
but neither I or any pro musician i know ....and i work 3 to 6 shows a week consistantly on pro circuit and do sessions ....could justify spending R60 000 on a guitar when the R5000(years old price) Yamaha classical i do use is doing the job and getting the tone.... just frustrating ...
There's many factors. One is that for a working musician the guitar is a tool. I can think of some guys who keep the really good stuff at home and use more mundane guitars for live work. EG The Who. EG Springsteen (though he does take his battered old no-caster out on the road, but he tends to use "off-the-shelf" acoustics). But then you get Jackson Browne who takes his Roy Smeck Gibsons and assorted other rarities on the road with him.
Of course all these guys are earning a tad more than Keira and most working musicians.
When it comes to bespoke guitars there are two factors that I believe pump up the price
1) You pay for the name. I have mentioned Nick Benjamin's guitars a couple of times on the forum. I saw his guitars (and had a long chat with him) at the Lewes Guitar Festival in 2007. Also on display were guitars by one Richard Osborne. I got to play an Osborne and was knocked out. Fab guitar. Not cheap, but cheaper than a Benjamin. Nick Benjamin was quite open about this - said that a guitar from him built to the same spec would cost a lot more "because Richard doesn't have a reputation yet." Benjamin advised me to buy an Osborne now because the price would eventually go up. Osborne was already getting very good prices for his mandolins, but was still working his way up the guitar ladder.
2) Collectors & hobbyists. I am always amused by the fact that whilst you see better players at, say, Andy McGibbons monthly "forum" you often see more in the way of guitar porn at TJs. Many guys who play at TJs are amateurs with the bond paid off, kids out of the house and NOW they can afford that lekker Martin or Gibson or whatever. I think the market that this kind of customer creates does push up the price on collectible and high-end instruments. (Though I note that there are some relative bargains available at George Gruhn's right now). Some people want a "coffee table" guitar to show off. I don't blame luthiers for taking advantage of such a market - they have to live.
But see my earlier point. My Smoothtalker has come in at less than you'd pay for a mid-range or upwards Taylor, for a 5 series Larrivee, for just about any Martin other than the ply-wood models. So "affordability" is relative I think.
What you can get with a guitar commisioned by a Luthier is a guitar tailored to your needs and wants. There is a value to that as well, though what that's worth varies from person to person.
The reason that I went down the Smoothtalker route was that I was having various problems with nerve entrapment. My left hand was sorted out by means of carpal tunnel relief surgery. The right elbow and fingers were a different problem.
I started thinking that I would need something like the "wedge" that Linda Manzer developed or the bevelled edges developed by "Grit" Laskin and also used by Marc Maingard and a couple of other builders. The idea in both cases is to reduce strain on the right elbow (for right-handed players). I got in touch with two SAn builders - Ian Corr and Mervyn Davis - who were willing to discuss this kind of adaption. Mervyn told me that he would not charge extra for the "wedge" if it was built into the guitar at construction time - and he'd done this kind of guitar before. There was the added advantage that Mervyn was close enough to Jo'burg that I could visit his workshop when necessary (despite having built a wedged guitar previously he was going to set up a jig that would allow me to try various degrees of "wedge").
As it turned out, the problems with the right elbow and hand were more job related than guitar related. An ergonomic keyboard and a switch to using the mouse left-handed cured most of the problems, though there was still some discomfort if I played a lot of guitar in one day. My order with Mervyn was already in place and paid for, so we just agreed that I would take the standard body (my thinking was that this would be easier to re-sell at some point in the future). However he made the point that because the bodies on his guitars are a little shallower and smaller in other dimensions that there would be relief just by virtue of playing a Smoothtalker - and I think he's right.
But my personal problems aside, dealing with a luthier does allow you to go down the road of these kinds of modifications and getting something tailored to your needs.
The degree of customising may vary from builder to builder. When I started dealing with Mervyn it was on the basis that I would get a
Smoothtalker - it would look and sound like a Smoothtalker. He was prepared to do the wedge, and because his design allows quite a lot of freedom as regards necks I could have pretty much any scale length and fingerboard width that I wanted. But that was as far as he was willing to go in terms of customisation. This was all discussed and understood up front and I had no problems with working within those parameters.
If you order a custom instrument from Lowden then you are pretty much stuck with their standard body shapes and choice of neck profiles, but you will get lots of options in terms of woods and the amount of bling.
Some makers will make just about anything you want, but most will have a standard design that they start from.
In the meantime I do occasionally wonder about that Osborne. I had a chance to buy one at 1400 pounds, I see he starts at 2450 now. That was a very impressive guitar - great tone, amazing playability. I'd hummed and hahed about it because we going to be back in the Brighton area right at the end of our trip, but then our baggage got ripped off betwen Lisbon and Barcelona and so I had to buy some replacement clothing and also replaced a whole lot of special wool that Maureen had bought (happily near to Brighton so we could get exact replacements). Oh well... ces't la vie and all that.
