The BS of Guitar Companies

[flyfisher]

[quote name='Monckyman' timestamp='1397667929' post='2426306']
And from the French,
Right=a droit: =clever, done well.
Left =gauche =clumsy,unsure.
[/quote]


And from the English:
Right = right
Left = wrong

[throwoff]

I forgot to post this earlier but let me tell you a story.

A true story I was told by a good friend of mine in the business a few years ago at Messe (the store workers here might already know it)

A few years back a well respected guitar company I will not name (not a Fender or Gibson but a well known brand) publicly announced they had received so many requests for a lefty version of one of their instruments they where happy to do a limited run.

The deal was simple, they needed to make 200 of them, charge a 10% upcharge for the lefty bridge etc to be made, all of which cost them more.
If 150 lefties went into dealers world wide and paid a small deposit allowing the store to order one they would do the run.

They direct emailed all the people who had ever emailed complaining about the lack of a lefty model, put out a press release and got all their reps letting stores know they could offer it.

6 months later the whole thing was cancelled as under 20 people had actually put their hand in their pocket and said yes I want one.

This was not an expensive bass (sub 1k by a chunk) but it goes to show that those who shout loudest don't always equate to those who are willing to do something.

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='throwoff' timestamp='1397680018' post='2426492']
I forgot to post this earlier but let me tell you a story.

A true story I was told by a good friend of mine in the business a few years ago at Messe (the store workers here might already know it)

A few years back a well respected guitar company I will not name (not a Fender or Gibson but a well known brand) publicly announced they had received so many requests for a lefty version of one of their instruments they where happy to do a limited run.

The deal was simple, they needed to make 200 of them, charge a 10% upcharge for the lefty bridge etc to be made, all of which cost them more.
If 150 lefties went into dealers world wide and paid a small deposit allowing the store to order one they would do the run.

They direct emailed all the people who had ever emailed complaining about the lack of a lefty model, put out a press release and got all their reps letting stores know they could offer it.

6 months later the whole thing was cancelled as under 20 people had actually put their hand in their pocket and said yes I want one.

This was not an expensive bass (sub 1k by a chunk) but it goes to show that those who shout loudest don't always equate to those who are willing to do something.
[/quote] I think if I played lefties (as opposed to just being left handed) getting instruments I wanted wouldn't be a problem - there's always going to be a way in most cases to get near enough what you're after.... what I would miss out on would be being able to try lots of things and pick up bargains (apart from that carvin that I think is the one molan has just reduced) ... but that wouldn't actually make any more money for anyone or make it more likely that more lefties would be made.

[KingBollock]

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1397644876' post='2425926']


Being absolutely useless at doing most things with my right hand I may not be the best person to comment on this, but it looks like a spurious argument to me. I mean, if it was true, then there would be a lot of demand for lefty instruments by right-handed players who would want to use their more "dextrous" hand on the fingerboard as opposed to using it for plucking.
[/quote]
Yeah, I have trouble with this argument, too. It is not a case, as some have suggested, that righties don't play lefties because they can't get lefties, because if it was more natural to play that way then guitars, and other instruments that have a bias, would have always been made the other way around (except for the occasional black righty for the lefties, obviously).

I am right handed, though I do enough things left handedly that some of my friends and family used to think I was left handed, but I can't get my head around playing bass left handedly at all, it feels completely alien to me, so I really do feel for lefties forced to do things the wrong way.

[leftybassman392]

When we take over the world, can I be secretary of state for music?

If appointed, my first action will be to line every right-handed person in the world up against the nearest wall and zap them with this......

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsgbcYnmR6Y"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsgbcYnmR6Y[/url]

Why everybody? Because it occurs to me that some payback is due, that's why!. They'd see things our way and we'd feel better. Win-win!

Mwahahahahahah!!

[molan]

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1397671720' post='2426363']


Link please Barrie?
[/quote]

Don't worry Silvia, it was only £150 extra off the, already heavily discounted, price - if you called we'd take £200 off!

[Transmogrifier1]

Having looked at the website Molan, it seems that it isn't just the left handed Carvin that is heavily discounted but most of the others too. Could just be that people don't want to spend that much on a Carvin.
Out of interest has there been a right handed Carvin you have in stock that has been on sale as long as the left handed one?

Edited April 17, 2014 by Transmogrifier1

[Silvia Bluejay]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1397687825' post='2426604']
Don't worry Silvia, it was only £150 extra off the, already heavily discounted, price - if you called we'd take £200 off!
[/quote]

I will if it's still there when I'm slightly less completely skint...

[Dave Vader]

Saw another fantastic lefty guitar player last night, he had turned it upside down, didn't even change the strings around.
Played rings around most other guitarists I know.
Said it was how he'd learned it, so it seemed pretty normal to him.

