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Chapman Guitars at NAMM

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  • Musicman20Musicman20 Frets: 2296

    PRS is more of a designer/engineer/builder and all round genius when it comes to the build of a guitar though, isn't he? He built his own and handed them to people to try. I like that approach, even if it was modernised and it was over internet reviews and a list of people sending it around the world.

    Chappers can shred and play like crazy, probably more so than PRS no doubt, but PRS is absolutely way in front in terms of designing a guitar.

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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11413
    Fretwired said:
    Philly_Q said:
    Fretwired said:
    Philly_Q said:
    Fretwired said:
    Disagree about Rob's name. The Khardashian clan are a waste of oxygen but their collective enhanced buttocks and breasts sell lots of goods. Rob is a minor celeb over here and with Lee I reckon they'll sell guitars - I read it would be more like one a month, not 15 a month. I'm sure Rabea will be playing one .. I wish them luck. So long as their QA is better than Gibson and PRS they should be OK.

    I'm repeating myself - we all are by this stage - but although I'm prepared to believe his minor celeb status is enough to help sell his existing range of guitars, I can't believe anyone is a big enough fan to spend 3 or 4 grand on one.

    They might sell one or two if the guitars themselves turn out to be really good, but not because they say Chapman on the headstock.

    Remind me who Paul Reed Smith when he started out .... I bet when he told people he was going to make high end guitars people pissed themselves laughing. He got Ted McCarty, former president of Gibson as a mentor when he started which would have helped.

    Repeating myself again, but Smith was the guy actually building the guitars.  And, like Blackmachine, Feline, Eggle, Anderson, Suhr, Hamer (RIP), whoever... the reputation was built slowly based on the quality of the guitars themselves. 

    They weren't just chucked out into the market with a premium price tag, hoping they'd sell because of an association with an audience-dividing YouTube "celebrity".

    It was actually his company .. McCarty had a big hand in the designs and early builds and mentored Paul. The point is an unknown broke into the the guitar market. These days it's easier as you have YouTube and Rob's partnered with Anderton's which gives him credibility and a distribution channel. I bet they sell small volumes and meet their sales targets. Not everyone wants a Strat or a Les Paul.
    PRS had Carlos Santana and Howard Leese (of Heart) playing their guitars.  That's a lot of instant credibilty that that you don't get from Youtube channel.
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  • I think some people have a romanticised view of the business side of the music business.

    I don’t know the sales figures but I’d bet that Dorje isn’t near big enough to be a full time income stream.

    A lot of musicians have multiple income streams these days. Sure they could teach on the side, or do production work, and many do - but you can only sell time once. If you can set up a brand selling products you can sell a lot more and why not?
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  • CollingsCollings Frets: 411

    PRS is more of a designer/engineer/builder and all round genius when it comes to the build of a guitar though, isn't he? He built his own and handed them to people to try. I like that approach, even if it was modernised and it was over internet reviews and a list of people sending it around the world.

    Chappers can shred and play like crazy, probably more so than PRS no doubt, but PRS is absolutely way in front in terms of designing a guitar.

    I think Jonny Jaffa a designer from Belfast does all of the technical design work for Chapman which I assume means taking all the ideas and turning them into a guitar that can be built. Google him.

    But the these British Standard are spec,d by the customer in effect so no input really from Rob Chapman or anyone else in the team.
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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11413
    edited January 2018
    I think some people have a romanticised view of the business side of the music business.

    I don’t know the sales figures but I’d bet that Dorje isn’t near big enough to be a full time income stream.

    A lot of musicians have multiple income streams these days. Sure they could teach on the side, or do production work, and many do - but you can only sell time once. If you can set up a brand selling products you can sell a lot more and why not?
    Their most popular song has 909,000 plays on Spotify.  At 0.004 pence per play that gets them £36.  Not exactly lucrative.

