Does it matter where a guitar's made? And are these 2 Twins?

I'm not a fan of buying anything from China at the moment, although it is near impossible to avoid Chinese-made goods in the USA. There are so many great alternatives in the guitar market that I don't find it necessary to buy a Chinese guitar.

I find it hard to believe the "Epi" reason for their Chinese factory. The Korean-made guitars that I own or have played in the past have been of the highest quality.

In any event, I don't know anything about fretless bass guitars so I can't comment on that specific issue, but I used to own a Michael Kelly archtop (LP knock-off) and it was a GREAT guitar. I wouldn't spend morethan $350 for one, though. You can get them left and right on eBay for $300-400.

I recently read somewhere that all but the Elitist Epiphones are now being made at factorys in China and Czechoslovakia.
This was in reguards to the drop in QC on the LP reviews i read.
Does anyone know if this is true?

personally, i don't care if a guitar is made on the laps of virgins in Cuba or by Droids on Tatooine, i just want a nice quality instrument at a reasonable price.

I've been saving for a few years now (a few bucks here and there) for a nice mid/upper range HH solid body guitar. I've been torn between LPs and SGs and many other designs and the Asian made ones have really come a long way.

Lately the Michael Kelly Valor Limited (Korean?) has been pulling at me.
neck-through body, strings through body, and coil tapped for $500 at MF

Does it get any better than this???
http://www.michaelkellyguitars.com/valor_limited.html


Here you go. $229 with $25 shipping. Get it!

http://cgi.ebay.com/MICHAEL-KELLY-Valor-Flame-electric-GUITAR-CLOSEOUT-NIB_W0QQitemZ200128886591QQihZ010QQcategoryZ2384QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

that's a different guitar, but i'll keep watching ebay.
thanks

I went to GC on my lunch break today, and played a brand new Epiphone Sheraton II. It was set up very well, the finish was perfect, it sounded good, and I thought "hey, the Chinese Epi factory has got it right." So I was most surprised to see "Made In Korea" on it. Apparently not all Epis are being made by Epi ...

Great thread, Chris C. 8)
I would have bet the house your Chinese model was a knockoff! Great there are people with much more knowledge than me to weigh in.
:)

i don't care where or how it's made. I've got guitars from everywhere:

Indonesia: Ibanez and Squier
Mexico: Fender Strat
Canada: Seagull (of the Dead)
Korea: Fender DG22
USA: my favorite instrument in the world...MARTIN

I love going to GC or SamAsh and playing the guitars. I just love it. I have found that I vastly prefer the USA models. I much prefer the MIA Strats over my Mexican one...the Mexican one is great, but all the MIA Strats and Teles blew my brains out. So smooth, so comfortable, and the electronics were beautiful. Epiphones are also good, but I've played some Gibsons and they ranged from just a bit better, to FAR better. I played a Gibson Jumbo and I wanted to cry it was such a great guitar. I played the Epi equivalent, not so impressed.

My overall feeling is that the Asian made guitars are fine instruments, very serviceable and will last you a long time. I own mostly foreign guitars and I love them all and they will be with me for years. But at the same time, more expensive American made models are, IMO superior by far.

BTW, I just noticed while putting the Squier Tele down to give my fingers a brief respite....on the back of the headstock is written, "Designed and Backed by Fender" and under that, "Crafted in Indonesia."

:D :D :D

Vic

My Yamaha classical guitar is also 'crafted' in Indonesia and it sounds wonderful to me as the days pass by.

I'm happy with my Mexican Strat and my Indonesian Sheraton (and my American Scion!)

Most Taiwanese and Korean companies are either already building products in Chinese factories or planning to do so. As for Japan, costs to build in Taiwan and Korea have risen to the point where many first version and higher price point products now start in Taiwan and Korea, but the lower cost and more mature designs (in terms of Asian manufacture) are being moved to China. China's quality control is as good as required by the "name" (Epi, Samick ...) company's management demands given what they want to pay.

