Introducing TEN32 Guitars...and features you've never seen before!

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shobet said:

I really like the engineering behind these, and your enthusiasm is fantastic. 

It's so refreshing to see something genuinely new as opposed to another version of a Strat or a Les Paul. 

You need to some vids of the planks being played on you channel. 

Great stuff man! I wish you the best of luck.  

Thanks! And yes - new vids in the works! Just needed to get caught up on shop work after spending a few weeks on the first batch of video. Subscribe to the YT channel for updates, but I'll also post updates on this thread.

Iamnobody

I’m really impressed with the engineering and design on display here. 

Having just returned from a family holiday with 2 kids and a large dog in the car - there’s no way I could have fitted a conventional guitar in as well. 

Whilst I’m not a serious enough player to want to take a guitar on holiday (or actually get many holidays for that matter!) I’m sure many are, so the portability of it probably doesn’t just lend itself to air travel - there’s other situations where space is a premium. 

All the best with the business. 

RichAC

@TEN32Guitars add me to the “impressed” list. As a user of Floyds, that little locking screw is genius. 

Is the intro music in your videos played on one of your guitars?

davros

I love the engineering and thought put into your designs. I totally get the "travel with no chance of having your guitar checked" value proposition.

As well as gigging musicians, I would consider the potentially larger market of well earning businesspeople who play guitar and travel a lot. A guitar that you could bring on a business trip as your carryon, so you can noodle away in your hotel room while you're away for 2 weeks alone, is an attractive proposition. These guys often have the money to spend 2 grand on a guitar just for this purpose. You don't have to worry about portability once built as it will just sit in the hotel room and they'll break it down to go home.

However, given these guys are a little older I think they'd be more attracted by a more conventional look. Maybe if you had body style options that are more traditionally LP/S/T styled, but with your engineering, I bet they would sell like hotcakes to the blooze lawyers 

Offset

davros said:

However, given these guys are a little older I think they'd be more attracted by a more conventional look. Maybe if you had body style options that are more traditionally LP/S/T styled, but with your engineering, I bet they would sell like hotcakes to the blooze lawyers 

I have to say that as an old git, it was the body design on the OP that first drew me in.  Different, but not for the sake of it.  But you're right @davros - a trad-shaped option might pull in some of those with a more trad-shaped mind :-)

maltingsaudio

Read 2 pages of this and watched all the vids very impressed, the attention to detail is awesome and the lock for the floyd for changing string genius on its own.

The idea of having two easily interchangeable necks hanging around with everything else the same really appeals. 

Dare I ask the lead time on a custom instrument? 

I do however think you’ve missed one thing out of the case, a head torch for when you have to tweak your guitar backstage!

Brillliant well done fella , and for my money resist going down the boring standard guitar shape thing, keep it new and fresh

blobb

I'd be constantly taking it apart and putting it back together again.

AsterixTG

Another daft question from me.

Have you taken it on a number of carriers and got it through numerous baggage security checks?

TEN32Guitars

Whilst I’m not a serious enough player to want to take a guitar on holiday (or actually get many holidays for that matter!) I’m sure many are, so the portability of it probably doesn’t just lend itself to air travel - there’s other situations where space is a premium. 

Great point! A full size guitar case can be awkward no matter where you put it in a standard sized car. I have a mid size SUV and there's still not an ideal place for it.  I really hadn't thought about the road trip aspect, especially with a family where luggage space is at a premium. I'll try to work this into the marketing messaging for sure!

@davros makes a great point as well, and that's the use case I originally had in mind - when I'm in a writing groove and then have to travel it feels like I'm missing out on whatever good licks I might come up with, and goods licks are rare, so that hurts! Bringing the guitar along in way that doesn't create its own set of burdens (like travelling with golf clubs for example) has a ton of appeal, IMO.

Did you see the HT series? They lean more traditional:



I haven't produced A CG model yet (everyone has gone with the EN series so far!) but it's also meant to appeal more to the traditionalist:



In addition, I offer 5 different contour packages on all models ranging from classic flattop to aggressive, multi-layered contouring. The renders dont look anywhere near as good as the real thing, but you get the idea:

EN Series:

HT Series:

CG Series:

LT Series:

TEN32Guitars

RichAC said:

@TEN32Guitars add me to the “impressed” list. As a user of Floyds, that little locking screw is genius. 

Is the intro music in your videos played on one of your guitars?

Thanks! That's probably my favorite feature, being a Floyd junkie. I'd play old dead strings for months just to avoid the hassle of changing them. I really wanted to narrow that "ease of use gap" between a hardtail and a fully floating trem. This is another area where the ingrained stigmas will be hard to overcome, and Floyds still have other quirks, but I'd like to think the trem block screw will make some players who had never considered a Floyd before think twice when selecting their bridge.

The intro music wasn't played on a TEN32 sadly...the artist is Andrey Gadzhibalaev who, in addition to being one of the best guitarists on earth IMO, has been a huge help to me providing feedback and encouragement for nearly 3 years now.

Unfortunately he lives in Russia and since the war began it seems to be downright impossible to ship anything into the country. If you guys have knowledge I don't about how I might go about getting a guitar to him, I'm all ears. I'd even pay for consulting.

