https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqhAV45QA1A
http://www.mattraines.com/pages/cfHome.cfm
2011 was a great year!We did our first NAMM show and met some amazing people. One of those people was a great guitar player from Downbeat magazine who really enjoyed the Serena archtop. A few months later they contacted me about doing a review for their July 2011 issue! It was a great review and really helped us show off the new guitars. http://www.downbeat.com/digitaledition/2011/DB201107/single_page_view/74.html
Every once in a while I receive a phone call or email asking me to explain some online review or Ebay feedback (username passanova). I would like to take a few minutes to address these things. We all go online looking for reviews and recommendations. Restaurants,auto mechanics,etc. Ever notice how you scroll through 100 reviews looking for the bad ones? I currently have over 800 positives on Ebay and 100% for the last year. However, people will scroll through 200 comments and find one where some guy says I'm a liar and a cheat. The same is true for online reviews. There are tons of good ones and yes, there are bad ones.
The first bad review I remember well. I sold a 6 string classical electric on Ebay for around $300 shipped with gig bag.I shipped it and the same day received an email from Steve Chrismar; "You make these by hand in Austin right?". Of course I can't make a guitar by hand here in Austin and sell it for $300!. Long story short, he lost his mind. Death threats, saying his friends in Texas will come after me,etc. This tirade was followed by several scathing reviews on Harmony Central. Keep in mind that it was a $300 guitar. He was instantly upset that it wasn't some incredible deal on a $2k guitar. In that regard I understand his disappointment. And if he simply said "oh man I didn't read the entire description. I'm looking for a better quality guitar". Don't you think we could have settled things more simply?
More Harmony Central Debauchery:
My entrance into the 7 string archtop community wasn't exactly embraced with open arms by some luthiers. It's a tough business and my guitars were a threat to some people. This led to a negative campaign by a few luthiers I won't mention. More threats. More negative reviews. Now I'm not claiming that none of the reviews are real. In the past some of the guitars had some issues that may have seemed minor to me but not to the customer. People often complain about set up-buzzing,etc. In a recent conversation with my friend Chris Forshage (he's a MONSTER luthier) he even said "any guitar that is shipped will need a set up. So they should be ready to spend $100 to get that done"If I am in Texas in the "Winter" and it's a humid 80 degrees,we set up a guitar with 3/64" action at the 12th fret and ship it to Montreal during a blizzard, guess what? It's gonna buzz. It's gonna buzz...A lot. Most of the time it's as simple as a minor truss rod adjustment.
A Brief History
The older guitars were designed to be inexpensive. If I could get good tuners for $20 or cheap not-so-good tuners for $10, I got the cheaper ones. Please remember that 7 strings were rare and cost a good $2000-$5000 on average. I was selling the Fusions for $425 with hard case shipped. And I recorded a lot of my Cd Inner City with that very model. It was a great sounding guitar. But yes it was cheap. I started getting into acoustics and classicals as well. I remember the Ibanez AJ 7 string acoustic. They were big yet dull sounding, over $750 and always had horrible setups. So I knew I could do better.
I went to China almost every month for a few years. I sourced everything-wood,pickups,tuners,eq's,strings...you name it. Everything was bought direct from suppliers. This is how I still operate to this day in order to save my customers money and give them the best guitars possible. You can expect some major upgrades for 2012....
2012 Moving Forward
Upgrading tuners on most guitars to Sperzels and retro-fitting older models with gotohs and other high quality locking tuners.
Cases and bags; Our custom bags are finally ready after waiting a year! 30mm pad. Super quality. For an added cost we will also offer custom G&G cases and Fusion Gig bags.
Strings; We're even offering more options for strings. Custom gauges from GHS,coated acoustic strings. Just tell us what you want.
Customs; We still do custom guitars but are a bit backlogged. Customs on master archtops only.
Trades; Yes we still take trades of all kinds!
http://youtu.be/nqhAV45QA1A
Payment; Paypal,google checkout,check (no holds!),cash,money order,bank wire or deposit. We're even offering a master archtop for 1oz of gold regardless of spot! And as always, taking silver at current spot price.
Thanks a lot for reading this. I'll be posting more youtube vids,more auctions,more lessons and updating the site.
