# Guitar Brands, Who Makes Who?



## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Who makes that guitar we own? Interesting video.


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## blueshores_guy (Apr 8, 2007)

I don't think that guy's on the level.
Did you notice that everything he wrote on his whiteboard slanted up towards the top right corner?


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

If he's going to use the white board as an aid, he should at least be neat, and spell correctly.


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## GTmaker (Apr 24, 2006)

personally, I found the whole video very informative.
I got past the slant writing and even the spelling...after all, its the information that counts.

If anyone can dispute the information that was given, I would like to hear about it.
G.

by the way....this video has proven to me that there are NO fake guitars...
OR...you can say that they are all fake...

When a major guitar maker like Gibson can outsource tuners by Grover who in turn outsources the tuners to another company,
can you really say that the Gibson guitar is not a fake?


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

This brings up the discussions on the need to use precise "fake" aka "counterfeit" versus "copy" terminology of the past (related to Tokai). Seems one now needs to add "mostly outsourced" to the list of distinctions.

In my opinion, in the context of outsourcing, it's whomever does the quality control, quality assurance, and final approval to sell to customer while putting their own name on the product is the legitimate genuine "manufacturer". In the end, it is the specific quality level associated with specific name that consumers are asked to make a shortcut decision upon.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Wait. You mean guitar building and selling isn't an altruistic, for the good of mankind activity? It is actually motivated by greed, capitalism, profit? Holy shit, that changes everything. I have to go and re-evaluate the last 45 years. I've obviously been duped.


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

According to one guy in the Excited States of America "I'm going to bring all those jobs back here". Should be a YUUUUUUGE new era of guitar making.


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## Jim9guitars (Feb 15, 2016)

This has been going on for years, way back in the 60's during the "British Invasion" every store in North America was selling electric guitars with various brand names. Most of the cheaper ones were made in the same factory in Japan, some of them had "Kent" and "Canora" and even "Bradford", the name brand of all the appliances Zellers sold at the time. My buddy's Mom worked at Zellers and when he wanted an electric guitar she naturally bought it from Zellers to get the employee discount. It looked like every Kent I had ever seen but had this big "Bradford" logo on the headstock that was identical to the ones on their washer and drier.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I thought it was a good, informative, and balanced video. The takehome message for me was that one needs to actually try/play the instrument, and not simply rely on "name". Regardless of who _actually_ made the parts, if it plays and sounds good, it is good, and if it feels wrong, it doesn't matter who made it.

As for spelling, I don't know how many of you have ever been in front of a class using a whiteboard or blackboard, but there is a weird memory thing that happens in those circumstances. Much like the way we are used to seeing things and people in certain contexts and can have a tricky time recognizing them out of those familiar contexts (e.g., someone you know from work/school, run into at a foreign airport), we underestimate just how much the size of print is connected with our knowledge of words and spelling. Write something large on a board for the people at the back to be able to read, and you'll find yourself staring at it wondering "Did I spell that right?", because you can't seem to connect up what you know about spelling with print that large and close up.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

mhammer said:


> I thought it was a good, informative, and balanced video. The takehome message for me was that one needs to actually try/play the instrument, and not simply rely on "name". Regardless of who _actually_ made the parts, *if it plays and sounds good, it is good, and if it feels wrong, it doesn't matter who made it.*


That is the reasonable approach but there are some people who will by X brand because that is where there heart/mind is.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Agreed, the content of the video was pretty good.

I have taught (adult night classes for occupational health and safety, summer courses and camps for all ages, and occasional other situations) using white boards and black boards and haven't had an instant of trouble with them. Maybe I expect too much...or maybe it's a sign I've become a grumpy old man...but that's literally another thread.


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## johnnyshaka (Nov 2, 2014)

Thanks for that...definitely gained some knowledge.

Squier has to be the most common mistake I see on Kijiji during my trolling sessions.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Jim9guitars said:


> This has been going on for years, way back in the 60's during the "British Invasion" every store in North America was selling electric guitars with various brand names. Most of the cheaper ones were made in the same factory in Japan, some of them had "Kent" and "Canora" and even "Bradford", the name brand of all the appliances Zellers sold at the time. My buddy's Mom worked at Zellers and when he wanted an electric guitar she naturally bought it from Zellers to get the employee discount. It looked like every Kent I had ever seen but had this big "Bradford" logo on the headstock that was identical to the ones on their washer and drier.


You are certainly correct, Jim. This has been going on in almost every manufacturing field for decades. Unfortunately, not everyone has had experience with large corporate manufacturers, so they have no idea what goes on behind the scenes with sourcing materials. When you are talking very large quantities, often over one million, a few cents here and there means a large savings on the bottom line. The video is very good in letting people know just where the product may come from and how branding may not be what some people think it is. That is also why serial numbers are often asked for when replacing parts. The serial number tells the parts person what supplier supplied the part on that particular guitar, no matter what the name on it says.


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## djmarcelca (Aug 2, 2012)

Most of the information in that video I previously was aware of due to my addiction to reading wikipedia.
If you google search a brand or company, check out their wikipedia page. Usually will tell you which conglomerate it belongs to, or if it's still a private company


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## EchoWD40 (Mar 16, 2007)

Mooh said:


> If he's going to use the white board as an aid, he should at least be neat, and spell correctly.


Way off the mark as to why he's using it. 
Ever sit in on a class with a University Professor?


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

TDeneka said:


> Way off the mark as to why he's using it.
> Ever sit in on a class with a University Professor?


How so?

And yes, many.

Seriously.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

When I was giving final exams and the anxiety in the room was so thick you couldn't EVEN cut it with a knife, I would sometimes break the tension by doing my imitation of every-math-and-stats-prof-you-have-ever-had, and announcing it as such. I would grab a piece of chalk and start way over on the left side of the blackboard in the lecture hall, and make quick seismograph-like movements on the board with the chalk, as fast as I could, filling up the board as quickly as I could with gibberish. And the students would often get that stunned look of shock and recognition and declare "Hey, I *had* that guy."


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

This isn't anything new--maybe it's become more widespread--but hardly new.

Matsumoku made guitars with tons of brands.
ibanez & Greco were made int he same factory--that's why Ibanez has the Iceman & Greco the Mirage--although I think the pickups & maybe some hardware is a different.

Try the guitar--do you like it?
Cool.
If the price is right & you can afford it and want it--get it.

There will always be brand snobs--and most ignore this info.


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

many of the chinese fakes you buy come from a factory that makes epiphone guitars. lots of them come with epi electronics inside them


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## JHarasym (Mar 27, 2007)

IMO he did a poor job of explaining the difference between ghost manufacturing and outsourcing.
I would like to get hold of some Groover tuners though.


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## Steve112 (Apr 17, 2016)

Despite some spelling and legibility irregularities, taking Phillip's presentation at face value clearly gives helpful guidance and advice.


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## sillyak (Oct 22, 2016)

So on something high end, let's say a $3500 Gibson Les Paul, are the Grover tuners and TonePros bridge outsourced copies? Or are they the real deal that you would get if you bought directly from Grover ect.


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## Ronbeast (Nov 11, 2008)

sillyak said:


> So on something high end, let's say a $3500 Gibson Les Paul, are the Grover tuners and TonePros bridge outsourced copies? Or are they the real deal that you would get if you bought directly from Grover ect.


I would think that the higher price point accounts for the use of the "real deal" parts; the lines start to blur the further you move to the middle and low end.

I've been aware of this stuff for quite a while; I own a Cort bass from Korea that is super high quality for the price range, and it was made in the same factory that an Ibanez bass I used to own was made in.

I agree 100% with the "if it plays and sounds good, it is good" mentality.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

sillyak said:


> So on something high end, let's say a $3500 Gibson Les Paul, are the Grover tuners and TonePros bridge outsourced copies? Or are they the real deal that you would get if you bought directly from Grover ect.