[SubsonicSimpleton]

Reading through this thread I did notice that one aspect of this whole argument seems to have been overlooked, so I'll don my asbestos underpants and play devils advocate;

Is lack of choice really a problem, or could it also be viewed as an advantage?

Right handed bass and guitar players are overwhelmed with choices, which seems to lead quite easily to serious GAS which is basically an excuse to avoid practising because buying a new bit of kit believing it is the answer to your problems is easier.

So if you viewed the situation from the POV of being a musician rather than a consumer/collector, being restricted in what is available to purchase shouldn't be a massive issue, as it is one less distraction from actually making music. The most talented musicians that I've had the good fortune and pleasure to play with all stuck to one instrument which they were intimately familiar with, and in the ocasional situations where I saw them pick up something else, they still sounded good and very much themselves.

Conversely, I've also met plenty of bad/mediocre (mostly guitar) players with really extensive instrument/equipment collections, and if you can't play for toffee, a megabucks dragon inlay PRS and a boutique amp isn't magically going to endow you with talent.

As a percentage, how many instruments actually get played on a daily basis as opposed to being ornaments, or sitting in their racks/cases unplayed for months or even years on end?

Was Jaco Pastorius disadvantaged by using predominantly the same sunburst jazz his whole career?

Undoubtably if you want to go on a massive GAS binge as a lefty and welcome the inherent financial issues that will arise, or are sufficiently rich to not care, then lack of choice is going to be frustrating, but is this really a barrier to making music, or just materialistic consumtion?

[Dave Vader]

[quote name='SubsonicSimpleton' timestamp='1397747575' post='2427065']
Reading through this thread I did notice that one aspect of this whole argument seems to have been overlooked, so I'll don my asbestos underpants and play devils advocate;

Is lack of choice really a problem, or could it also be viewed as an advantage?

Right handed bass and guitar players are overwhelmed with choices, which seems to lead quite easily to serious GAS which is basically an excuse to avoid practising because buying a new bit of kit believing it is the answer to your problems is easier.

So if you viewed the situation from the POV of being a musician rather than a consumer/collector, being restricted in what is available to purchase shouldn't be a massive issue, as it is one less distraction from actually making music. The most talented musicians that I've had the good fortune and pleasure to play with all stuck to one instrument which they were intimately familiar with, and in the ocasional situations where I saw them pick up something else, they still sounded good and very much themselves.

Conversely, I've also met plenty of bad/mediocre (mostly guitar) players with really extensive instrument/equipment collections, and if you can't play for toffee, a megabucks dragon inlay PRS and a boutique amp isn't magically going to endow you with talent.

As a percentage, how many instruments actually get played on a daily basis as opposed to being ornaments, or sitting in their racks/cases unplayed for months or even years on end?

Was Jaco Pastorius disadvantaged by using predominantly the same sunburst jazz his whole career?

Undoubtably if you want to go on a massive GAS binge as a lefty and welcome the inherent financial issues that will arise, or are sufficiently rich to not care, then lack of choice is going to be frustrating, but is this really a barrier to making music, or just materialistic consumtion?
[/quote]

I like this.

[Woodinblack]

[quote name='SubsonicSimpleton' timestamp='1397747575' post='2427065']
As a percentage, how many instruments actually get played on a daily basis as opposed to being ornaments, or sitting in their racks/cases unplayed for months or even years on end?
[/quote]

Umm.. generally speaking.. 6.25%

[Mark Dyer]

[quote name='SubsonicSimpleton' timestamp='1397747575' post='2427065']
Reading through this thread I did notice that one aspect of this whole argument seems to have been overlooked, so I'll don my asbestos underpants and play devils advocate;

Is lack of choice really a problem, or could it also be viewed as an advantage?

Right handed bass and guitar players are overwhelmed with choices, which seems to lead quite easily to serious GAS which is basically an excuse to avoid practising because buying a new bit of kit believing it is the answer to your problems is easier.

So if you viewed the situation from the POV of being a musician rather than a consumer/collector, being restricted in what is available to purchase shouldn't be a massive issue, as it is one less distraction from actually making music. The most talented musicians that I've had the good fortune and pleasure to play with all stuck to one instrument which they were intimately familiar with, and in the ocasional situations where I saw them pick up something else, they still sounded good and very much themselves.

Conversely, I've also met plenty of bad/mediocre (mostly guitar) players with really extensive instrument/equipment collections, and if you can't play for toffee, a megabucks dragon inlay PRS and a boutique amp isn't magically going to endow you with talent.

As a percentage, how many instruments actually get played on a daily basis as opposed to being ornaments, or sitting in their racks/cases unplayed for months or even years on end?

Was Jaco Pastorius disadvantaged by using predominantly the same sunburst jazz his whole career?

Undoubtably if you want to go on a massive GAS binge as a lefty and welcome the inherent financial issues that will arise, or are sufficiently rich to not care, then lack of choice is going to be frustrating, but is this really a barrier to making music, or just materialistic consumtion?
[/quote]

This is genius, at last we have an answer to the problem, all we need to do is convince all guitar manufacturers to strip back production of their entire range so it matches the guitars currently on offer for LH players. Then RH or LH players alike need never worry about those difficult choices again and we can all concentrate on improving our playing, instead of worrying about book matched veneers or led inlays.

Meanwhile I guess all those redundant craftsmen and technicians previously employed in pushing boundaries in guitar design could go work for NASA or something.

It's genius, I should've thought of this a long time ago

[UglyDog]

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1397653462' post='2426079']
OK, so here we have people who say the plucking hand should not be perceived as the dominant one; therefore lefties can play a righty instrument with their "better" hand in the correct place. Yay. So,why isn't that true of righties then? Why isn't there an absolutely massive demand for lefty instruments, if you guys' "better" hand, the right, is more suited to the fretboard?
[/quote]
To be honest, this has long mystefied me. I mean, when you think about it logically, it does follow that one's most sensitive and for want of a better word 'dexterous' hand should be the one doing the fretting. So why is this not the case for 99.9% of us? How do we end up doing the comparitively ploddy plucking stuff with the same hand we write with, and doing the intricate notey stuff with our weaker limb? Why is it that it feels so natural to be doing it, effectively, arse about face?

[Dave Vader]

[quote name='UglyDog' timestamp='1397755294' post='2427154']
To be honest, this has long mystefied me. I mean, when you think about it logically, it does follow that one's most sensitive and for want of a better word 'dexterous' hand should be the one doing the fretting. So why is this not the case for 99.9% of us? How do we end up doing the comparitively ploddy plucking stuff with the same hand we write with, and doing the intricate notey stuff with our weaker limb? Why is it that it feels so natural to be doing it, effectively, arse about face?
[/quote]

Cos that's the way we were told to do it (I reckon it was a lefty that came up with it, conspiracy theory no. 1)

[charic]

I think its because you 'lead' with your plucking hand maybe?

[leftybassman392]

Picking up on Charic's point...

It's because your picking hand is the the one mainly responsible for producing the sound (and hence whatever subtleties the sound may contain). The fretting hand is for the most part carrying out a series of more or less mechanical actions.

In practice of course it isn't quite as simple as that - certainly not the way a lot of modern players approach the instrument - but in the history of stringed instruments it's always been the dominant hand that's been responsible for sound production whilst the weak hand's only 'job' (so to speak) is to be in the right place at the right time.

When so many modern players of stringed instruments have such an active fretting hand it can be easy to forget this, but the widdly fretboard techniques so many of us like to deploy in our playing are in historical terms a [b][i]very [/i][/b]recent phenomenon in an instrument group whose origins go back well over 2,000 years.

[Silvia Bluejay]

What you say makes perfect sense to me.

[DorsetBlue]

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1397653061' post='2426067']
If you need left handed basses, there are 3 in the music shop in dorchester. I haven't been there in a while, but they were there 2.5 years ago when i started a job there, and they were still there last year when I left it, so I would put money on them still being there.
[/quote]

I will assume you mean Dorchester, Dorset and not Dorchester on Thames?

If the former, there were/are 4 in that timeframe in the music shop in question. However one is an old bashed up Aria (which I had to point out that the pole pieces in the pickups had come out) being sold for silly money (IMHO). Another is a nice looking blue Indie Jazz (being sold for silly money again IMHO). Another is a natural previously blue Indie Jazz but not entirely well stripped i.e. I can tell it used to be a blue Indie (being sold for silly money again.) The other one I can think of was a secondhand Musicman USA Sterling which was purchased by a member of this site, after I told them about it and has been subsequently sold again on this site (see Lefties for Sale).
Not doing down the music shop in question, as I consider them an important local resource but anything with 'Indie' on puts me off straight away and seems to be listed for silly money e.g. Indie leftie SG guitar copy was £499, my Vintage LVS6 was £200 - a proper Gibby (admittedly satin effect one) can be had for £499. I have previously purchased (and subsequently sold) a lefty guitar from them, along with many books, picks etc.

[Woodinblack]

[quote name='DorsetBlue' timestamp='1398169163' post='2431072']
I will assume you mean Dorchester, Dorset and not Dorchester on Thames?
[/quote]

I didn't even know there was a dorchester on thames. There is a dorchester in Boston MA, but I didn't mean that one either, as apparently it is quite rough, and nothing at all like the one in dorset (I doubt they even know how to play mull of kintire on a penny whistle).