    The 0.004 pence per play figure from here:
    http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/01/spotify-pays-0-00429p-per-stream/

    I know there will be other sources of income for the band, but I think you are right about it not being a full time incomce stream.
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  • Strat54Strat54 Frets: 2331
    I'm going to suggest to Mr C that he follows in Paul Smiths footsteps and calls the new guitars Robert Sutherland Chapman Guitars (RSC).....that should rile his haters some more...lol. 
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  • PlectrumPlectrum Frets: 494
    Strat54 said:
    I'm going to suggest to Mr C that he follows in Paul Smiths footsteps and calls the new guitars Robert Sutherland Chapman Guitars (RSC).....that should rile his haters some more...lol. 
    Or possibly get him confused with a famous theatre company ;)
    One day I'm going to make a guitar out of butter to experience just how well it actually plays.
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  • crunchman said:
    I think some people have a romanticised view of the business side of the music business.

    I don’t know the sales figures but I’d bet that Dorje isn’t near big enough to be a full time income stream.

    A lot of musicians have multiple income streams these days. Sure they could teach on the side, or do production work, and many do - but you can only sell time once. If you can set up a brand selling products you can sell a lot more and why not?
    Their most popular song has 909,000 plays on Spotify.  At 0.004 pence per play that gets them £36.  Not exactly lucrative.

    The 0.004 pence per play figure from here:
    http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/01/spotify-pays-0-00429p-per-stream/

    I know there will be other sources of income for the band, but I think you are right about it not being a full time incomce stream.
    I suspect Dorje can easily fund itself.

    I also suspect they did rather better out of Amazon when they were top of the sales list for a few days than they ever have from Spotify...
    <space for hire>
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  • Collings said:

    PRS is more of a designer/engineer/builder and all round genius when it comes to the build of a guitar though, isn't he? He built his own and handed them to people to try. I like that approach, even if it was modernised and it was over internet reviews and a list of people sending it around the world.

    Chappers can shred and play like crazy, probably more so than PRS no doubt, but PRS is absolutely way in front in terms of designing a guitar.

    I think Jonny Jaffa a designer from Belfast does all of the technical design work for Chapman which I assume means taking all the ideas and turning them into a guitar that can be built. Google him.

    But the these British Standard are spec,d by the customer in effect so no input really from Rob Chapman or anyone else in the team.
    Chappers has an architect / graphic designer designing his guitars for him?  
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  • richardhomerrichardhomer Frets: 24793
    edited January 2018
    In the interests of historical accuracy - Paul Smith was building guitars long before the modern PRS company was established - and long before asking Ted McCarty to act as a consultant. As a fledging guitar maker, he sold instruments to Carlos Santana, Howard Leese, Ted Nugent, Peter Frampton and many others. These were hand built by him - or with the help of a small team.

    Smith markets himself very astutely - but is a guitar maker first. Chappers may lend his name to these guitars - but he is not a guitar maker in the sense that the phrase applies to Paul Reed Smith.
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  • CollingsCollings Frets: 411
    Collings said:

    PRS is more of a designer/engineer/builder and all round genius when it comes to the build of a guitar though, isn't he? He built his own and handed them to people to try. I like that approach, even if it was modernised and it was over internet reviews and a list of people sending it around the world.

    Chappers can shred and play like crazy, probably more so than PRS no doubt, but PRS is absolutely way in front in terms of designing a guitar.

    I think Jonny Jaffa a designer from Belfast does all of the technical design work for Chapman which I assume means taking all the ideas and turning them into a guitar that can be built. Google him.

    But the these British Standard are spec,d by the customer in effect so no input really from Rob Chapman or anyone else in the team.
    Chappers has an architect / graphic designer designing his guitars for him?  
    Indeed.

    This is his Facebook page

    https://www.facebook.com/jjaffa1?ref=br_rs

    He accompanied Rob on one of the factory tours.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6_m6AUzxgU




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  • grungebobgrungebob Frets: 3300
    With the range of finance deals Andertons will offer on these they’ll shift a fair few to the fan boys. You only need to read the comments on the videos to see the amount of sheeple willing to hand over cash, saying you and doing it are two different things but even if 10% of them do that’s the first years sales tied up for you. 
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  • Jez6345789Jez6345789 Frets: 1756
    I left this thread a while ago looked back today and missed 150 new posts

    Really not sure how it ended up comparing Paul Reed Smith with Chappers. 

    Paul has always been on a path to be a better builder and understand the process of guitar making what did they do in 1959 to make Les Pauls special, why is that 62 Strat a blinder and this one is a dead plank. I also think he felt sorry for Ted Mcarthy as he was instrumental Gibsons golden era but he was very under recognised for what he achieved.
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  • antifashantifash Frets: 603
    I really want this thread to end, but it's like crack (one imagines).
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  • AlexCAlexC Frets: 2396
    As an aside... what has a person got to do with a guitar? By that I mean - someone’s name is on a headstock and this either pleases people enormously or seems to infuriate them. Leo Fender sounds like a right cock (I know he didn’t play), but apparently he didn’t want any of those ‘long hairs’ visiting the Fender plant in the 60s. Do most people play a Les Paul the way Les Paul did? This Chapman guy seems to put himself on the net and... so what? A guitar is a guitar is a guitar. Good ones. Bad ones. Ones you like. Ones you don’t. What’s the company owner’s ‘celebrity’ or ‘personality’ got to do with it?
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  • antifashantifash Frets: 603
    @AlexC  Good opportunity for a rant / moan / vent. Also, people definitely have beef with other guitar makers.

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  • Three-ColourSunburstThree-ColourSunburst Frets: 1139
    edited January 2018
    grungebob said:
    With the range of finance deals Andertons will offer on these they’ll shift a fair few to the fan boys. You only need to read the comments on the videos to see the amount of sheeple willing to hand over cash, saying you and doing it are two different things but even if 10% of them do that’s the first years sales tied up for you. 
    The thought of anyone 'buying in' to the Chapman brand to the tune of 4 grand somehow reminds me of this scene from 'Play it again Sam'. (Just substitute 'They bought it!' for 'She bought it!'.)

    Seriously though, I think it would be fair to say that everything Chapman and Lee Anderton do, from their public personas to every 'laddish' video is part of a carefully worked out marketing plan (probably driven by Chapman who even invented Anderton's 'The Captain' persona for him) and as 'The Goodies' once said, 'There are three type of people in the world. 'D' for dumb, 'C' for clever and 'A' for advertising men.'



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  • VibetronicVibetronic Frets: 1036
    If they can get a biggish name with skills to match to endorse the brand then I guess it may take off. Nobody associated with the brand (as far as I know) is on a level with Guthrie/Satriani/Ron Thal even remotely, but if they can get someone like that on board, then who knows. To me they still look too clunky and unrefined to be able to attract that calibre of player (and admittedly I'm only thinking within the rock/shred/metal genre I guess they're aimed at), but as they've got this far I wouldn't bet against it. I wish him the best of luck, and also wish I had half of his energy  =)
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  • Three-ColourSunburstThree-ColourSunburst Frets: 1139
    edited January 2018
    AlexC said:
    A guitar is a guitar is a guitar. Good ones. Bad ones. Ones you like. Ones you don’t. What’s the company owner’s ‘celebrity’ or ‘personality’ got to do with it?
    Because the greatest part of the purchase price of most guitars is the 'added value' created by marketing, be this buying a guitar because it has the 'right' name on the head stock, or because the company is able to draw on associations between a certain model and great players of the past who played the same instrument, or whatever. With Chapman where does the 'added value' come from that justifies the likely prices of these new models, and makes buying a Chapman preferable to having a 'boutique' guitar built to one's specifications for the same or less money? That added value would seem to focus pretty much exclusively on the web persona of Chapman himself, and for me (and it seems many others) that 'added value' is worth approximately zero!
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  • WhitecatWhitecat Frets: 5378
    grungebob said:
    With the range of finance deals Andertons will offer on these they’ll shift a fair few to the fan boys. You only need to read the comments on the videos to see the amount of sheeple willing to hand over cash, saying you and doing it are two different things but even if 10% of them do that’s the first years sales tied up for you. 
    Just imagine how you’d feel in your 40s if you ruined your credit rating in your 20s over one of these...
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