No one can say for sure. And who is to say they Grover tuners were all made by Grover and TonePros bridges were all made by TonePros. Sometimes there are ways of identification but not always.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

Ronbeast said:


> I agree 100% with the "if it plays and sounds good, it is good" mentality.


In theory yes, but in practice, lots of design and manufacturing issues are latent. If it feels and plays nice, but your frets pop up warranty + 1 day later, is your expectation of brand quality still irrelevant? How about electronic intermittents due to cold solder joints or winding corrosion due to fake look-alike coil materials? Lacquer chipping? Fake "rosewood" colouring flaking off? How is the resale value when your nice-through-distortion sounding "Gibson Les Paul" turns out to be plywood?

Point is, when purchasing a product, the reality is that you are implicitly trusting both what you see now and what you expect behind the scenes and over time.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

LexxM3 said:


> In theory yes, but in practice, lots of design and manufacturing issues are latent. If it feels and plays nice, but your frets pop up warranty + 1 day later, is your expectation of brand quality still irrelevant? How about electronic intermittents due to cold solder joints or winding corrosion due to fake look-alike coil materials? Lacquer chipping? Fake "rosewood" colouring flaking off? How is the resale value when your nice-through-distortion sounding "Gibson Les Paul" turns out to be plywood?
> 
> Point is, when purchasing a product, *the reality is that you are implicitly trusting both what you see now and what you expect behind the scenes and over time*.


If you watched the video, your "reality" point was discussed. It can happen no matter what name is on the headstock. As for frets "popping up" in one day, whether it is one day before, after or 20 years after warranty, I have never heard of such a thing. That kind of thing happens over time and 99% of the time because of humidity problems.


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## GUInessTARS (Dec 28, 2007)

I watched the video and didn't get his point. Are we not supposed to buy guitars because the manufacturer didn't make every
part in house? Is the guitar devalued because some of the parts may be common to a less expensive instrument?
With that logic is a Porsche 911 a market rip-off because the airbags are the same as a Toyota?
Is the iPhone not worth the price because the battery is made by Huawei?
Nike doesn't make any part of their shoes. They contract the manufacture to whichever shoe company can create their design
at the best price this year. Could be a different company next year. 
What difference does it make?
Buy the guitar you like, 
play it.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

GUInessTARS said:


> Buy the guitar you like,
> play it.


The most important thing in all of this.


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## Ronbeast (Nov 11, 2008)

LexxM3 said:


> In theory yes, but in practice, lots of design and manufacturing issues are latent. If it feels and plays nice, but your frets pop up warranty + 1 day later, is your expectation of brand quality still irrelevant? How about electronic intermittents due to cold solder joints or winding corrosion due to fake look-alike coil materials? Lacquer chipping? Fake "rosewood" colouring flaking off? How is the resale value when your nice-through-distortion sounding "Gibson Les Paul" turns out to be plywood?
> 
> Point is, when purchasing a product, the reality is that you are implicitly trusting both what you see now and what you expect behind the scenes and over time.


I've gotta be honest, I've worked on lots and lots of guitars and currently own somewhere between 12 and 17. I don't think I've encountered any of the issues you've listed besides fret lift. 

As for cold solder joints, I'm an engineering technologist with a lot of time into soldring; I have my own high quality soldering station so I don't worry too much about electronics. cold solders happen. I've seen them on $4000 hand wired guitars. I've seen $100 guitars with perfect soldering.

"Winding corrosion" is something I've never heard of; most pickups are wax potted or epoxy potted, there's no air in there and you need air for oxidation. the only other possible way for this to happen is to use two dissimilar metals in the winding to cause the metals to corrode, but that's ruled out since most wire use in pickups is copper.

lacquer chipping is up in the air, even name brands have bad batches (look at almost every BC Rich guitar besides the 80s custom shop level guitars). "Fake Rosewood" isn't faked with a coating that can come off, its not a top colour coat, it's either done with a stain that penetrates deep into the wood or it's done by baking a piece of wood to give it the desired hue and to further cure the wood. baked maple is a good example; one of my Gibson's has a baked maple board.

