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Post by Infinite Ego on Jun 28, 2017 8:40:37 GMT -5
It came out last week
It's circulating all over the guitar webz....
What I love most about the reaction is how (1) outrage and (2) personal anecdotes substitute for facts to refute the general downward trend in the guitar industry.
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mirth
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Post by mirth on Jun 28, 2017 11:07:18 GMT -5
It's certainly true that guitar is dumping, however, I don't think monitoring the major guitar manufacturers is necessarily a good barometer (in a way). Kind of like people saying the beer industry is tanking, because they look at Budweiser sales...however the boutique market is booming. I'd be curious what the boutique guitar market looks like.
I saw an interview with Suhr recently and he said their guitar custom builds are very busy. He's become at least a small "big" company. Certainly a lot bigger than Tyler or something, and TA and many others.
I wonder, as well, if, for instance, you're buying a 4k custom job instead of 4 Fender American strats, is that saying that people are only buying a 1/4 of the guitars they used to...despite the fact that the amount of money is the same.
Saying all that, if the numbers are going down at all, it's not a good thing. In fact if they stayed the same that wouldn't be good either as the population is still growing, you'd want to at least see the sales keep up with the population growth. So that it's going down, plus population growth means it is tanking faster than it seems.
But again, on the other side there is so many guitars out there. There are now 70 years of electric guitars available to buy. I'd be curious if the used guitar market is monitored at all with these numbers? I have bought the last 10 guitars I have used, mostly through regular people and not stores. So is that even being tracked?
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Post by sonicdeviant on Jun 29, 2017 4:45:11 GMT -5
We discussed this some over on Facebook. True, there's a downtrend. But I'm an optimist and don't believe it's the death knell; someone will come along and reinvigorate the instrument in popular culture. I posted the Apple Death Knell site link, where they track the 70 times since 1995 that Apple was declared dead or soon to die by the press. No one could foresee what would happen after each declaration. Even today, whenever iPhone sales dip, someone in the press declares that Apple will die soon.
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asb
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music projects and contact available at aliensporebomb dot com
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Post by asb on Jun 29, 2017 15:33:42 GMT -5
Many players of my acquaintance from teenage to older don't really want an american strat or les paul. They wouldn't refuse it as a gift though. What they really want is a boutique custom built guitar from a small builder which has more 'cachet' at jams than the proletariat commonly available brands. There is a downtrend in certain parts of the market and much of Fender and Gibson's debt can be traced to poor decision making at the top. Steve Conrad (Elantric from the VGuitarforums and a lot of other forums who worked for a number of major names in the biz including Gibson) had this to say about the recent downturn: www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?posts/24363303/ |
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Post by Infinite Ego on Jun 29, 2017 15:56:30 GMT -5
that's pretty grim
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Post by sonicdeviant on Jun 29, 2017 16:41:53 GMT -5
Then there's this on the high end. Someone must be buying shit like this. Fender ST Dupont |
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asb
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Post by asb on Jun 30, 2017 20:23:49 GMT -5
Some people are willing to make $700 gambles but not $2000 gambles.
My doctor friend bought a Fender american stratocaster with the nice flight type case.
Then his wife bought him a PRS Custom 24 with 10 top for something like $3800 or so.
His first amp was a Vox DSP amp but it wasn't inspiring.
I took him amp shopping and we tried about 52 amps until we found a little fender tube amp that shit over everything in the store, it was awesome. I would have bought it had I the cash at the time.
He then plays through that almost exclusively.
Except.... he got distracted between trips to Iceland, Amsterdam and Australia and built a high end gaming PC so he can game with people he met
in those countries who he then visits periodically.
He's at least taking lessons.
Meanwhile - the former hydravian bassist's son I'll call him "C" is taking guitar lessons. Not from his dad, he's a software engineer who hardly has time to play guitar at all these days. But, "C" is a 15 year old and had taken lessons for a while, stopped then decided he really wanted to do it again and is. That's pretty cool.
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Post by sonicdeviant on Jul 1, 2017 3:47:27 GMT -5
There's hope. My kids both think it's cool and have tried guitar but it doesn't provide instant gratification. My son is playing alto sax and tuba in school band. He learned to play the G scale on his sax on his own. He has very good tone for a beginner. My daughter doesn't seem remotely interested in playing an instrument. Oh well. She's the brainiac one and my son is more the free spirit.
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Post by chromedinette on Jul 2, 2017 15:31:16 GMT -5
It came out last week It's circulating all over the guitar webz.... What I love most about the reaction is how (1) outrage and (2) personal anecdotes substitute for facts to refute the general downward trend in the guitar industry. Yeah think this has been posted on at least 5 TGP sub forums. I haven't looked at any of the threads, but what you are saying is what I expected. I like guitars, but I have no real reason to ever buy another one, though I kind of want something with a vibrato bar again, but I would just as soon buy a lute, |
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