NAMM 2009 Pre-Show

For those of you to whom NAMM is a fabled event, full of mystery and wonder…you are somewhat correct. NAMM is like MACWorld/CES for the music related industry. It’s where new products are released, companies get to show off their products, dealers look for, umm, deals,  and where the famous people who are sponsored by the companies have to pay their dues and show up. All the big music companies spend what I can only assume to be hundreds of thousands of dollars on booths, publicity,  models and personel aimed at getting people to buy what they’re selling. From the smallest of companies (the reason I’m going) with 10×10 booths, to Fender, Gibson, Steinway and Yamaha with their own rooms in the Anaheim Convention Center. The fact that we are right across the street from Disneyland is not lost, as it is a musical Disneyland. Basically every piece of gear you’ve ever heard of is there, and every company that matters is there.

That’s a lot of stuff, and speaking of stuff, here’s some random facts about NAMM 2009 I learned reading the 45 page exhibitor’s manual:

If your booth cannot be assembled in 30 minutes by one person, you must hire union labor.

You may not have performances, only “Demonstrations”.

Demonstrations can only be 5 minutes.

Those 5 minute demonstrations and all demonstrations cannot exceed 85 Decibels.*

If you know you are going to exceed 85 decibels, you must have a sound booth.

If you have a soundbooth, a notice must be posted, warning people of the loud noises.

All 2 story booths (There are plenty…Dean Markley, Sennheiser, Kaman music) must be approved by building engineers by December 12th.

No one gets a building permit on site, so if you mess up your booth, you’re outenze.

If you have more than 900 square feet of indoor booth, you must install a smoke detector.

You are not allowed to talk in the aisles.

There is a special area for exhibitors and dealers to talk in private. There is a receptionist, copy machine and beverages.

You are not to have food brought in. Food may only be supplied by the hired union food specialists on site.

Brochures with an adhesive inside constitute stickers, and are prohibited.

No one under 16 is allowed at NAMM, at all, unless they are an artist or registered, documented employee accompanied by parents at all times.

*Having been to NAMM, I know for a fact no one pays attention to this. Ambient noise in the place probably hovers near 90 decibels. Try selling acoustic guitars when your in the same isle as a drum manufacturer.

Those are just a few of my favorites. There is a whole lot of legal going on at NAMM. People are building house-sized structures inside of a convention center, and they have to have real contractors build it up. Not only that, but they have 4 days to do it. The floor opens on monday, and the show opens thursday. The whole thing is just insanity. I’d love to be there from when the floor is blank to when the place turns into a circus.

I am going to be there this year as an exhibitor (I think…I hope my boss got me an Exhibitor’s pass) attempting to sell things in a time of economic downfall. It’s going to be an odd atmosphere, and despite the fact that i’ve been hearing some companies are closing up shop, the show is about 98% sold out in terms of booth space.

And for the good stuff: The things at NAMM i’m looking forward to.

Ibanez 17 MM Super Wizard neck.

Actually, any new Ibanez things.

Vigier single-cutaway.

RacerX Reunion.

Paul Gilbert is going to be there every day.

Whatever Ernie Ball does.

Whatever Charvel doesn’t do.

Bernard Purdie performing.

Whatever Suhr does.

The Blackbird Super-OM…read their description in the pamphlet…yikes.

Trem-king’s new bridge.

Schaller’s new bridge design.

And basically everything new. I look forward to meeting/seeing famous industry people like Rick Turner, Thomas Nordegg (techie to the stars), Seymour Duncan, Bob Taylor, Dick Boke (of Martin), Dean Markley, Ed Roman, and damn near anyone else. Not to mention the famous people: Kerry King, Paul Gilbert, Billy Sheehan, Mike Portnoy, Terry Bozzio, and basically everyone else who is sponsored by a big company.

It’s going to be insane this year. I hope all goes well and billions of dollars are made, and that all of the cheap overseas knockoff companies don’t show their poorly made guitars. I want them to just sit there and wait for the big companies to hire them to produce their budget models in a room marked “Outsourcing”.

The Blogs I read, Guitar and otherwise.

In my firefox bookmarks, I have a set of about 20 blogs in one folder. Most are guitar and music related, but others are about technology which can be applied to guitars and things to look at for inspiration. About 6 times a day, instead of going RSS feed and streamlining, I just click “Open All in Tabs” and in a few seconds, all of them open in one window for my reading enjoyment. I check each one religiously to see if anything has been written, and I’m always happy when something new is there. I’ve decided to share them because I want to give these people credit for writing great stuff.

http://www.electric-guitar-review.com/

First blog I found when I started seeing that they were valuable. Good reviews, short and to the point. He’s doing a project which I’m totally digging reading about. And with what i’ve been reading in his blog over the past, it’s a sign that guitar bloggers have a very good, supportive community. We’re not competitive, we don’t bicker or argue, we just like the stuff, and we like to talk about it.

http://elephant-blog.blogspot.com/

Adrian Belew’s blog. Adrian Belew has played guitar for some of the most progressive acts in history, and on some remarkable albums. King Crimson, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Paul Simon, to name a few. I’ve seen him live 3 times with his Adrian Belew solo band, and every time it’s been my absolute favorite. He posts thoughts, artwork and songs. Well, he used to. But there are some GREAT hollywood-music style stories in there.

http://www.musicgadgets.net/

Press releases and a constant flow of good music industry news. Good to read for those who like to stay up to date.

http://igblog.wordpress.com/

Writes often, and writes well. Posts good videos and is a good discussion starter with a humorous side. Nice guy, too.

http://www.guitarjamdaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=0&Itemid=53

Probably the most polished of all of them. Sadly, you have to sign up to read more and click links. But when they posted a blog about Godin, I had to sign up to read the rest. I don’t regret it.

http://www.guitarnoize.com/

If you’re reading this now, check out the June 26th 2008 post of the Malt Whisky guitar. Guitar Noize finds GREAT stuff, obscure and otherwise.

http://stratoblogster.blogspot.com/

All things strat. Odd strats and mods, and just all the things one ever wanted to know about the strat and what’s happening with it.

http://guitarz.blogspot.com/

Probably the best at finding the weirdest guitars ever made. Seems that the United Kingdom has the craziest guitars on ebay, and luckily Guitarz finds them all and we get to see. Not to mention one of the few who documented the London Guitar Show of 2008.

http://www.crimsonguitars.com/diary.html

This is the one I look forward to reading the most. LOTS of great pictures, he makes awesome guitars, posts his animals, and posts great captions below everyone. Hand made guitars, amazing woods, and everything amazing that you’d imagine from a guy making amazing guitars in a shed in the UK.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/

I need my fix of technology, and Wired posts a LOT. All the time, new energy sources, gear, phones, computers, and gadgets of all sorts.

http://blog.makezine.com/

For the DIYer in all of us. Quirky, unique objects, faires, and devices. Great read.

http://news.cnet.com/matter-antimatter/

Written by a product designer/marketing guy for a big design firm in San Francisco. It’s extremely well written, and there’s a lot of stuff which applies to the guitar industry. Also some tech and weird stuff too.

http://www.guitarguru.typepad.com/

This one is a great one. Written by Guitar Designer, someone I aspire to be. Doesn’t hurt that he’s Jol Dantzig, the guy for Hamer. He also got most of us loyal readers a subscription to my new favorite magazine, Premier Guitar. Great documentation of some insane products that some of us only wish we had the resources to create. It’s a big “Holy smokes” type of blog.

http://buildingtheergonomicguitar.com/

For sheer interesting factor, this one takes the cake. Reading about advancing guitars instead of letting it stagnate in the realm of strats and les pauls is a fascinating read. On the blog, they talk about designing their own bridges and bend the perception of what’s possible in guitars.

http://blackbirdguitars.blogspot.com

Seems i’m not the only frightfully opinionated blogger on the internet, but the great thing is that it’s from the perspective of an upstart company. I was forwarded this blog by an owner of one of their guitars, and from the little written, it seems like there’s an interesting future ahead…

http://www.brawerguitarrepair.blogspot.com/

For quirkiness, my favorite. San Francisco guitar repair guru Gary Brawer has a shop, and one of his guys posts short, funny blurbs on what happens in one of the busiest (and smallest…wow) guitar repair shops on the planet. Great pictures too because you can see he’s dealing with some high profile people…

http://musicthing.blogspot.com/

All things music and weird. Just found out about this one, and i’m liking it a lot.

And there you have it. My favorites. Drop a comment and recommend some, and i’ll start adding more and updating this list. But those are the ones I see multiple times a day in my browser window, so I thought i’d share, though I bet the people who see this already know about most, if not all of them.

No more Haggling at Guitar Center: Employee Comment Follow-up

As a follow-up to my “Guitar Center bought by Mitt Romney’s Company: No More Haggling Allowed“ I recently received a good comment from a Guitar Center employee. It provoked me to delve further into the whole Guitar Center issue. I was going to email this person, but I felt the comments were valuable, and merited posting in the main blog, including my wordy responses.

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…yes….the prospect of the commission thing going away is quite probable. However, employees are and still will be REQUIRED to pass certifications on their knowledge. Also, despite not being a commission based job, you are still required to hit your goal (sales figures based on your skill/lenth of job/job title….all business’s have a daily goal people…not a huge industry secret). So, if you think that average ‘Joe Blow’ can just waltz in and get a job, think again.

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How long will that last? I wanted to get a job at Guitar Center because I was pretty sure that I knew more about guitar stuff than most of the people on the floor, and therefore I felt I would do a good job informing people and selling guitars, earning a good commission by developing a dialogue with them. Incentive being that I could take the price down and get them coming back. Without commission, it wouldn’t matter at all if the person knew anything about guitars, a wage job is a wage job.

It’s like most big name stores without commission; salespeople don’t go around asking people if they want anything, they just sit at the register waiting to check someone out. There’s no incentive or reason for them to ask, so they just sit around waiting. Deals and commission were all about incentive. Incentive to work at Guitar Center, incentive to sell, incentive to buy, incentive to get a deal.

Now Guitar Center can’t have the whole friendly vibe, or at least there’s no point to it. I went in to the store that day looking for the guy I knew, and he knew me.  He would give me good deals on things and I wouldn’t waste his time with other people, i’d ask for what I wanted and pay. Instead, if I go I can just buy whatever from whoever and know i’m paying full price, and the salespeople no longer matter. People with knowledge won’t matter, they’ll just show it on the computer if someone asks for information.

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People can whine all they want about having to finally pay what the instrument is worth. If you want to go to a mom and pop shop, that is your business and your right. GC is simply trying to get away from that archaic way of doing business. Car dealerships have been doing away with it as well. There are many flaws in the “haggle” way of selling. Look at it from a different perspective…..Let’s say you own a business, and you have to pay rent, utilities, insurance (public, employment, property), overhead (cost of goods and the cost to maintain those goods) and so forth…..and then you get Johnny McDouchebag coming into your store…. occupies 3 hours of your time, and then when it gets down to the sale, he grinds the hell out of you until you are 5-10% above cost. That 5-10% will not cover your overall costs of selling that piece. You actually lose money. Do you honestly think that is fair? Is it fair to the business? Without income, the business cannot grow. Is it fair to the

employee who is trying to earn a living? If someone feels the need to grind me on a price, I feel like that person doesn’t care about my time, my livelihood or my knowledge and it’s disrespectful.

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That was the thing, it was the only reason I went to Guitar Center. By creating a haggling atmosphere, it was an entirely different entity and it was the reason I didn’t go to mom and pops. If I have the option now of paying full price at Guitar Center or at a small store, i’m going to the small store. I feel my money is going to better use, i’ve had a better experience, and i’m making sure they’ll be there by supporting their livelihood. Before this new price set thing was in action, I would care if Guitar Center left. Now not so much. Unlike technology stores and emporium stores, there’s still a grassroots guitar store movement out there, and if Guitar Center is just another one of the options, i’ll let them go.

I was willing to buy more things overall because I knew I would get good prices on things I wanted, and by talking to people for hours who gave me a deal, i’d always come back and give them my business. Unlike a Car Dealership, you don’t just go to Guitar Center once. Most people have more than one guitar, amp, pedal, and accessories. If I know your name, and I know you treat me well and give me good prices, i’ll just keep talking to you and probably buy things I don’t need, but get them just because it’s a good price. Same reason I went in there in the first place. Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone. Tourists, beginners, rich people with money to burn.

