The wide neck guitar criminal!

jd0272

thermionic said:

Here's a summary of this thread so far:

"I'm right, everybody else is wrong and the fact that I've sold things on ebay proves it."

Did we really expect anything other than this?

Well, maybe you're correct. It would've been refreshing, bearing in mind the bottle it took to post on here anyway, if Mark had said; "Aye go on then, you've maybe got a point. So, is somebody gonna tell me about these pesky nut things?".

But unfortunately, and I'm sincere, it seems there's a fair old dollop of narcissism apparent with the fella. Bit of a shame really. That said, it takes a fair old bit of conviction to be that 'wrong'. I tip my proverbial hat.

Still, this thread just keeps on givin'. 

jd0272

Ooh look, after work gin! And JPS Black! And a shed! Champion. That's me set.

mdphillips1956

It might just be the way it comes over, but it seems like people only come to this site to find people or things they think can be used to make themselves sound clever?

You might not like my guitars or the way I do them, but at least I actually do do them... not just talk lots of guitar.

And the vast majority of people who buy them like my guitars a lot... though you cannot please everyone all the time!

Some have bought more than one off me... one bloke up north bought one and loved it so much he bought a second straightaway saying they were the best guitars he had ever played... then in the course of the year he bought a total of six of different types off me!

I think they play as well or better than any others I have tried... I mean that in so much as I never get handed someone's guitar to play and find myself going green at how much better than my guitars it is... so I ascertain they are as good to play as any out there.

All this stuffy theory about nut slots having to be a certain depth is just crap (and no my strings don't bind as the bottom of the vee cut is a string size), and pontificating about string slots is typical of the sort of stuff luthiers who know nothing about playing guitars cling onto to try to justify what they do and how much they charge for it.

It is always easy to pick holes in what someone else does, when your own stuff is not in question.

I came on this site after a guy whose name I forget, appeared on my ebay listings and sounded like an internet troll in what he said, so I jumped down his throat a bit but he turned out to be a nice guy and I have been listening to his guitar tracks today... nice stuff.

But Christ what is wrong with some... or even most of the members who post on here; they seem like obsessive nerds desperate to make themselves look clever... and all in agreement with each other... does no one have a mind or thoughts of their own? Oh sure yes you are all in agreement because I am so completely wrong in every sense of what I do... but what a bunch of blinkered nerds!

I love guitars and guitar work with a passion, and since not being able to fly to earn my living it has become both my job and my daily inspiration... but for me it is all about music and making guitars for people to make music on; on here guitars just seem to be treated as a tool to make yourself look big!

I like learning new tricks for improving my guitars and I really hoped I would find good stuff, but all I have found so far are a bunch of pricks (with a couple of notable exceptions) who know the price of everything but the value of nothing... who think guitars work by a set of rules written in a book.

It's like painting by numbers: it doesn't add up to much in the real world.

Antique_Guitars

Mark,

Fair play for actually opening up about things finally.

I disagree pretty much 100% with most of the things you are doing, but hey if it makes you happy and the people that buy them are happy then just carry on as you are. (Its a free country after all)

At least we can all agree that we love guitars.

And yes Octatonic who invited you here is a very nice guy indeed!

There is nothing really left to say now other than I wish you and your family well and keep loving guitars!

And the offer still stands, just PM me if you want to talk in the real world, i'd even meet up with you for a drink.

Take Care

Sheldon

chrisj1602

Nerds? That's usually what the thick kids call the clever kids, so yes you are right.

blueskunk

You really going out like that Sheldon

Antique_Guitars

blueskunk said:

You really going out like that Sheldon

I think I have said all that needs to be said to be honest, sometimes you just have to bow out and let the gears of the machine work their way until the teeth wear down.

guitargeek62

I'm a geek, not a nerd (clue's in the name).

Athough I think Sheldon might fit the latter, given his paperwork.

@mdphillips1956 - the best thing you could do is buy a copy of this and read it in full before touching any more guitars. It's not 100% expansive, but it's well written and might help you to understand where a lot of us are coming from here. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guitar-Player-Repair-Dan-Erlewine/dp/0879309210

I'm sure we all sound very condescending, but there have been some very valid points made, and unless you take the time to learn a bit about some of the guys on here then you might not realise the experience that they have and it would be a shame for you to miss out on their wisdom in particular. (e.g. Antique_Guitars, Feline_Guitars, GSPBasses, Octatonic, Wez_V)

ThePrettyDamned

Wow.

We don't know much and do much about guitar because we love talking about them?

Anyway...

With regards to the nut, it does matter how they're cut. It's not tradition, it's a combination of tone, tuning stability and playability that has led to nuts being cut the way they are. You can have a nice low action with a correctly cut nut - I think the difference would alarm you. You only pick up poor quality guitars from the 80s and from brands like encore which typically are not going to have a great set up or made from great materials. But go into a proper guitar shop and try out a Squier or epi and I think you'll surprise yourself at the factory set up.

Besides which, most shops will alter the set up on sale anyway, letting you choose a string gauge and height preference.

Let's assume the bottom of the nut on your guitars is perfect - as in, the strings don't catch and there are no overtones. The nut is too high - it's going to cause problems when sliding back down, so it will be uncomfortable for quick moves from lead to rhythm, for example.

So, let's talk about the bridges - 7 string ones. This is, without a doubt, a bit of a bodge. The notches in the saddles don't look like they'll hold the strings for heavy strumming or big bends. The string spacing looks uneven, too, which is no surprise because the bridge is not made for super wide spacing.

I'm not totally against the idea of a wide neck guitar (though there are plenty of folks with big hands who are proof there isn't any desperate need, I feel a guitar should be comfortable and who am I to say what should make people comfortable?) but to convert a 7 string by bodging the bridge and removing a tuner isn't a great way of going about it.

I'm not a tech, and I'm giving my guitar to a pro to sort out, but they will level and polish the frets, file the nut properly (it's a new nut, so it's massive) and sort out intonation and radius. If it came back with a nut looking like yours, I'd give a poor report on here, for making the guitar look worse at the very best, and ruining open string tone and tuning stability at worst.

octatonic

Dunning-Kruger anyone?

WezV

mdphillips1956 said:

I like learning new tricks for improving my guitars and I really hoped I would find good stuff, but all I have found so far are a bunch of pricks (with a couple of notable exceptions) who know the price of everything but the value of nothing... who think guitars work by a set of rules written in a book.

It's like painting by numbers: it doesn't add up to much in the real world.

Books are good, i own most of the major luthiery type ones,  as when i am not building guitars I like to read about building guitars.   

I also take part in forums like this because I have a general interest in guitars and i have worked directly with enough players to know that I can make them play well, even though I am a pretty poor player myself 

I read a lot, reading is a good way of learning - don't write it off!!!

I still have not come across the luthiery book that sets down a set of rules.   Most give you a selection of ways you could build a guitar and leave the details up to the person reading

I will also admit their are guitars in my past that look as low quality as some of your work, but i was willing to learn how to do things better,  so they got better.   don't shut yourself off to learning by writing off all books and 'experts' as wrong!

OilCityPickups

Personally I'm content that simply by his own words Mark has said all he needs to say to make the public aware of his attitudes.
He might wish to think on the fact that no other UK guitar maker, modifier etc has suffered the same level of criticism on this, or spread across multiple forums. But I'm betting he probably won't

WezV said:

mdphillips1956 said:

I like learning new tricks for improving my guitars and I really hoped I would find good stuff, but all I have found so far are a bunch of pricks (with a couple of notable exceptions) who know the price of everything but the value of nothing... who think guitars work by a set of rules written in a book.

It's like painting by numbers: it doesn't add up to much in the real world.

Books are good, i own most of the major luthiery type ones,  as when i am not building guitars I like to read about building guitars.   

I also take part in forums like this because I have a general interest in guitars and i have worked directly with enough players to know that I can make them play well, even though I am a pretty poor player myself 

I read a lot, reading is a good way of learning - don't write it off!!!

I still have not come across the luthiery book that sets down a set of rules.   Most give you a selection of ways you could build a guitar and leave the details up to the person reading

I will also admit their are guitars in my past that look as low quality as some of your work, but i was willing to learn how to do things better,  so they got better.   don't shut yourself off to learning by writing off all books and 'experts' as wrong!

Perfectly summed up @WezV
The first guitar I built ... cut from a mahogany counter top when I was 15 ... er ...nearly 40 years ago was as rough as a badger's table manners. Barely played, but I was chuffed to bits with it ... so with the next one I learned more ... and so on. Now it's not wood and strings I 'slap together' but magnets, bobbins and winding wire, but the principal's the same. It's a proccess of learning ... and it never stops. I study past work by Bill Laurence Kent Armstrong, Larry DiMarzio etc ... all brilliant pickup makers, and pioneers. I develop my own techniques true, but I look to their quality as the benchmark to which I have to aspire.

ICBM

thermionic said:

Here's a summary of this thread so far:

"I'm right, everybody else is wrong and the fact that I've sold things on ebay proves it."

Did we really expect anything other than this?

You forgot "… by deliberately marketing them to people too inexperienced to spot why my claims are wrong and my workmanship is sub-standard".

OilCityPickups

Well I guess we were just trying to be gentle with him on that aspect
I'm glad you are subtle as usual this morning )
(doffs hat)

RobDavies

ICBM;203550" said:

thermionic said:

Here's a summary of this thread so far:

"I'm right, everybody else is wrong and the fact that I've sold things on ebay proves it."

Did we really expect anything other than this?





You forgot "… by deliberately marketing them to people too inexperienced to spot why my claims are wrong and my workmanship is sub-standard".

Spot on @ICBM. ;

 I'm all for people having a go but what irks me about the whole situation is that he's (perhaps unknowingly) ripping off punters who don't know any better.   

The naivity shown is absolutely staggering. 

xSkarloey

Just as well this is guitars we're talking about.

If we applied the same logic to the accepted way of doing things when it came to gas fitters or car mechanics...Well you get my drift.

TTony

mdphillips1956 said:

My personal experience of most so called luthiers, is that they know all about fixing bits of wood together the best way, but absolutely nothing about what makes a guitar play properly.

I think that means - by definition - that your experience has not been with real luthiers.  To be called a luthier means that they absolutely know about what makes a guitar play properly, and how to make it do so.

Perhaps your experience has been with charlatans, or perhaps - and I'd be inclined to think that this is more likely - the luthier has set up a guitar to play in a typical or standard way that you personally don't find comfortable.  

mdphillips1956 said:

It is always easy to pick holes in what someone else does, 

That is completely true - although I think you'll find constructive criticism here more often than you'll find destructive hole picking.  If you read through the posts in the "other" thread, you'll find a lot of comments from people who want to actively engage with you to help develop your knowledge and skills, not just to poke fun or ridicule.

mdphillips1956 said:

and all in agreement with each other... does no one have a mind or thoughts of their own? Oh sure yes you are all in agreement because I am so completely wrong in every sense of what I do... but what a bunch of blinkered nerds!

Sometimes there just is a "right way" of doing something, and everyone agrees that it is the right way because all the other options have been tried and proven to be less right or wrong.  

mdphillips1956 said:

but all I have found so far are a bunch of pricks

My request at the top of this thread, for people to refrain from personal abuse comments applies to you too.  

breakstuff

mdphillips1956 said:

It might just be the way it comes over, but it seems like people only come to this site to find people or things they think can be used to make themselves sound clever?

You might not like my guitars or the way I do them, but at least I actually do do them... not just talk lots of guitar.

And the vast majority of people who buy them like my guitars a lot... though you cannot please everyone all the time!

Some have bought more than one off me... one bloke up north bought one and loved it so much he bought a second straightaway saying they were the best guitars he had ever played... then in the course of the year he bought a total of six of different types off me!

I think they play as well or better than any others I have tried... I mean that in so much as I never get handed someone's guitar to play and find myself going green at how much better than my guitars it is... so I ascertain they are as good to play as any out there.

All this stuffy theory about nut slots having to be a certain depth is just crap (and no my strings don't bind as the bottom of the vee cut is a string size), and pontificating about string slots is typical of the sort of stuff luthiers who know nothing about playing guitars cling onto to try to justify what they do and how much they charge for it.

It is always easy to pick holes in what someone else does, when your own stuff is not in question.

I came on this site after a guy whose name I forget, appeared on my ebay listings and sounded like an internet troll in what he said, so I jumped down his throat a bit but he turned out to be a nice guy and I have been listening to his guitar tracks today... nice stuff.

But Christ what is wrong with some... or even most of the members who post on here; they seem like obsessive nerds desperate to make themselves look clever... and all in agreement with each other... does no one have a mind or thoughts of their own? Oh sure yes you are all in agreement because I am so completely wrong in every sense of what I do... but what a bunch of blinkered nerds!

I love guitars and guitar work with a passion, and since not being able to fly to earn my living it has become both my job and my daily inspiration... but for me it is all about music and making guitars for people to make music on; on here guitars just seem to be treated as a tool to make yourself look big!

I like learning new tricks for improving my guitars and I really hoped I would find good stuff, but all I have found so far are a bunch of pricks (with a couple of notable exceptions) who know the price of everything but the value of nothing... who think guitars work by a set of rules written in a book.

It's like painting by numbers: it doesn't add up to much in the real world.

breakstuff

http://i1352.photobucket.com/albums/q659/breakstuff42/WW_a_sphincter_says_what_zps86ecde83.jpg

TheOtherDennis

Well said, Tony.

All I can add to that is that no matter how much abuse Gibson, Fender et al might receive on here about their looks/finishing quality/style, etc, there are literally tens of millions of musicians down the years who know that their way of doing things is the RIGHT way. The reason that we are so sure that Mr Phillips's way is wrong is because the big boys have spent hundreds of millions on research into what does and doesn't work. They're not making it up as they go along. Do you really think that Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, John Williams, Paco Pena, Segovia, Martin Simpson, Martin Carthy and more would put up with substandard experiments? They don't want the very best, they fucking DEMAND it, and woe betide the supplier who doesn't provide it.

Have you ever - has anyone, ever, anywhere - seen a guitarist like John Lee Hooker or BB King or Pete Townsend or Slash or anyone who makes their living out of playing guitars use an instrument that looks even vaguely like Mr Phillips's work? Yes it's absolutely true that received wisdom can sometimes be the precise opposite, but not in this case. These methods have been tested literally to destruction over centuries, since the very first lute was made by the first person to be called a luthier.

And if you think no one has ever tried doing it your way, Mr Phillips, then you're wrong. They have. And discarded it as unworkable and unplayable. How can I be so sure? Because if it was right, THEY'D STILL BE DOING IT!! These companies are not run by morons.

And before you claim that my comments only matter to guitars that cost thousands, they don't. Because Fender and Gibson and PRS don't spend millions developing and supporting their Squier and Epiphone brands (PRS don't have a separate brand for their cheaper guitars) just so they can churn out shite. First, it would destroy the reputations they've worked so hard for in a nanosecond, and mainly because their cheap stuff simply isn't shite. You can get a second hand Squier for less than you sell one of yours for that's as good as any guitar you can pay 500 quid more for in terms of playability and looks. They just use cheaper wood, pups and mass production techniques, that's all. The Vintage brand is a perfect example of this - mass production techniques and cheaper materials allied to smart thinking and good design have produced a brand that many thousands of part-time musicians swear by for all of their pub and wedding gigs. They're just one of a score of similar brands producing instruments that mirror the expensive stuff as closely as possible.

I could go on, but I'm probably wasting everyone's time by banging my head against a brick wall.

Just because we disagree with you doesn't make us pricks. Just because you disagree with us doesn't make you right. We have the evidence of literally billions of dollars of research and centuries of experimentation on tens of millions of instruments and musicians in front of us to show you that you're wrong.

What do you have but a handful of ebay positives?

Almost everyone on here was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your replies have burnt that goodwill away in a self-destructive fashion that I remember I started doing myself when I was 14. It took me a long time to learn some very painful lessons about getting along with people. You still need to learn them, I'm afraid.