Resale doesn't bother me. I never buy with the intent of flipping. My main gigging bass for 7 years was a plywood bass with a maple neck I bought on ebay. I never got so many compliments on my tone!


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

GUInessTARS said:


> Buy the guitar you like,
> play it.


Would you please step to the head of the class?


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Resale is a factor to a lot of people, myself included.


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## Ronbeast (Nov 11, 2008)

Budda said:


> Resale is a factor to a lot of people, myself included.


Fair enough. In the context of this video though, it says the resale value of your guitar will be unaffected as long as the brand name has value. If a Fender isn't cutting it for you, you can probably still sell it for Fender amount of dollars, regardless of where the parts arrived from.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

The rebuttals to my points are actually proving my points: you haven't run into those issues and EXPECT that you will not. None of those issues (ie latent) however, can be discovered by JUST playing the guitar. I am not asserting that REPUTABLE guitars have those issues. I am asserting that the sentiment "if it plays good, it is good" is insufficient to evaluate actual expectation vs. actual quality and, in fact, we all rely on brand reputation for the latter part -- might as well be explicit about that inherent reliance on brand, rather than be implicitly/blindly assuming it.


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## Gimper (Jan 14, 2016)

Interesting video, but none of that knowledge would really change my mind about buying a particular guitar if I really liked and wanted it.

... and who the hell starts their S's at the bottom?!?!


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## Ronbeast (Nov 11, 2008)

LexxM3 said:


> The rebuttals to my points are actually proving my points: you haven't run into those issues and EXPECT that you will not. None of those issues (ie latent) however, can be discovered by JUST playing the guitar. I am not asserting that REPUTABLE guitars have those issues. I am asserting that the sentiment "if it plays good, it is good" is insufficient to evaluate actual expectation vs. actual quality and, in fact, we all rely on brand reputation for the latter part -- might as well be explicit about that inherent reliance on brand, rather than be implicitly/blindly assuming it.


So basically what you're telling me is "that nice playing guitar isn't a nice playing guitar because it could have issues down the road after regular use"?


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## 4345567 (Jun 26, 2008)

____________


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

Ronbeast said:


> So basically what you're telling me is "that nice playing guitar isn't a nice playing guitar because it could have issues down the road after regular use"?


No, I am telling you that putting lipstick on a pig is a well established tradition. You're welcome to spend your money as you please, however.

You know, it's hard to believe some of these rebuttal comments. On the one hand, everyone complains about the disposable nature of modern products and how "they don't make them like they used to", and on the other hand there is a readiness to accept whatever is shoved down our throats without critical thought. Weird. I am hoping it's generally not the same individuals that hold both attitudes simultaneously.


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## Ronbeast (Nov 11, 2008)

LexxM3 said:


> No, I am telling you that putting lipstick on a pig is a well established tradition. You're welcome to spend your money as you please, however.
> 
> You know, it's hard to believe some of these rebuttal comments. On the one hand, everyone complains about the disposable nature of modern products and how "they don't make them like they used to", and on the other hand there is a readiness to accept whatever is shoved down our throats without critical thought. Weird. I am hoping it's generally not the same individuals that hold both attitudes simultaneously.


But the fact is that a good guitar is a good guitar is a good guitar. regardless of the material that goes into the construction of a guitar. I'm the last person to fall into the hype of name brands being worth a premium. I know what to look for in a good guitar after playing them for five minutes, because I know exactly what to look for ; I sight down the neck to see if every fret is level relative to one another, I check for twists in the neck, I look for specific grain pattern and construction in the neck, I play every fret and listen for dead notes, I listen to the pickups to hear if they're microphonic and I can tell if the nuts too high, too low or perfect for my playing style. I have been doing this for a while, and I've gotten to the point where I can usually tell if a guitar will hold up over time by just looking at the construction of the neck.