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Obviously, I work at GC. I spend an enormous amount of my time learning all I can to insure that the information I give to someone is correct. I’m not very high up in the ranks (just an AM), but I do believe in the direction the company is taking. It will take some time to get all the bugs worked out, but believe me…I know what’s up the road and it looks good. Try not to be so negative people. GC is trying to make a change for the better. Yeah, sure, you may have to pay the tagged price now….so what? Do you haggle your groceries? Best Buy? Anywhere else? This is a business, and it has to be run as such. Why else do you think the company was in trouble before Bain bought it? We were giving away too much stuff below the price to cover our overall costs. I’ve seen the IBITA (your overall costs vs. profits…..that is if I spelled it right) reports, and it was UGLY. Cost was not outweighing our income.

Hopefully, a few open minds out there will see where I was coming from with this and perhaps see reasoning.

-Z-

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Guitars are a store driven market, and Guitar Center was the only big chain out there. I feel no loyalty to a Best Buy or a grocery store because those are things I need. More people need and buy cell phones, cameras, TVs, computers, and food than they ever buy guitars. It’s why Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, SHARP, and so forth are household names and brands, while i’d give a guess and say that if you asked someone to name a guitar company, you’d be lucky with a “Fender”, “Martin” or “Gibson.”

They don’t offer haggling because they don’t have to. Guitar Center is purely luxury items for a specific market, and in order to captivate an outside, seemingly uninterested market, there needs to be some (back to square one) incentive that will cross the mental barrier of them wanting to spend money. Guitar Center is all over America, but the consistency was that we could get good deals at all of the stores if there were good people there. And the salespeople were unique instead of just a clan of blue-wearing khaki pants robots. As I said, people wanted to work there, and Guitar Center knew it. It has/had an extremely high employee turnover rate because GC knew if someone wasn’t performing, they could get another worker in quick.

So here’s an open question to employees and readers alike:

What sets Guitar Center above anyone else now?

Give your comments and thoughts.

Guitar Center bought by Mitt Romney’s Company: No More Haggling Allowed

It came to my attention today as I bought a set of pickups from a guy at guitar center who usually gives me good deals, that he wasn’t giving me a discount like he always did. I felt it odd, but for what I was buying I figured maybe they couldn’t do it with accessories, despite getting pretty big discounts on a single pack of strings.  In my venture, I needed something from Radio Shack, and oddly enough, a former Guitar Center employee was there at Radio Shack. I asked him why he does work at Guitar Center any more, and he says:

“Mitt Romney’s Equity firm bought Guitar Center, and we’re not allowed to discount or haggle any more. All the prices that are on the tags are what you have to pay.”

I was taken aback, considering that’s my main reason for going to Guitar Center, is the thought of getting a better deal. I talked to the guy awhile, and I basically interpreted it as the commission guys can’t really make good money any more from giving people deals on gear, so what’s the incentive of staying at one of the most competitive companies with the highest turnover rate? Also, I hear that they might be doing away with commission altogether. At which point the guitarists, bassists, techies and everyone else with a specialty in music will have no reason to work at guitar center any more. If you don’t have to try to sell things to make more money,what’s to say Joe Everyman who’s doesn’t know jack about guitars doesn’t just come in for a part time job?

Commission was incentive to for musicians to work at Guitar Center. The more you know, the more convincing you sound, the more you sell.

As a background, Bain Capital, an equity fund that was founded by 3 people, including Mitt Romney (take that in whatever way you want), recently bought Guitar Center for 2.1 Billion dollars. Why people who own Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, Toys R Us, and Sealy mattresses (among a few other HUGE names in their specific markets) have anything to do with guitars is beyond me. I’m sure all of the companies felt the same way. Why are we all being managed by the same people? Bunch of marketing/financial geniuses who wouldn’t know a Squier from a Martin if you magnified the logos.

All of these companies started as small places, only to now be owned by some 50 Billion dollar equity firm. I’m sure they all originally had little secrets which customers knew. I knew that the prices at guitar center were flexible, while most others don’t.

What i’m thinking (dreaming?) is that this might bring back competition. I did find out that they are allowed to do price matching ,where they match/slightly beat a competitive price. It’s how I got my now retail 2089.99 SG Reissue for 1400 flat.

Will this be the return of the mom and pop stores? Will guitar competition return and prices drop naturally?

My guess is no. Guitar Center’s super management people will probably realize that this is a major screwup,  and return to normalcy.

