Letts Bass

[binky_bass]

I've had the misfortune of owning a few of his basses, they are trash. 

 

The 7 string I ordered from him years ago had a fixed bridge with filed saddles that couldn't be moved and it was positioned in such a way that the intonation was way WAY off and couldn't be adjusted therefore was uselessas an instrument. The build quality was quite poor too. 

 

The price is there for a reason. Literally any bass you could buy brand new at that same price point will be better. 

 

Don't waste your time and money dealing with him, you will get burned. 

Edited February 1 by binky_bass

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

Call me what you like, but I have absolutely zero sympathy with the ‘builder’.

@EddieG has been far more accommodating than I would have over this debt.

Letts can give all the excuses he likes, but nothing excuses the fact that he has not started any sort of repayment plan.

Even a couple of £’s a week/month would be a start and that’s if you buy into the fact that he is a skint as he says he is. I don’t.

He’s in business selling and shipping basses on Reverb as well as posting videos on You Tube. Some videos have thousands of watch numbers on them. Given they are original content, is this enough that the videos are monetised? I’d imagine that would be the only reason he does it, because some of the content is just awful.

[dyerseve]

15 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Call me what you like, but I have absolutely zero sympathy with the ‘builder’.

@EddieG has been far more accommodating than I would have over this debt.

Letts can give all the excuses he likes, but nothing excuses the fact that he has not started any sort of repayment plan.

Even a couple of £’s a week/month would be a start and that’s if you buy into the fact that he is a skint as he says he is. I don’t.

He’s in business selling and shipping basses on Reverb as well as posting videos on You Tube. Some videos have thousands of watch numbers on them. Given they are original content, is this enough that the videos are monetised? I’d imagine that would be the only reason he does it, because some of the content is just awful.

Regarding the Youtube Videos - if Letts was ACTUALLY sorry for ripping off his customers and actually wanted to set matters right, instead of wasting time creating, editing and uploading YT content, he would go and get a part time job in order to repay his debts. 

The man has no morals and should not be trusted or given any Business by anyone. 

 

[neepheid]

It's maybe time for Mr. Letts to change career.  Anecdotally (I have not played any of his instruments - so I'm just going off what I've read/seen) it would seem he's not as good a builder as he clearly thinks he is (by his own words), and he has absolutely torched his reputation.  When you are operating in the same space as the likes of ACG, Shuker etc. you'd better make damn sure your product is on point as well as your business practices.  With that in mind, speaking as a neutral bystander with no skin in this game, my assessment is that this enterprise is dead in the water.

[Old Horse Murphy]

I've read this thread avidly and am dismayed that people still get away with this sort of thing on a regular basis. My sympathies lie firmly with the people still owed money by this guy who has (IMHO) acted completely shockingly throughout. 
 

I must admit though, having seen the quality of the basses he's produced in the past, even from a purely aesthetic perspective he wouldn't have seen a penny of mine. Clearly my mileage varies from some of his customers (satisfied and unsatisfied) and I really am a missionary position with the lights off kinda guy when it comes to what floats my boat bass-wise, but some of them look GCSE Woodwork standard at best. 

[chris_b]

11 hours ago, Geek99 said:

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel seems to have been switched off. As someone who has been really, really poor I sympathise with possible tunnel vision about debt but I do also think he could have done things, and treated people, much better 

 

. . . . so he's had a tough time and as a result hasn't finished @EddieG's bass, and hasn't refunded the payments and is not abiding by court judgements, but he's still making basses for sale on Reverb!!!

 

There doesn't seem to be any way to give Letts the benefit of the doubt. He actually has been able to make basses during this period, so choose your description, fantasist, con man, scammer, thief. . . . or maybe all of them.

[Reggaebass]

I have heard of Letts but never played one, the bit I don’t get is the reply to Eddie, if I’ve got it right ,he knows he still owes a bass or money, how can you carry on knowing this, if I owed £5 or 5k I would do everything to pay that off, even if it means borrowing from family or friends, it would be on my conscience , he needs to sort this 

[chris_b]

There is a similar thread over on Talkbass, and Letts and Eddie are posting!!

[Burns-bass]

22 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

I have heard of Letts but never played one, the bit I don’t get is the reply to Eddie, if I’ve got it right ,he knows he still owes a bass or money, how can you carry on knowing this, if I owed £5 or 5k I would do everything to pay that off, even if it means borrowing from family or friends, it would be on my conscience , he needs to sort this 

I 100% agree with this.

 

I hate owing anyone money.

[neepheid]

5 minutes ago, chris_b said:

There is a similar thread over on Talkbass, and Letts and Eddie are posting!!

 

 

Are you eating popcorn?

 

[NikNik]

Just seen the thread on TB.....

[TheGreek]

I don't understand why he doesn't resolve the issue with @EddieG.

 

This would at least put an end to all the negative publicity that he gets from being discussed on forum such as  ours and start to rebuild his reputation, if that is what he plans. 

[Rich]

6 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

rebuild his reputation

I rather think that ship has sailed, under the name 'RMS Titanic'.

[lemmywinks]

42 minutes ago, chris_b said:

There is a similar thread over on Talkbass, and Letts and Eddie are posting!!

 

Oooh, 8 pager already

 

[Geek99]

1 hour ago, chris_b said:

 

. . . . so he's had a tough time and as a result hasn't finished @EddieG's bass, and hasn't refunded the payments and is not abiding by court judgements, but he's still making basses for sale on Reverb!!!

 

There doesn't seem to be any way to give Letts the benefit of the doubt. He actually has been able to make basses during this period, so choose your description, fantasist, con man, scammer, thief. . . . or maybe all of them.

I’m just saying that I can see how someone could get into a pickle, I’m not saying it has been handled well or fairly or quickly by him. I honestly regret posting anything now 

[binky_bass]

My 2 Cents have been added to the TB thread...

