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Yup -mobile phone recordings seem to be pretty good – we have one to try, so we’ll all see how well it works!
That really is great – especially as he isn’t getting paid to play that one, its just the one he likes to play –
I love the idea of live interaction, but we’re still working our way up the tech chain – I hope you all noticed the improvement in audio quality with this new one, and our tech director RN has identified a couple more things we’ll try next time to make it even better – I think our next challenges include carrying on the podcast while wandering around the shop, and recording on the road. Baby steps, everyone –
We’ve been recording these sitting in the front lobby of the shop, so you may very well hear dogs, delivery drivers, employees, and even visiting customers in the background. Generally, RN does his expert editing to eliminate, or at least minimize, these background noises – but sometimes you just can’t –
We love getting questions and ideas for discussion – but we’re also not trying to make a SCGC marketing piece – this is about Richard Hoover, and a chance for him to interact with lots more people than he otherwise has the opportunity to do. This means we’re not likely to talk about specific SCGC policies, but definitely discuss Richards feelings about guitars and woods and players, etc. Since Richard is the primary driving force behind SCGC, there will be a lot of overlap, but anyone who has has a chance to talk with Richard knows he has a tremendous reservoir of experience and history that he is happy to share – and we love to hear it.
We give Richard a little heads up on the general topic of a podcast, but we don’t want something scripted, so I like to ask questions that may lead us into areas that weren’t planned, but brings a bit of spontaneity and insight we might otherwise miss. Like the origin of the script font for the ‘29 series – such a great story! If we have a question that might require some background or investigation, we’d definitely let Richard have a chance to get that together beforehand – but others, we may try to get his opinion and action as he processes the idea –
We really are trying to refine and finesse our format and process, and truly appreciate all comments, suggestions, and complaints you might have. Yes, it takes a village – and we’re just happy to be the local village idiots!
They’re both maple!
these aren’t the ones you saw at the warehouse – neither have a pickup, so they stay at home –
No idea – there is a ½” difference in width, and I have no idea why – the nut width is the same. 175 (no cutaway) is a Swan spec’d guitar, so maybe its something he wanted? Its kinda odd, having the traditional diamond markers – maybe its more like a dread headstock? 174 has the ebony headstock, which feels more like a standard F cutaway detail. Maybe I’ll have to see if the shop has any other info on differences with these –
I think an EU meet-up would be amazing! Next year, though – so Daniel has enough time to fix the place up for us all. 😉
Maybe we can find a couple european dealers that would want to help, tie it into an event that maybe Richard and Carolyn need to go to anyway. Take a bit of planning, but it would be a serious life-memory event!
Reminder that we’ll hopefully be doing #2, shortly after Richard returns from Namm – if anyone has some good questions or conversation topics for Richard, maybe even about guitars, let us know!
Septembers good for me – although my wife might be unhappy if I disappear for a whole month –
then again, she might not –
Back in 1980, the base price sheet was –
D – 1100
H – 1100
F (std, no cutaway) – 1200
F – (cutaway, deco inlays) – 1500
FTC – 1800
Std Options offered –
cutaway – 150
carved back (F series only) – 300
deco inlay – 150
12 string – 125
german spruce top – 50
east indian rosewood – 50
Brazilian rosewood – 125
My take is that while prices have gone up, alot, the material price increases have been a huge portion of it. Alot of their work I think was being done in maple, koa, and mahogany – eir was an upcharge material. So compare a $75 upcharge to do braz rather than eir, and compare that to the upcharge now, which I think is maybe 8 or 9,000 ?
also – even their 1980 price list specifically says that they invite custom work, which was pretty unusual for a shop to advertise –
Think of it as playing barred shapes up the neck, but without having to work so hard. plus you get those nice open voicings that are almost impossible to get with barre shapes. Its not like playing a shorter scale instrument, because you still have the larger strings, larger body and soundboard, and all that –
Hopefully the podcast can be one workout, and the music links can tide you by til we get another one out!
Yay! So – a bit of backstory –
a while back, there was some discussion of ways to promote the forum – one idea was a podcast with the maestro, giving him a chance to talk about a variety of topics, answer a couple questions, and just be Richard, which is pretty cool. So indexless, our admin and webmaster, got it together and managed to make it happen. I had the pleasure of helping, and participating!
This is our first effort, and we already have a number of ideas about things we can do to improve it – but this is also a group effort, and we’d really like to get feedback about what you’d like to hear, and what kind of questions you’d like to ask, and any general format ideas that you think would make it better.
Input to the show is gonna be restricted to users of this forum – we may have to figure out a sticky, or a specific thread – but that’ll all get sorted in the months ahead –
We also hope you’ll help spread the word, and let other people know about the podcast, and the forum!
And MUCHO thanks to Richards N & H, for all their efforts to make this happen!!
It seems like a good business decision – rather than increase gross sales by increasing volume, which is gonna be incredibly difficult when the materials you need are not just bulk ordered from some supplier and your means of manufacturing do not scale up thru new machinery or cutting labor input, so you go for higher value, which is most easily attainable via custom orders. If the custom pipe slows down or has gaps, you throw a few “standard” spec items in, keeping everyone busy – especially if you have some incredible artist models up your sleeve. The quality of their work has never been better, but the market for higher end non-custom guitars is a difficult one these days, so the best thing they can do is build for the people who appreciate the work, and are willing to pay that bit extra to get things built exactly the way they want them. You can go to many solo builders, but you do not get the same level of consistency, simple choice of options, and name recognition that comes with a Santa Cruz – I haven’t heard anything from them about any of this, but it does seem to make a lot of sense –
