Quality Control / Design Improvements / Cost

FuzzyAce

FuzzyAce

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Figured I'd start a new thread catered to a more pointed discussion about qc issues, or design flaws, and/or what you should expect for the price paid.

I get this can be a contentious subject, but this is not directed at any specific brand --- although, it's a spin-off of @maguchi NGD thread which happens to be Gibson.

If anyone has any insight or opinions on the matter please lay it out here.
Be fair and keep it civil! :cop:grin
 
Reposting regarding Gibson:

I thought the “Modern” line would have design and manufacturing improvements to compete with Suhr, PRS, and similar builders, whereas the “Traditional” line would be 50s/60s specs and process (warts/flaws and all). But maybe the ROI isn’t there to have separate processes, or lack of vision, cash-grabs, hubris/ego kicks in), etc…

And I am a Gibson LP fanboi forever
 
The guitar I find to be flawless with no issues whatsoever, is the Sire brand. I absolutely love them. Not one single issue, ever!!!! I see now why Larry Carlton stands behind them.....just wow!

(This is for eagle...I know how much he loves sire🤣)
 
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Perfect is boring. I’m one who has never cared about minutiae like finish flaws, I only care how it plays and how it sounds.

Maybe it’s because I grew up playing old beat up second hand guitars? I don’t know.

Typically I find things like finish flaws are just something that adds character and charm to a guitar for me.
 
metropolis_4 said:
Perfect is boring. I’m one who has never cared about minutiae like finish flaws, I only care how it plays and how it sounds.

Maybe it’s because I grew up playing old beat up second hand guitars? I don’t know.

Typically I find things like finish flaws are just something that adds character and charm to a guitar for me.
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I agree to a point, but there can be legitimate "flaws" structurally or in playability that are worth pointing out I think. Especially if product is thousands of dollars, some may consider that a turn off, which is fair.
 
FuzzyAce said:
I agree to a point, but there can be legitimate "flaws" structurally or in playability that are worth pointing out I think. Especially if product is thousands of dollars, some may consider that a turn off, which is fair.
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Absolutely. Any issue that impacts the structural stability, playability, or sound is totally different and usually instant deal breaker for me.

Even if it isn’t necessary the manufacturers fault. I returned my EBMM Majesty because it had one note that was dead across the whole fretboard. IIRC it was the 370hz F#


The thing that gets complicated is that playability and sound are subjective. For example some people find chunky neck heels to be a design flaw, others don’t care
 
There’s a lot I’d be willing to overlook, cosmetically, for the right guitar at the right price. Gibson pretty much excludes themselves from this with their pricing and my overall stance is anything above $3000 should be objectionably flawless.

What blows my mind about Gibson is seeing tooling marks on a fingerboard. If all these companies getting guitars built in Indonesia, Korea or even China can bust out guitars without tooling marks on the fingerboards, there’s something amiss there.
 
DrewJD82 said:
There’s a lot I’d be willing to overlook, cosmetically, for the right guitar at the right price. Gibson pretty much excludes themselves from this with their pricing and my overall stance is anything above $3000 should be objectionably flawless.

What blows my mind about Gibson is seeing tooling marks on a fingerboard. If all these companies getting guitars built in Indonesia, Korea or even China can bust out guitars without tooling marks on the fingerboards, there’s something amiss there.
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You want to see tooling marks check out the bridge from my first Fender Strat. This is how it came from the factory. :rofl The screw is gone now, but the head was completely stripped out.

And on top of that someone had used the wrong kind of screws on the pickguard by the bridge. It was like they ran out and just used whatever they found lying around.

That guitar had more QC issues than any I’ve ever seen since, but I still loved it and it’s been my #1 for almost 30 years now

IMG_4063.jpeg
 
metropolis_4 said:
You want to see tooling marks check out the bridge from my first Fender Strat. This is how it came from the factory. :rofl The screw is gone now, but the head was completely stripped out.

And on top of that someone had used the wrong kind of screws on the pickguard by the bridge. It was like they ran out and just used whatever they found lying around.

That guitar had more QC issues than any I’ve ever seen since, but I still loved it and it’s been my #1 for almost 30 years now

View attachment 30486
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While that’s looking rough…..I’m willing to bet that Strat didn’t cost more than $2K.