The engraved HT3 model was supposed to be the first of many he received from me. He did the vector art for the engravings himself!

TEN32Guitars

Dare I ask the lead time on a custom instrument? 

I do however think you’ve missed one thing out of the case, a head torch for when you have to tweak your guitar backstage!

Brillliant well done fella , and for my money resist going down the boring standard guitar shape thing, keep it new and fresh

I have some improvements in mind for the lid (like this little guy to make swapping pots easier) but I will look at including a lighting solution of some variety, I like that a lot...

I'm saying 3 months lead time for all builds right now, but most will be delivered MUCH quicker than that. I didn't only design the guitars to be modular - my jig surfaces are also modular, as are my digital and procedural assets. I can pump out parts pretty quickly without sacrificing quality. As a one man show I really don't have a choice. Here's an except from my FAQ page:

My entire process from initial design to production is 100% standardized. Front to back process standardization means any surprises I run into and solve for one part are also solved for subsequent parts because I'm fixing the process used to produce the part, not just the part itself. Using a non-standardized process would result in different issues for each different product variant, which is exponentially more time consuming.

I mentioned "procedural assets" above...what's that? It means the general processes I use to produce a guitar neck/body/headstock/case are essentially the same processes I use to produce every other neck/body/headstock/case. This means lessons I learn from producing say, a case, also apply to necks, bodies, and headstocks. The entire process is constantly feeding back into itself, improving ALL parts across the board, even when I'm only working on ONE specific type of part.

Add all this up, what do you get? Given enough time to let the process work it's magic, it becomes possible for a single individual (that'd be me) to produce a large volume of high quality parts. Production has to be mind-numbingly logical - optimized right down to its foundations, or my entire business model falls apart, so I had no choice but to take the time it required to make that a reality.

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blobb said:

I'd be constantly taking it apart and putting it back together again.

Imagine if you had 2 or 3, all made of universally modular parts.... or 4 or 5! 

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AsterixTG said:

Another daft question from me.

Have you taken it on a number of carriers and got it through numerous baggage security checks?

Its been through many security checkpoints, which I would consider the real test, but not many different airlines. I did all my startup spending on a miles credit card. Haven't paid for a flight in a couple years, but I only use the one carrier for now.

The only attention I've ever received is what seems to be genuine curiosity from other travelers and the TSA. Someday soon I'd like to go "on tour" specifically looking for travelers carrying guitars in airports. They might as well have a big red "X" on their backs for me!

Here's a photo of a curious TSA agent. This is the first functional prototype case, had no latches or hinges yet:

digitalkettle

TEN32Guitars said:

blobb said:

I'd be constantly taking it apart and putting it back together again.

Imagine if you had 2 or 3, all made of universally modular parts.... or 4 or 5! 

Five minutes in...

TEN32Guitars

Question for you guys - I've received a ton of good feedback and several insights from your varying perspectives and perceptions. I'm thinking about doing a periodic video where I unveil new features, and specifically call out the individuals who led me to implementation of said feature. Almost like...real time product development updates via YouTube.

Does that sound interesting? Something you'd look forward to watching maybe 6-10 times a year?

Are there any reasons why I should avoid showing or stating a username from this (or any other) forum in a YT video?

Thanks!

TTony

The usernames here are all pretty anonymous - but maybe just check with the individual first?

I'm sure an even-more-anonymous reference to "the really great guys over at theFretBoard.co.uk forum" would be really well received

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TTony said:

The usernames here are all pretty anonymous - but maybe just check with the individual first?

I'm sure an even-more-anonymous reference to "the really great guys over at theFretBoard.co.uk forum" would be really well received

Ok - that makes sense. Just wasn't sure if there was a blanket statement "for the safety of users" or something along those lines.

I'm already planning some callouts based on your second suggestion! 

TTony

I had another thought on your "should I sell these as travel guitars" question.

Video1 focuses on all the clever design & engineering features on your guitars, without mentioning the fact that they can be taken apart, but with a teaser about ... and there's something else I'll get to later

Video 2 shows off the different body shapes and finishing options - I really liked the idea of the ridges on the one that featured in one of your other videos, and the etched finish on the Russian guy's one ... and there's something else I'll get to later

By this time, you've probably got a whole load of interest, because those two aspects alone should be enough to show the value in what you've done.

Video 3 opens the travel case and ... here's the something else ... WOW !!

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I have some improvements in mind for the lid (like this little guy to make swapping pots easier) but I will look at including a lighting solution of some variety, I like that a lot...

To keep size down, I'm thinking a multi-purpose variety with a hat clip option like this - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089CK26RJ/

I suppose that means I need to start selling TEN32 branded hats....

TEN32Guitars

TTony said:

I had another thought on your "should I sell these as travel guitars" question.

The YouTube numbers seem to indicate pretty clearly - parts 2 and 3 (of the current video series) aren't getting nearly as many views as part 1, so I'm a bit hesitant to do another series. I know many of you did watch all 3,  so thank you, and congrats on your much larger than average............attention spans 

That said, I like your suggestion as a script for the promo video I plan to do next - under 60 seconds, cover all the best features, etc - but I hadn't thought at all about sequence. I think I could still achieve the intrigue you're going if I used that sequence in a single video. Thoughts?