[quote name='DorsetBlue' timestamp='1398169163' post='2431072']
If the former, there were/are 4 in that timeframe in the music shop in question. However one is an old bashed up Aria (which I had to point out that the pole pieces in the pickups had come out) being sold for silly money (IMHO). Another is a nice looking blue Indie Jazz (being sold for silly money again IMHO). Another is a natural previously blue Indie Jazz but not entirely well stripped i.e. I can tell it used to be a blue Indie (being sold for silly money again.) The other one I can think of was a secondhand Musicman USA Sterling which was purchased by a member of this site, after I told them about it and has been subsequently sold again on this site (see Lefties for Sale).
[/quote]

Fair enough, but considering how few bass guitars they have in there altogether, that is a pretty high number of basses, even if they weren't all that good. There certainly weren't many right handed basses I wanted in there (although I think they had a fender jazz fretless at one point)


[quote name='DorsetBlue' timestamp='1398169163' post='2431072']Not doing down the music shop in question, as I consider them an important local resource but anything with 'Indie' on puts me off straight away and seems to be listed for silly money e.g. Indie leftie SG guitar copy was £499, my Vintage LVS6 was £200 - a proper Gibby (admittedly satin effect one) can be had for £499.
[/quote]

I agree they are priced too high as people go for the name, but having had an indie tribal (in fact I still have it) and a gibson les paul (just sold), the indie was actually the better guitar. But as you say, the gibson name carries more weight, certainly if you want to sell it.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Woodinblack

[molan]

Quick numbers analysis - our monthly newsletter had a direct link to a 'funky lefty' bass.

In the interests of fairness I deliberately didn't give it a big feature picture but gave a direct link in the text (along with a lot of other basses).

Th click rate of the lefty link was 1.6%, the other most similar link in the same paragraph was for a 'fretless 5' (not exactly a high traffic/demand item) and this delivered just over 5 times as much response.

Of course, it's entirely possible that our general lack of lefty basses might mean our database of subscribers (which totals several thousands) is heavily skewed towards right handed players.

[Silvia Bluejay]

Your database is probably simply skewed towards bassists who play right-handed, whether lefties or not.

I was one of the people who visited the website and clicked on that gorgeous lefty Carvin! Several times. Then I clicked on my online banking thingy, looked in, got scared, and had to close the Bass Gear tab before it was too late...

Edited April 23, 2014 by bluejay

[DorsetBlue]

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1398280116' post='2432487']
I agree they are priced too high as people go for the name, but having had an indie tribal (in fact I still have it) and a gibson les paul (just sold), the indie was actually the better guitar. But as you say, the gibson name carries more weight, certainly if you want to sell it.
[/quote]

Regarding that Indie SG, I loved it when I picked it up. Nice weight and sat well but it was not a £499 guitar - £299 to £350 at a push. My LVS6, although a little heavier, certainly wasn't far off it (after a change of strings). My experience of £499 gibsons is rather lacking, they did not have one in GAK when I visited last year. I did walk away with a SG Standard though, which may be an unfair comparison. :-)
It is worth noting that the shop in question, has had quite a price cutting session recently though - that Fender Jazz may still be there too.

[leftybassman392]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1398284884' post='2432583']
Quick numbers analysis - our monthly newsletter had a direct link to a 'funky lefty' bass.

In the interests of fairness I deliberately didn't give it a big feature picture but gave a direct link in the text (along with a lot of other basses).

Th click rate of the lefty link was 1.6%, the other most similar link in the same paragraph was for a 'fretless 5' (not exactly a high traffic/demand item) and this delivered just over 5 times as much response.

<snipped>
[/quote]

Like a lot of Lefty players I've had to get used to sourcing my gear via tried and tested channels, and can't remember the last time I looked in an 'ordinary' High Street shop (no offence intended BTW). I suspect it's a bit of a 'chicken and egg' situation (and I have no solution to offer), but what you say doesn't really surprise me TBH (although a bit more background on these numbers might be handy - I'm not actually convinced that they're telling you what they appear to). Whenever I had a Lefty student wanting a new instrument I would routinely offer to source one for them. Just made life easier for both of us.

On one level I do actually sympathise with the OP - I've certainly gone through the same rage myself; but these days I simply go with what I know works for me. Life's too short to get overly exercised because people won't make what you want to buy.

Edited April 24, 2014 by leftybassman392

[Woodinblack]

[quote name='DorsetBlue' timestamp='1398292865' post='2432702']
It is worth noting that the shop in question, has had quite a price cutting session recently though - that Fender Jazz may still be there too.
[/quote]

Price cutting you say? hmmm.. I don't get down there much these days but maybe it is time I did!