The point is, if the guitar plays well and has solid construction, and good tone, It's a good guitar and nothing is going to change that fact. That has been my point from the start and I have no idea why you're trying to turn this into some convoluted shouting match.

If you don't want to pay for fake parts or guitars with fake parts, as crappy as it is, you'll likely have to buy custom shop or builders that make everything in house. I agree that it's terrible and deceitful, but unfortunately that's the world we live in. There's nothing else to say about this practice other than blame it on poor politics, an incredibly flawed economy and the unknowing masses fixation on buying products just because they've heard the name before.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

@Ronbeast, I agree with all your points. I am not advocating brand. I am advocating good. And only pointing out that good is often hard to know until later in a product's life so we, consumers, often rely on the brand whether we realize it or not.

On a long thread, original points get lost and diluted. My original point in my first post of this thread was that it doesn't matter where components are made, what matters is that a particular manufacturer takes quality responsibility for the final delivered product. That trust in quality is what successful branding is (and should be), not where individual components are made (notwithstanding personal ethics considerations).


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

LexxM3 said:


> @Ronbeast, I agree with all your points. I am not advocating brand. I am advocating good. And only pointing out that good is often hard to know until later in a product's life so we, consumers, often rely on the brand whether we realize it or not.


I agree with Ron as well. I also agree with you except I prefer to use the word "marketing" rather than "brand". Companies are paid millions of dollars to come up with marketing _schemes_ that will sell their products and often that marketing is misleading, half truths and sometimes, outright lies.


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## Roryfan (Apr 19, 2010)

Steadfastly said:


> I agree with Ron as well. I also agree with you except I prefer to use the word "marketing" rather than "brand". Companies are paid millions of dollars to come up with marketing _schemes_ that will sell their products and often that marketing is misleading, half truths and sometimes, outright lies.


Not just companies, you have to include religions, governments, media....everybody's schilling something & Carlin got it right (NSFW)








Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

I used to occasionally drive company cars - they were Chrysler mid size cars. Brand new, they felt pretty good; I was surprised. When they were a year old, they were worn out crap. Loose steering, seats were already feeling tired, buttons were breaking. Probably a bit heavier use than your average single family purchase, but 1 year? WTF? 

I'm pretty sure if Mercedes' or BMW's felt like that after a year's use, they wouldn't be selling cars for what they do. And I can imaging this is why Merc gave up on Chrysler - and they are now owned by the stalwarts of build quality, Fiat. And yet Chrysler continues to sell cars as well. I guess there's a market for everything - in cars and guitars.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

Steadfastly said:


> I agree with Ron as well. I also agree with you except I prefer to use the word "marketing" rather than "brand". Companies are paid millions of dollars to come up with marketing _schemes_ that will sell their products and often that marketing is misleading, half truths and sometimes, outright lies.


I am clear where you are coming from, but don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Branding has value to us, consumers -- it is a simplification, a shortcut to our ability to have expectation met. You can't spend your life doing full QA and defect analysis before purchasing every single product. The fact that you mistrust branding as a concept is already a major failure for companies as a whole to realize the value of branding (really, the value of trust), but perhaps it's also an opportunity for the rare good ones to honour the quality and trust commitment that we want from them.


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## 4Aaron GE (Jul 12, 2009)

I'm disappointed in all of you. You made it to 40 some odd posts and not a single AC-DC reference?


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

4Aaron GE said:


> I'm disappointed in all of you. You made it to 40 some odd posts and not a single AC-DC reference?


I was leaving that for @Lola .


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## DrumBob (Aug 17, 2014)

Mooh said:


> If he's going to use the white board as an aid, he should at least be neat, and spell correctly.


Right. The minute he misspelled Squier, I lost interest. He's an idiot.


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