Man, it looks like the saddles got slammed down into the plate…a few times.
 
DrewJD82 said:
While that’s looking rough…..I’m willing to bet that Strat didn’t cost more than $2K.

Man, it looks like the saddles got slammed down into the plate…a few times.
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That was back when it wasn’t even possible to spend $2k on a new Strat unless you went CS. American Standards were $700

That guitar has gone through a ton of use and abuse over the years!
 
I repost and expand from the other thread

In my opinion small inaccuracies that come from the production process, the way instruments are built, can't be always called issues.
If we take the Gibson case as an example, they basically build guitars in the same way they always did, a way that is not aimed to perfection, a way that produces small imperfections.

Some of those imperfections are expected and not somenthing has slipped through the QC check.
Things like bleeding, small imperfections on the finsh, small glue residues, the way the guitar stay (or doesn't stay in tune), the headstock construction, all this kind of thigs are part of what a Gibson guitar is and, I guess, want to be.

A different matter is when an instrument has issues that are beyond the usual quirks, things that are not a byproduct of the building process, outside the expected outcome, like defective parts, heavy and visible tooling marks, dead spots, scratches, etc. These kind of issues are a QC problems and should not happen.

In my opinion brands with a long history and a legacy are "allowed" to keep on building instruments with a process that retains a certain % of small flaws. They are allowed because it's their history and there's value (real or only perceived doesn't matter) in that history.

While cosmetic perfection and modern techniques might have a value is not a value per se, surely not for everyone.
After all there's no such a thing like the ultimate guitar and if we don't agree on that we then should only play fanned guitars, for example, because traditional frets are a design flaw just like the Gibson headstock.
 
This all reminds me of how young the instrument, electric guitar, is.

Just think.

I imagine those in the day, arguing that the lack of dynamics from a harpsichord is expected behavior, not a bug.....and that the piano was far too complicated for everyday players. 🤣
 
Shifting the target of the conversation a bit... I am curious why Strandberg seems to have such atrocious QC (and I'm not talking tooling marks, like serious playability issues). We all know that Cortek Indonesia is capable of producing pretty flawless instruments for half the price of most strandbergs. Does strandberg themselves set the bar that low? I tend to take a lot of internet QC with a pretty heavy grain of salt, but this forum is smaller and overall pretty trustworthy and even here theres been numerous accounts of issues even here. I have more than one IRL friend that's told be not to bother with strandberg because they've had major issues with theres. What gives :idk
 
I'll never own a Gibson LP or SG (or any with that headstock) because it's literally a design flaw, both in pitch and string path. There's a reason PRS did his headstock the way he did. A. they don't generally break in normal circumstances, and B. the string path is close to straight, so less tuning issues. The PCB shit is awful, and then you've got the usual finish flaws with them. Fuck that.
 
This makes me think of something I learned chasing amps.

I loved Vox and went on a quest to find the Ultimate Boutique Vox amp. Something I started to realize was that all of the “improvements” these builders made to make a “better” Vox changed it into something fundamentally different.

These amps might have been “better”, but they weren’t the same, and I realized what I liked best was the OG Vox with all its warts and flaws.

I think Gibson and Fender are similar for me. I’ve tried all the newer brands/models that supposedly make better versions of these guitars, and while some might be “better” they are different. And I find I still prefer the originals with all their warts and flaws.

I’ve never played a Suhr or a PRS or a Collings or anything else that I liked anywhere near as much as my Gibson and my MIM Strat
 
spawnofthesith said:
I love PRS but none of them feel or sound much like a Gibson to me, even the ones that are supposed to be "LP killers" :idk just a completely different playing experience. Which isnt a bad thing, just not the same
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Yeah that's my experience too. I've owned a bunch of prs and none of them felt like a les paul. I love my prs and it has its own thing going on.
 
spawnofthesith said:
I love PRS but none of them feel or sound much like a Gibson to me, even the ones that are supposed to be "LP killers" :idk just a completely different playing experience. Which isnt a bad thing, just not the same
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I think the general rule is that anytime two things are different in any way you’ll have some people who prefer one and others who prefer the other
 
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