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Comments
CS guitars are always good in my experience - many great - but that’s a ridiculous price for any bolt-on solid body guitar, no matter how much hand finishing has been done.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Gibson are in similar financial trouble.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Regardless of the price issue, the advantages of a Custom Shop over a factory Fender are enough to keep me interested. The light weight wood for one along with centre seam 2 piece bodies rather than 3 piece with visible seams in odd places. Plus quartersawn necks, better fret work, relicing (which some find distasteful) and nicer sounding pickups and better, thinner, nitro paintwork.
I had one of the new US American Pros recently and it felt pretty sterile and characterless compared to a CS Strat, and it was heavy too. Does that make the CS worth £3.5K? Dunno, but I will pay it. Over £4K though starts to make my arse nip up.
I can order my own spec'd guitars in the same way and have done so many times - ditto Peach, Coda, GAK, GG etc etc - But they carry no additional 'marketing tag'
A Masterbuilder does exactly the same thing - spec's a guitar to be team built and it now becomes a 'marketing tag' - The only thing I would add to this is sometimes they might add say a tweak to the pick-ups that is not available on regular orders - Or a couple of years ago I think it was John Cruz that spec'd a run with a brass trem block - So sometimes they might have something unique about them be it a custom neck shape or colour, in order to try and justify an additional price tweak
More importantly, what does that brand offer that can't be had on Fender CS?
I think possibly the reason I overlooked that is because whenever I've tried high end guitars they pretty much all feel great but possibly if I played one for a decent amount of time rather than just getting shots of them or trying them in shops, the subtle differences in feel would become more apparent.
For some people (and for whatever reason) it has to be a Fender, so no other brand would get a look-in. My 'best' Tele is actually a Palir Titan. The advantage it has over the Fender Teles I have tried is the sound, specifically in the middle position. It is so good that it made me overlook the colour (which I quickly got used to) and the tweaked headstock shape (which can be annoying if using a Hercules stand).
I don’t know whether the CS is able to select the parts well enough in the first place that they simply never make the dull ones or the dogs, or whether they’re ruthless in scrapping them if they do - either would produce the result. Whether that success rate justifies the current pricing is a different question...
(*99% of statistics are made up on the spot. But that’s roughly something like it.)
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein