Demand for Custom guitars - peoples views..

Nemeses

Hi, I wanted every musicans view on this topic.

Two of us, both interested in music and both live for the music had a discussion about price of guitars and what was available to the market in Ireland.
We didn't seem to find anything in Ireland about Custom Guitars built for you.
Granted you can get cheap and affordable equipment international,
But what about having a custom guitar that was..

• purely designed by you, your artwork, the way the guitar looked..
• had all the parts pickups,exact number of strings you wanted..
• at an affordable price?
• a guitar you have that no one else has..
• Plays the way and sounds the way you want it to sound

We were thinking of doing this as a business but wanted to know if there was a demand for such a thing and also peoples opinions on this..

ALL feedback good or bad is more than welcome!

MagicMarker

Have either of you every built a guitar before?

Nemeses

Yes, we have build guitars in the past and have enough knowledge between the two of us to successfully build a guitar (numberous times ):)

seachto7

I've often thought of opening up a little shop in ireland, and wheeling and dealing in guitars you wouldn't find in any other shop....but I fear the market and population is too small in Ireland...

Nemeses

aye, the population is a bit small. But its do-able as well. Thing is, the prices are too high full stop for music gear. Best place is international.. like Thomann. However, Is there a call for Custom built guitars... unique ones .. etc?
some thing you can call your own.... and no one else has!
also affordable too

Johnny Storm

FYI
http://www.chrislarkinguitars.com/
http://www.hazeguitars.com/

Nemeses

ah cool. Thanks for the links. At least I know there are others doing this..

trad

There are many people here in Ireland making a living building instruments with much smaller markets than guitar. I'm from the traditional music scene but there are guys making harps, accordions, whistles, flutes, uilleann pipes, fiddles etc and making a decent living, mostly working from home based workshops and lenghty waiting lists.

If you are good at what you do and you produce a quality product you should do ok.

Nemeses

I suppose "less talk more action" comes to mind so.

Thanks for all your opinions so far. Keep 'em coming!

68 lost souls

TO build a proper custom guitar on a small scale operation they do run expensive, they will be more expensive then others so I dont see where your going with affordabillity. Ive been looking into this as well. I have built 3 guitars and done a lot of modding/upgrading on others as well as building amps and fx pedals.

There really is not as much demand at the moment as there has been in the past, people just dont have the money. THere are sevral others that do it that have been linked to. I know there is a new guy in Dun Laoighre, Derek Nelson some times builds custom guitars, and one or two more.

DOnt get me wrong, it owuld be nice to see more guitars coming out but I really doubt it is a viable business plan at the moment, perhaps a part time thing but if you have built guitars using proper quailty parts before you will realise how expensive it gets so your affordable price is out the window.

rcaz

I wouldn't be into custom gear - for what I want to do, there's already an item, or combination of items, that I could find a way to make them do it. And with the HUGE amount of stuff out there beyond the obvious, it would only take a bit of digging. I looked at the gallery on Chris Larkin's page there, the guitars were still just guitars.

Blackhorse Slim

I think a bigger opportunity - or at least one you should consider - is modifying guitars. How many people buy a quality guitar off Thomann or whatever, want to personalize or modify it in some way but are afraid of ****ing it up? If you can build a reputation for top-notch work, I think there's a demand.

Anything from changing pickups and hardware to respraying a body.

trad

68 lost souls I don't think Derek Nelson is a new guy, he's in his 60's and all he does is custom guitars. He's up in Marlay Park

rcaz

Blackhorse Slim wrote: »

Anything from changing pickups and hardware to respraying a body.

Do guitar shops not do this anyway?

Gary ITR

El Pr0n wrote: »

Do guitar shops not do this anyway?

Most in Dublin give you Derek Nelsons number when you want anything more complicated than a change of strings

68 lost souls

Dereck or Eugene Mcgloughlin or Tony Thomson. There are a few others as well.

Eoin Madsen

trad wrote: »

68 lost souls I don't think Derek Nelson is a new guy, he's in his 60's and all he does is custom guitars. He's up in Marlay Park

I don't think he meant to imply that Derrick Nelson was the new guy in Dun Laoghaire. He should have used a hyphen or a semi-colon instead of a comma there.

Blackhorse Slim

I wouldn't trust most guitar shops with a decent guitar

rcaz

Onkle wrote: »

Most in Dublin give you Derek Nelsons number when you want anything more complicated than a change of strings

People pay shops to change strings for them??

Eoin Madsen

I'd be quite into custom-made guitars. But from my experiences engineering bands, I'd be representative of the smallest group of guitar buyers by far. The guitar market in Ireland is sustained by cheap guitars - none of the shops are staying in business specialising in expensive guitars, let alone custom guitars.

But if you were building custom guitars as a sideline, could do it for a fair price and still profit, and most of all would enjoy it, then go for it.

Eoin Madsen

El Pr0n wrote: »

People pay shops to change strings for them??

They usually give the truss an oul twist and call it a "setup" though.

darrenw5094

El Pr0n wrote: »

People pay shops to change strings for them??

I saw a young gason recently leave a guitar in to a music store in the North-East for a new top E string. The full installation was charged @ €10.

Fabulous service though.:rolleyes:

BostonB

How about this for an idea....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmtWqzs-NGA&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaOB0inn2bs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_CKvrMEbR4&feature=PlayList&p=4EC4E201600657F0&index=15

punchdrunk

Rob's cool,he's the Orange amps demo dude and always posts on the Orange forums really helpful guy