Interesting discussion

[darwinohm]

BF, the lower cost models were tried in the 2007 (approx) timeframe and I actually had 2 Legacys from that group that were identical and very close in serial numbers. They were supposed to have different saddles and I don't know what else. Anyway they came with gig bags. Both of mine were vintage white with rosewood fingerboards and had clear gloss neck. They were spectacular looker and excellent overall and I could not see any difference to my other G&Ls. Ii was told that G&L used the same saddles because the lower cost ones were out of stock or unavailable. Anyway I bought the second one because I liked the first so much and I found them both used and killer deals. One was virtually unused and the other had no visible fret wear. I made the unused one into a synth guitar with a Roland GK30 pickup and ran it through a Gr 20. It was a great setup. Steve, the lead player in our band loved it and I sold it to him. He still uses it every gig and it still looks new. The only cost cutting I could see was the gig bag. The gig bags were very nice. So I know that G&L has tried it. Here is a photo.-- Darwin

[Fumble fingers]

sweet guitar darwin ...... The SC2 with saddle lock is a good budget price guitar for quality and great sound

[bloodied_fingers]

Thanks Craig and Darwin, I figure it must've been tried or at least proposed before.

I wonder how/if that could work again. I guess some authorized G&L dealers can't spend the time to spec and order custom stuff. Might be easier for new G&L outlets too, they can just order a couple of each to hang on the wall. Then you train the salesperson to say "Ya know, for a couple hundred more you can get this custom ordered"

[dougl]

Great discussion, there are some good points in this article. http://gtroblq.blogspot.ca/2011/08/fender-or-g.html .
I think its been posted before, but I here it is again.

He makes a big deal out of the difference in production volume, and implies that high production means sloppy production. I think G&L has done an outstanding job looking after quality so far if my import is any indication. Only if the same number of people try to produce more will consistency suffer. So of course you have to add more skilled and caring people in order to produce more at the same quality.

I think it's all driven by sales and revenue, and it occurs to me that the easiest way to increase sales is to pick the largest major city and seed it with stock and Leo posters in stores opposite Fender. Sales will naturally increase where people can play one, fall in love, and take it home. As sales increase in that city, repeat in the next major city. Eventually, you cover the nation.

[Salmon]

.......I wonder if (they probably have) G&L has/would consider making two standard, mass produced USA built models. A legacy and an asat. No options, just standard #1 necks, maple fingerboard on the asat and rosewood for the legacy. ..............A couple standard models might make G&L easier for retailers to get and it would improve exposure.....

Isn't this sort of what Musician's Friend does? They are not a brick & mortar hands-on facility but they do have G&L mass produce a few standard USA models. The Blonde Legacy with GOT maple neck, the Clear Orange ASAT Classic with Cream pickguard and Maple neck and the Cherryburst S500 Deluxe come to mind.

[bloodied_fingers]

.......I wonder if (they probably have) G&L has/would consider making two standard, mass produced USA built models. A legacy and an asat. No options, just standard #1 necks, maple fingerboard on the asat and rosewood for the legacy. ..............A couple standard models might make G&L easier for retailers to get and it would improve exposure.....

Isn't this sort of what Musician's Friend does? They are not a brick & mortar hands-on facility but they do have G&L mass produce a few standard USA models. The Blonde Legacy with GOT maple neck, the Clear Orange ASAT Classic with Cream pickguard and Maple neck and the Cherryburst S500 Deluxe come to mind.

I didn't know MF did that. I wonder who manages the orders for MF from G&L.

And, as you said, MF aren't brick & mortar.

My first assumption is more Fenderites would convert if they could walk into more real guitar stores and pick up a G&L. My second assumption is more guitar stores would hang G&L on their walls if they could easily order a standard model or two, without having to submit a specification sheet and then wait for it to get built, etc etc..

I really don't know how onerous the ordering process is for new dealers but I assume it is more involved than firing off a purchase order for two standard catalog items and expecting them to arrive within a week or two.

[jeffmarshall67]

Whoever has been in charge of advertising for G&L for the last few years needs to be replaced, or given the proper tools and money to do so. When the ad for the Black Ice collection came out, it was a dead ringer for an 80's metal guitar ad. Really? If Will is right that they've cut their advertising $ to the bone, it sure shows. Continue to act like a small time builder, and seemingly scared of innovation anymore is doing nothing for G&L. When the biggest thing of the year is a different pickup combination or trying a different piece of wood, the attention it gets is almost nil. I can't think of one artist besides Tom Hamilton that I've even heard of when the profiles of G&L endorsees are posted. I know small builders that have a better list of them.

Spend some money, get someone out there putting G&L's into known players hands if you wanna get noticed. Much more aggressive advertising too, a lot of smaller companies do a ton more advertising than simply doing a one time picture for each new collection. Get the Tributes into School Of Rock, etc. Social media is big also, but when's the last time I saw a G&L in a forum other than this? Wouldn't be hard to establish a presence on forums all over, it's done daily by lots of companies. I went to a PRS clinic hosted by Paul Reed Smith this year, and heard the reason he is out doing them is because he saw business not growing as he liked and had new products to introduce. I saw him online doing this all over the west coast and country, and I'm sure he'd rather have been home enjoying his family but he saw the need for the commitment that needed to be given. You have to give to get! Reverend sends Pete Anderson out there and it's an amazing event a puts the "I need to get a Reverend" idea in everyone's heads that comes.

My personal dealings with G&L haven't been stellar the last couple years either. I asked several times for a guitar to be made that wouldn't have taken any extra effort to produce (an already produced model that would actually take less time and routing to produce), and my dealer was rejected each time....citing they had a model coming out that would be in that vein. What ended up coming out was just another boring rehash, and made me realize that they didn't really want to appeal to a G&L junkie like me or take a chance on someone posting and touting a cool G&L all over the place. A tour of the factory was also a bust after being arranged, and the resulting miscommunications and simple promises left us wondering who talks to each other or knows what's going on in actuality.

On the other hand, I don't mind G&L being obscure because I find a lot of deals out there with the low resale value they have. Only Heritage is worse in the non budget market. I just wish G&L would embrace their brand more, it's a good one or we wouldn't all be here talking about it.

[KenC]

I'll cast a dissenting vote here, and not just because I don't want a bunch of Fenderite converts driving the price of old G&Ls up. Despite the move to CNC production, Asian parts on USA models, and those $#^$& microwave tags , the company remains a small production shop. Let's say they achieved major recognition overnight - Eric Clapton dumps Fender for G&L, or one shows up on an album cover - and suddenly everybody wants a USA G&L. What can the company do? They have a small factory, and judging by recent posts on this forum are continually months behind schedule filling orders. How in the world would they handle a huge (or apparently even a slight) increase in orders? Open another factory? How long would that take, and would the increased business last long enough for it to make sense? If they are running at capacity, getting orders from repeat customers, and slowly attracting new customers through word of mouth (thank us very much ) it probably makes the most sense in the long run to continue on the present course.

Just a thought...

Ken

[Ray Barbee Music]

I also had a "special order" rejected and it really wasn't special at all. They used to be much, much more special order friendly. I used to see some really over the top G&L special orders, now they wouldn't even build a Legacy with a humbucker bridge and blades neck/middle. No special routing or wiring, iirc that is even the stock config on an Invader. It's not rocket science. They also wouldn't do a USA ASAT Junior with a DF. Again, not at all off the wall since they obviously do both ASAT Juniors and Asats with DFs.

IF they are going to play the "we're a small builder" game, they should play nicer with special orders.

It's sort of the way Jason Lollar is and the reason I quit ordering from him. They balked at even putting an A5 mag in a Imperial high wind instead of A2. Seriously? Ok then, now I deal with people who will make me any damn thing i want and for less than Jason's "off the rack 'boutique'" pricing.

[yowhatsshakin]

I also had a "special order" rejected and it really wasn't special at all. They used to be much, much more special order friendly. I used to see some really over the top G&L special orders, now they wouldn't even build a Legacy with a humbucker bridge and blades neck/middle. No special routing or wiring, iirc that is even the stock config on an Invader. It's not rocket science. They also wouldn't do a USA ASAT Junior with a DF. Again, not at all off the wall since they obviously do both ASAT Juniors and Asats with DFs.

IF they are going to play the "we're a small builder" game, they should play nicer with special orders.

It's sort of the way Jason Lollar is and the reason I quit ordering from him. They balked at even putting an A5 mag in a Imperial high wind instead of A2. Seriously? Ok then, now I deal with people who will make me any damn thing i want and for less than Jason's "off the rack 'boutique'" pricing.

Ray,

Although I understand your point, it is important to realize that modifying electronics is considerably easier than changing a paint job, neck profile, etc, etc. Pickup swapping and electronics mods have become par for the course mainly because the investment in tools, mainly a soldering iron is fairly low. Such claims cannot be made for spray booth and/or equipment, lathes, bandsaws, etc. So in that respect I can respect their decision to not focus on special orders in pickup configuration and/or electronics.

The other example you use is the ASAT Junior which only has been released as a Limited Edition Custom Creations instrument in all its 3 incarnations ('98 Jr, '12 Korina, '13 Savannah). Well, I ask you this, what is the purpose of releasing a Limited Edition if now you allow customer mods? For instance, have you tried to order a Custom Shop Limited Cabronita Road Show Thinline with tremolo bridge? What would you think their answer would be? And what would it set you back in price for that mode even stated as a difference in baseprice? I think you know as well as i do, that most likely you get 'No' for an answer or it would be quite the upcharge for extra man hours.

In short, I don't think your arguments hold water. G&L is a company that prides itself in delivering Custom Shop quality instruments, with many standard available options, at a price that doesn't break the bank. They are very much aware on what they are good at and they know the price point they think is effective to keep operating. And they clearly want to focus on that and limit themselves to customizations that are reasonable and cost effective. Anything beyond that would only affect schedule, cost, and time.

- Jos

[Ray Barbee Music]

Well since I do custom amp and guitar work I can tell ya, I personally don't say no to some pretty wild things, and G&L didn't used to either. You're either a small builder that can deal with minor (and sometimes major) modifications or you're an off the rack shop. G&L currently is an off the rack shop. If it isn't in the catalog, you can't get it, period. Didn't used to be that way, no good reason it needs to be that way (oh we can't have an employee reach into pickup bin 2 instead of pickup bin 1, that would shut down production for weeks! Oh we can't use a routing template we already have on a body shape we already use it on, the world might stop spinnin'!).

Either G&L is a small shop living by word of mouth and rep but puzzlingly unresponsive to minor customer requests, or you're an assembly line doing a really, really poor job of marketing.

[Craig]

I also had a "special order" rejected and it really wasn't special at all. They used to be much, much more special order friendly. I used to see some really over the top G&L special orders, now they wouldn't even build a Legacy with a humbucker bridge and blades neck/middle. No special routing or wiring, iirc that is even the stock config on an Invader. It's not rocket science. They also wouldn't do a USA ASAT Junior with a DF. Again, not at all off the wall since they obviously do both ASAT Juniors and Asats with DFs.

IF they are going to play the "we're a small builder" game, they should play nicer with special orders.

It's sort of the way Jason Lollar is and the reason I quit ordering from him. They balked at even putting an A5 mag in a Imperial high wind instead of A2. Seriously? Ok then, now I deal with people who will make me any damn thing i want and for less than Jason's "off the rack 'boutique'" pricing.

Ray,

Although I understand your point, it is important to realize that modifying electronics is considerably easier than changing a paint job, neck profile, etc, etc. Pickup swapping and electronics mods have become par for the course mainly because the investment in tools, mainly a soldering iron is fairly low. Such claims cannot be made for spray booth and/or equipment, lathes, bandsaws, etc. So in that respect I can respect their decision to not focus on special orders in pickup configuration and/or electronics.

The other example you use is the ASAT Junior which only has been released as a Limited Edition Custom Creations instrument in all its 3 incarnations ('98 Jr, '12 Korina, '13 Savannah). Well, I ask you this, what is the purpose of releasing a Limited Edition if now you allow customer mods? For instance, have you tried to order a Custom Shop Limited Cabronita Road Show Thinline with tremolo bridge? What would you think their answer would be? And what would it set you back in price for that mode even stated as a difference in baseprice? I think you know as well as i do, that most likely you get 'No' for an answer or it would be quite the upcharge for extra man hours.

In short, I don't think your arguments hold water. G&L is a company that prides itself in delivering Custom Shop quality instruments, with many standard available options, at a price that doesn't break the bank. They are very much aware on what they are good at and they know the price point they think is effective to keep operating. And they clearly want to focus on that and limit themselves to customizations that are reasonable and cost effective. Anything beyond that would only affect schedule, cost, and time.

- Jos

I think Jos is right on the money here.

Here is a thread from a couple of years ago that also applies, which includes some responses from Dave: Thread on TGP says G&L now exclusively special order. ?.

Well since I do custom amp and guitar work I can tell ya, I personally don't say no to some pretty wild things, and G&L didn't used to either. You're either a small builder that can deal with minor (and sometimes major) modifications or you're an off the rack shop. G&L currently is an off the rack shop. If it isn't in the catalog, you can't get it, period. Didn't used to be that way, no good reason it needs to be that way (oh we can't have an employee reach into pickup bin 2 instead of pickup bin 1, that would shut down production for weeks! Oh we can't use a routing template we already have on a body shape we already use it on, the world might stop spinnin'!).

Either G&L is a small shop living by word of mouth and rep but puzzlingly unresponsive to minor customer requests, or you're an assembly line doing a really, really poor job of marketing.

Are you really equated that your one person shop is the same as G&L's factory???

It seems that you have a beef with them for not building some one-offs for you. If you really want those guitars built by G&L, you will need to work with a G&L dealer and convince them
that they could sell 10-12 of them. If you succeed in convincing the dealer, they would be able to present your proposal to the factory and work out a deal to have them built. Several dealers
have done this in the past and atleast one is currently in production.

[blargfromouterspace]

I can't think of one artist besides Tom Hamilton that I've even heard of when the profiles of G&L endorsees are posted. I know small builders that have a better list of them.

I think the endorsee's are actually pretty funny. The most recent email I received from G&L was about an Aussie bass player from a band I'd never heard of who'd received an endorsement. One of the recent gig photo's on his bands webpage was taken a bar that until a couple of weeks ago I lived about a minute from. The band room there sits about 60 people and if you play louder than an audience clapping politely the sound meter kills the P.A. Can I have an endorsement too?

[Salmon]

I wonder what the qualifications are for an endorsement.

[Ray Barbee Music]

"Are you really equated that your one person shop is the same as G&L's factory??? "

No I'm really equating them with other manufacturers of similar size, including themselves from prior years, who WILL do things like that and things far more involved. So they lost those 2 sales. I'm sure thats not the only 2. I guess they are big enough to throw away sales, but not big enough to spend money on marketing.

By the way, if you go to Oklahoma vintage's site, they have a pic of an LS with exactly the pickup config i wanted. They did it before, but told OV and another dealer they wouldn't do it now. So G&L lost the sale, the dealer(s) lost the sale, because G&L couldn't be bothered to have an employee reach into bin B instead of bin A.

[KenC]

Ray,

I suspect you hit on one of the real reasons when you mentioned grabbing a routing template. Those appear to be a thing of the past since G&L went CNC. A lot of early discussion about the LE2 hinged on CNC programming - what the factory already had in their library, whether existing programs could be modified easily, and what would be feasible for the company to have developed for a limited run. Some of us were hoping for a single-pickup guitar, but IIRC G&L claimed they couldn't modify their existing CNC code for the SC-2 to make that happen.

I was disappointed that the ASAT Solamente didn't even deleted the bridge pup route from the ASAT Classic. I would seriously have considered a Solamente if I could have done it without a pickguard. Oh well. It looks like the extent of changes you can request these days is deleting the fret markers from a bass neck.

I can understand why G&L wouldn't want to do custom electronics from the factory. G&L really seems to care about how their guitars sound, and as somebody mentioned in a recent post, it's fairly rare to hear people talk about needing to swap pickups on a new G&L to get a decent sound. If they were to install whatever aftermarket pickups a customer wanted, how would bad choices by the buyer reflect on G&L as a builder? When it comes to maintaining a reputation, "these aftermarket pups I installed sound like crap" is a far cry from "these factory-installed, custom ordered pickups sound like crap". If I was running G&L, that's a chance I wouldn't want to take. I also doubt it would be cost-effective to have somebody in R&D rig up a test guitar to be sure the tone of a one-off meets G&L's standards.

Ken

[Ray Barbee Music]

Again, silly, since they obviously have done it in the past, and they obviously have the cnc program to put a DF on an ASAT body since they also do that.

Further, of the 30+ guitars I have, 0 have stock pickups except an LS and a Comanche. If you change those, they are a legacy and a legacy. Nothing wrong with Legacies, but I have plenty of those. None have stock pickups. I know people who've done it though, turned a Comanche or a LS into a legacy. I don't think they really care that much about it for any philosophical reason, they just don't wanna because it would take an extra 5 minutes of someone's time who probably makes $12 an hour. God forbid. Probably the same reason they spent $100k + on a plek but have had qc issues on frets even given they have a machine capable of dead nuts perfect fret work every single time. It would take an extra 5 minutes, and we can't have that. They aren't alone in that, Gibson is the only Plek using company that seems to understand how to use the machine and get consistently great to outstanding results.

The entire point of that is, the whole "we're a teeny tiny company and can't spend money on marketing" thing doesn't jibe with other aspects of the way they do business. You is, or you ain't. G&L ain't.

[Fumble fingers]

so why are you here ??

[KenC]

I'm not looking to start a fight here, but I can't help wondering why folks around here are upset about G&L's current marketing (or lack thereof). If the company is content with the way things are, why is anything more needed? Am I missing something that I should be getting outraged about?

Ken

[NickHorne]

No fight, and no outrage; only thinking aloud for discussion's sake.
Like people can be "content" with a diet that is not healthy for them, just saying...
The G&L website does look, in places, as if no-one updates it even annually, and this does feel to me as if it's run by some out-of-touch people (and I'm nearly retired myself, and I feel it like that). And that's frustrating and worrying, since the guitars are so great, to think that it might all come to a business end unnecessarily because of a PR attitude blindspot.
Was trying to be positive, really!
I love the guitars, and the options, like crazy; and I don't want to lose 'em.

[KenC]

Thanks Nick! I can definitely see and appreciate that point of view. I just hope G&L is in a "happy place" right now and getting all the orders they need.

Ken

[bloodied_fingers]

I thought the discussion started based on the TDPRI (no idea if that acronym is right) thread...

Then we just spiraled.. down ... the drain..

As for the custom/small shop issues, it seems to me G&L is not a small shop. They are mid-sized, and have some limitations. Maybe in the old days they could do more and did, but I think they're heading in a different direction toward easily (semi-custom) produced guitars.

I think its interesting perspective on the marketing. I would guess that G&L is not content to in their current market share position. They keep dumping more cheap import guitars/models into the market. That (I guess) is a technique to grab market share from the big names for in lower priced models, where you can establish some brand loyalty with kids and such. Increase exposure there, sell somebody a $400 guitar and maybe in a year or two they come back to buy a more expensive guitar.

Just guessing.. funny how we started discussing an interesting discussion elsewhere, and now we have our own interesting discussion..