[Burns-bass]

5 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

I’m just saying that I can see how someone could get into a pickle, I’m not saying it has been handled well or fairly or quickly by him. I honestly regret posting anything now 

 

You can hold two views at the same time.

 

I think the way Eddie has been treated is abominable and utterly disgraces Jon. I can also understand how this could happen to someone. These are not contradictory positions. 

 

 

[Rich]

Just had a glance at the TB thread... I don't know whether to be amused or alarmed by the bloke who said something along the lines of "you're lucky you didn't do that to me, if you had I'd have come over on a plane and {strong suggestion of violence}". 

Edited February 1 by Rich

[neepheid]

26 minutes ago, Rich said:

Just had a glance at the TB thread... I don't know whether to be amused or alarmed by the bloke who said something along the lines of "you're lucky you didn't do that to me, if you had I'd have come over on a plane and {strong suggestion of violence}". 

 

Alarmed?  Yet another keyboard warrior - probably couldn't punch their way out of a wet paper bag.

Edited February 1 by Rich

[binky_bass]

26 minutes ago, Rich said:

Just had a glance at the TB thread... I don't know whether to be amused or alarmed by the bloke who said something along the lines of "you're lucky you didn't do that to me, if you had I'd have come over on a plane and {strong suggestion of violence}". 

Interesting that you took that away from the 9 pages of that thread... 

Edited February 1 by Rich

[Rich]

Are you assuming that's the only thing I took away from it...? 

What I was actually doing was comparing and contrasting it with the altogether more restrained (dare I say British?) nature of the discussion here.

 

[neepheid]

Oi, ninja post editor - it's funny, you should have just left it as "boke", because it sounds like the Scots word "boak" which means retch or vomit, often used in the construction "to give one the boak":

 

Oh, that pure gies me the boak!  Translation: "That's fkn disgusting!"

 

Ergo, Mr. Letts' business practices give me the boak.

Edited February 1 by neepheid

[lemmywinks]

Letts has been trying to make building instruments his livelihood for well over a decade now and if his own claims are to be believed he's never been able to make it work financially. Probably time to work a regular job, build basses on the side in his spare time and finally refund the people he's put through the stress of fighting to get their hard earned money back from him.

 

 

[lemmywinks]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

Just had a glance at the TB thread... I don't know whether to be amused or alarmed by the bloke who said something along the lines of "you're lucky you didn't do that to me, if you had I'd have come over on a plane and {strong suggestion of violence}". 

 

Same guy later follows it up with "all I can say is wow....I know a way to get $1200 bucks from a guy."  without realising how funny that sounds.

 

 

[EddieG]

Just to answer a couple of points I've seen.

 

When I first ordered from Letts, he was virtually just beginning to operate as a business. But I did my homework (sure you did, Ed!!🤣🤣) on his skills as a luthier, and then spent some time discussing with him exactly what I wanted him to build. He was doing completely bespoke orders at this point, he had no "model range" he was working from, as I'm sure OG Basschat users will remember, and after ascertaining that every single aspect of the build would be as requested by me (meaning he would work to every single detail I requested), I mocked up a quick rough of what I was looking for.

It was based off the shape of my Burner, and modified into a singlecut (funnily enough, years before Smith himself did the same!). Below is the initial drawing I sent Letts, that he agreed to. 

As you can see from that and the body shape on the template board in the previous posts I made, he started out adhering exactly to what I wanted.
It was after I'd paid him the money that I would get the pretentious nonsense like "oh, I can't do this, I have my own designs that I work from" etc. Then later, it would become "I'm the builder, you should just be quiet and let me build it". Completely uprooting the goalposts to a totally different field altogether!

 

When the "Basschat deal" thing happened is when things started to unravel, because then he started taking on job after job after job. And then because he was getting more orders, he clearly started feeling that he should assert his design suggestions over mine, which was absolutely not what we agreed on. 

We agreed that every single aspect of my bass, no matter how small, would be selected and agreed by me.

 

After that, I think regular board users will know the story. 
 

As for the quality of his work, Jon's problem was as I said above, and as seems to be pretty common among small luthiers; a total reticence to listen to the customer, and instead foist upon them what THEY want to build, as opposed to what the customer asks for.
I'm not talking about luthiers who establish a model range like ACG, nor am I talking about those who talking from experience try to point out things that in their opinion would make a bass better, but which may take it away from the customer's original design to whatever level. 

 

I'm talking about those luthiers who, for no reason other than ego, say "that design you wanted is crap, mine is much better, so I'm building mine instead", or dismisses other designs and ideas out of sheer ego and pigheadedness.
Case in point, a luthier from my area (whose work was very well thought of online and in print) totally dismissed singlecut basses to me as utter nonsense, pointing out that his Carl Thomson-inspired designs were much better and much more marketable. A year later? He's advertising singlecuts because he hasn't sold a single bass! The guy I'm talking about here, despite being an absolutely incredible builder, and whose basses I had the opportunity to personally play and can attest to the quality of, went out of business.

 

In my own limited experience Jon Letts's build quality is actually very good. As part of "working off" the debt, he agreed to build me a neck for one of my "4 converted to 5" basses I've built using 4-string bodies and a tight string spacing. It's essentially a Fender 4-string neck, with a 45mm nut and a tiltback headstock. It has Jescar EvoGold frets, and has never once needed a truss rod adjustment. 
On that occasion he built exactly what I asked for, and it is solid, and completely perfect. It is the neck on my number one bass right now and I would seriously struggle if something were to happen to it. 
 

So Jon certainly has the skills and capability to build top notch instruments. The problem is that he can't get out of his own way long enough to do it. Such a shame. 

Edited February 1 by EddieG