As for differences in guitars from Korea to China: These guitars are clearly built to different specifications; but as noted above, that does not mean either is a counterfeit. There are good reasons for Epi to authorize and support variants of the same model. For example, Epi may very well have let a particular factory/engineering group alter specs for easier manufacturing in a particular facilty. Epi may go so far as to even let a contract manufacturer use an an existing product by that manufacturer as the basis for a new variant of an Epi product. Samick has been knocking off the SG for some time. Why not tweak that design into an Epi G400? The advantage of doing that is usually faster time to market and better yields and quality since the factory is already somewhat "familiar" with many aspects of the design. Samick gets to reuse a lot of factory tooling (machines that make parts), so Epi actually pays less for the design and production of the guitar.

The Ibanez Artcore line is now made in China -- they do a great job on those guitars. It's all in what the customer (Ibanez) demands and is willing to pay in engineering, materials and value-added manufacturing (factory costs).

Thanks for all the interesting replies. :)

Whilst I was tryng to find out what the differences really are between countries of manufacture I came across this "Virtual Tour" of the Gibson factory in the USA. It's worth a look.

Gibson Electric Factory Tour

The photos show pretty much what I expected - a moderately sized factory operation. You would expect to see factory workers and not old fashioned luthiers working at benches surrounded by wood shavings, and factory workers is what you see. But whilst it looks like a well equipped factory - and I wouldn't mind upgrading some of my woodworking gear with some of theirs - it doesn't look 'State of the Art' compared to some modern factories. It looks like the sort of mid-sized operation which can produce good quality gear but which would struggle to compete against bigger, slicker factories, especially if they had lower labour costs. It looked very much like the size and style of mid-range operation that is closing down all round the world in other industries, in favour of outfits that are are either much bigger or else smaller 'boutique' style setups. In business, the middle ground is now often very tough territory.

I couldn't see anything specifically wrong with it except that it looked to be the wrong size and style to continue to compete effectively . I wouldn't be surprised if its days were numbered. Naturally, I hope that's wrong.

Cheers,

Chris

Martin factory tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-NTCHcNow
Sunday Morning (TV show here in the US)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmfu1hqIDuo

Taylor factory tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFqronc_eXc

and here's a whole slew of them...
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=guitar+factory&search=Search

Great. Thanks for those links. :)

I'm off out in a moment, but I'll have a look later today.

The sort of thing that I noticed at Gibson was stuff like the guy cutting out the neck blanks by hand on the bandsaw. Nothing wrong with doing it that way, and he was clearly very quick and skilled at his job. But it reminded me of when I used to make boomerang blanks for a friend's business.

Now I was quick and accurate on my saw too. You could buff it up and say thay they were "handmade with with a craftsman's experienced eye for detail" or some guff like that if you were doing a brochure. But it was boring repetitive work and when I lost interest in doing it he got them laser cut by a machine that was controlled by a computer. The result was quicker, cheaper, and actually better and more efficient in every way. There were no down-sides or quality loss, just a noisy, dusty unpleasant job being replaced by a machine...

There are some jobs that are still best done in the 'by hand and eye' method by skilled humans, but not all. So I can see why that more labour intensive style of building is finding it hard to compete now, especially if the labour force is relatively expensive compared to competing countries.

Cheers,

Chris

I'll tell you how my pink $70 ebay-special Johnson bass is when I get it; should be any day now. Your comment on the nuts being bad is especially interesting to me. I've got some other parts to buy, but I've been waiting specifically to see how the nut is and whether or not it will need replacing. Sounds like I should plan on it. :lol:

I bought a cheap Johnson bass and the first thing I did was to rework the nut. Apart from the fact that the original string grooves looked like they'd been made with a couple of light blows from a hatchet, they were way too high off the fretboard. You practically needed a G clamp to pull the strings all the way down to the first fret. But once I recut them and set it up it a bit better it has proved very playable, and fine for the money, especially a s it came with a perfectly good bass amp. On my hollow bodied Johnson the nut appeared to have come out of the wrong bin, as it actually stuck out a little bit one side. This meant that the high E string tended to slip off the side of the neck when you fretted with any vigour... :shock: The distributor offered to have it replaced for free with any width I wanted, by a local luthier. But as a new nut was only $1 I just grabbed one from the shop and did it myself. Quicker, and interesting to 'do it yourself' anyway. :)

Look forward to seeing your new pink one. :)

Cheers,

Chris

Chris and TL, great links! :D