But if they keep it this way, it’ll turn Guitar Center into Circuit City or Compusa. Stores with even more lackluster sales people with no enthusiasm for what they’re selling, and they’ll start to close down.

As for me, I really have no reason to go there any more. If there’s no chance that I can get a really good discount, I might as well just go to a mom and pop store and pay normal price and give it to people who actually need the money.

Excuse me if my Guitar Center post-apocalyptic thought process was a little difficult, but I found this revelation to be a big mind changer. Understood it’s a slippery slope, but damn if it aint greasey on that guitar hill.

The Fender Standard, Made in Mexico Stratocaster

Thus begins the task of writing about what is probably the most purchased guitar in the last 10 years. Ever since Fender got their Mexico factory, allowing them to charge a lot less for what is almost the same instrument as its American cousin, people have been jumping at the chance to own one. It’s the closest you can get to playing the same guitar as Hendrix, Clapton, Gilmour and Beck(the Jeff one) without spending more than 500 dollars. And the price has gone up, mind you. I remember about 6 years ago when I wanted one that it was 299 new at Guitar Center. I probably have one of their leaflets that showed a picture of a dark blue Made in Mexico strat which costs 299.99. But I’ll get to the price trend later, lets get to it!

The Specs: 21 Medium Jumbo frets on a Maple or a Rosewood board. Most people get maple, and I would too. If you’re going to buy something called a Strat, you might as well keep it a strat with a maple board. The Body is made out of Alder, a tonewood that many companies are using for their lower end guitars or guitars they know will not have a transparent finish. Fender uses alder on their American strats too, but I have a feeling that they come from better stock. I’m making an assumption, so it could be completely false. Alder isn’t exactly the prettiest of woods, but it’s similar to higher ones so they might as well use it if they got it. I have no idea about the state of Alder trees, so if you’re interested in that, go do some research and send it my way too. Satin poly finish on the neck, so it’ll last awhile. Vintage trem, 3 single coils. I’m trying to limit myself here considering there isn’t much about the strat people don’t know. I’m trying to point out the minor differences between one of these and the expensive ones. A few of the obvious ones are the size of the fretwire, the truss rod access being in the headstock, and the type of Alder.

The Neck: When I pick up a guitar, this is the first thing I go for. I wrap my left hand around the neck and feel the profile. This is a modern C, which means it’s a nice C shaped curve which is thinner. Reading Dan Erlewine’s book explaining the differences in neck profiles was a very informative thing. Through the 80′s and 90′s necks got REALLY thin, and even the standard Strat got pulled into the trend. I’ve heard thin necks promote fatigue, but the Fender modern C shape isn’t that thin, so it still fills the hand. As I said, poly satin finish so that will stay on for a good amount of time. On the other hand, it probably hinders the resonance of the guitar in comparison to a thin coat of Nitrocellulose. Then again, I could just be falling into the tribe of purists who claim Nitro is a better finish.  Judge for yourself, I think satin feels great play wise, but there is a certain feeling you get on a tinted poly finish.

The Body: The Alder thing is an interesting subject. Most of Fender’s guitars are made out of Alder with a few exceptions. They make special strats out of Ash, a wood near and dear to my heart, having spent time working with it. It’s a spectacular looking wood, and is a lighter colored, but more dense version of mahogany. Looks great with maple. Anyway, Alder is just another tonewood which people will try to describe with words like “poppy” or “warm” when in reality it doesn’t matter for the MIM strat. The polyurethane finish is so thick and there’s probably filler in some bad spots on the guitar, so the resonating properties one could associate with a thin finished Alder body are probably hindered by all of the coating. Personally, I can’t hear it, but i’m drawing conclusions from what I read and assume. It looks like a strat, and that’s probably why you bought one or are reading this. It’s made on a machine, every one of them is cut identically, but has different wood stocks. Minute differences which most people who would buy a MIM strat wouldn’t notice.

Electronics: If every strat guitar used the same electronics as the Eric Johnson signature strat, this would be a different paragraph and a different toned article. But since they use what they use, it’s merely a situation of “It sounds fine” and move on. 3 Single coils, volume and 2 tone knobs. I still dislike the wiring of the tone, to the middle and neck. I use middle pickups so infrequently, I would just rather have it wired to the bridge. I was going to say have a master tone knob, but once you find the joys of different tone settings, you never want to return. Maybe they treble change when doing a switch from Bridge to Mid to Neck is so annoying they’d rather keep it gradual? I don’t know why. Actually, come to think of it, a tone knob for the neck and mid, and one just for the bridge would be better. Or one for Mid and Bridge, and one for the neck. I’ve heard a lot of players modding their tone to just Neck and Bridge, so it’s something to think about when you want an easy modification for different sounds.

Hardware: The tuners are decent tuners. They work pretty well. I would like the ones with a center post just because they look coolers and have better string locking ability, but they are probably a little complicated for changing strings if you’re just a casual player.  The current tuners however, are standard ones which are easy to tune with. The output jack is fine, but there needs to be a standard solution for those things loosening and weakening. It’s a 5 dollar solution, and i’d pay that much to never have to open up that cavity for any reason. The bridge, same deal. There needs to be some type of thread locking mechanism. Small set screws so the height of the saddles doesn’t change over time. A bigger sustain block on the bridge would be nice too. Just a little extra sustain isn’t too much to ask for?

The Whole She-bang: You’re spending 400 dollars on a guitar which is outsourced for labor purposes. You’re going to get what you pay for. It will play, it will sound like a strat, and you’ll tell people you have a Fender strat. It’s true, you have one. But the guitar as an entity runs on pedigree, not on quality. You’re getting the name, the look and the label, not the playability. The frets and nut are created for all of the guitars, not just yours, so variation is common. The neck pocket is done on a machine, but it doesn’t account for the thickness that the painter applies finish or color, so the pocket isn’t really exact. It’s good, but it’s not amazing. The neck will shift in that pocket with the right force. The action is going to be alright, but you’ll never get it as low as you really want it. Playing a guitar which can have mind bogglingly low action is something few guitarists experience. That book I referenced before, he sets his high E string to be .009 inches off of the first fret. That’s ALMOST enough room to fit another high E under that. You could blow on that string and the note would go sharp. You won’t find that on the strat. Everything will be fine. It’s something that will work. The Fender MIM strat is like the Ikea furniture of guitars. You get it because it looks good and works, but it’s never going to be monetarily worth more than what you bought it for unless you become the next Stevie Ray Vaughn or it’s signed by a celebrity. We live in a mass production world, and there are a LOT of MIM strats out there. They are gifts, beginner guitars, backups, projects, parts, and played until the strings dissolve.

Also, from a perspective of upgrades, it’s THE guitar. It’s the standard, and there are more parts for it than any other guitar. Broken neck? Get a new one. Want to replace the pickups? Do it. Some guitars out there, you’re stuck with what you got unless you do some major repairs. Every single part on the strat has ten to hundreds of options for replacement. Warmoth, Allparts, Dimarzio, Seymour Duncan, Planet Waves, Schaller. All companies that make new parts for the guitar you want to upgrade. Also, it’s the guitar that repair people have the most experience with, so chances are if you want a fret recrown, the repair guy is going to be able to do it quickly, cheaply, and well.

Thinking about it, the Fender Standard Made in Mexico strat is not a great guitar. Looking at it from a workmans perspective, it’s fine. The ones on the shelf are fine guitars, and even sitting on the shelves I’m not a big fan. But for something to work on, it’s amazing. I’m thinking about getting one just to Frankenstein it. And looking at it for what it symbolizes, it’s absolute perfection. It’s what gets people to start playing guitar. Priced just low enough to tempt people, and named perfectly so people will want one. Someone will as, “What kind of Guitar do you have?” “A Fender strat”, they say. It’s a guitar people want and are proud to talk about. And for that, it’s perfect.

Never played guitar? Buy one. Screw the value and the depreciation, it’s your first guitar, and it’s a Fender Strat.

Have a bunch of expensive guitars? Buy one. Tear it to bits, learn about guitar, mod it, paint it, crank it.

I usually grade guitars on the guitar itself, but you can’t do it to this. Someday, I’ll rate an American strat like every other one i’ve reviewed, but this one is special and I don’t even own one.

The Pros: It’s a Fender strat. It’s just fine. It’ll work and play.

The Cons: That it’s just fine. Machinery is so fast and advanced now that even the lowest models of companies should be able to play as good or better than the cheap guitars of yesteryear.

The Grade: