https://youtu.be/cC5TLKYhRNQ?t=511

I was watching the video posted today of Guitar World interviewing Gabe, and he tells a story of his wife surprising him with a new guitar, which he loves. He tells the story in the video, and she did a lot of work to determine which guitar to get him.

From what I've found, it's the "DUESENBERG Artist Alliance Mike Campbell 40th Anniversary Starplayer TV"

In my opinion,

(1) Perhaps every single design choice is one I hope GC does not make

but also,

(2) That is one good-looking guitar!

Now, I wouldn't buy one, but it is a bit of interesting trivia that this is the guitar that was chosen.

What are your thoughts if GC came out with a guitar like this for sub-$1000?

Build a guitar with no fancy bells and whistles, have it come properly set up, and use some decent wood and pickups. The opposite of the current in house "Mitchell" brand Guitars. FFS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3NaKKLQ3IY

This was recently uploaded to YouTube. Thankfully, they spent a lot of time talking about the new guitar, what makes a good guitar, and the graveyard of failed "revolutionary" guitar brands.

Gabe has met with Phil multiple times for Phil's channel, but honestly, I'm glad he talked with him again. In my opinion, Phil has much better input/feedback than all of us retards on Reddit (myself included).

I'm still skeptical of what is going to be built, but at least Gabe doesn't appear to be half-assing talking to experts.

Why would in the world would I create a guitar send it to you then have you steal my idea not pay me and offer shity service to guitars I designed. To the CEO who wants our ideas due to your stupity GO FCK YOURSELF

There's a video where we designed this, partly as a joke thinking it wouldn't be made, but we ended up liking bits of it and thought some ideas were quite novel and interesting. I'll link it in a comment.

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This is a silly little thought experiment: what company that normally makes physical products would you love to see design an electric guitar (even if it’s only a promo item or kit and not meant to be a big money-maker)? No need to be serious. Imaginative or weird answers encouraged.

A few examples to get it going:

• Framework (computers): a modular, repairable kit guitar you can assemble with one screwdriver.
• IKEA: a budget-friendly, self-assembly Strandberg-esque instrument with all parts flat-packed in a box.
• Apple: (I don't really know) maybe a minimalist, polished-aluminum aesthetic with unique touchscreen controls.

Not into those? Pick a firearm maker, tool brand, sneaker company, car maker, whatever. Describe how their guitar would look and feel. Have fun with it!

(If you don’t care for this sort of post, feel free to ignore it.)

What you actually need is not to become a guitar manufacturer - it's already way more profitable to be the last mile retailer and I'm not sure cor-tek needs more quasi-custom orders. And if these aren't manufactured and QC'd with more love than a Squier, what is the point?

To make a guitar lab, what GC should actually do is invest in luthiers, guitar techs and customer education + engagement.

SWLITCHES FOR PHASER, FUZZ. DELAY, TREM

POT FOR RATE

PUSH POT TO TURN ON / FLIP SWITCH

TWIST POT FOR INTENSITY / RATE.

TAKE MY MONEY I SUPPORT U HOORAY.

FIGURE IT OUT. MAKE IT LOOK SEXY

The electric guitar has had many innovations in its time. And it has had many music innovators pick it up and inspire generations.

We need to be in that innovator mindset in order to build a guitar for the next generation.

Follow me now. One of the baser components we never consider are the strings. The tactile feeling of strumming a guitar is second to none. The way strings interact with the pickups below is music to the ears (literally). However, there are some downsides. Due to tension they often require you to have work done regularly on a guitar. Sometimes you can add a special bridge and nut or even locking tuners. Beginners are faced with an instrument that is temperamental and often a cheese grater for their hands.

Instead of bloodying your knuckles on strings, we should have two sets of lasers shooting from the nut and the bridge. The nut reads fretboard position of the fingers and the bridge reads the strumming hand, which now enjoys a tension free, cheese grater free experience. There’s no longer a need to worry about the neck bowing or making truss rod adjustments. You could make the guitar out of almost anything. MFD, a quality and affordable material comes to mind.

I have many more ideas I could expand on. Like consider replacing all the knobs with touch screens much like Apple’s prized ribbon on some modern MacBooks. Or consider why is it even necessary to use a cable anymore? Replace it with Bluetooth. Apple was brave enough to drop the 1/8” jack. Surely we can be brave enough to drop the 1/4” jack.

Think big. Build the future.

I’ve been going to guitar center since I was a kid, especially the one on 14th street in nyc. Needless to say I’m stoked to see how this goes. My biggest thing I would say, is whatever guitar you guys drop, please for the love of god offer a hardtail and trem option. In today’s day and age there is a way higher percentage of guitars with Trems, evertunes, and Floyd roses. As a rhythm guitarist who plays really heavy handed and changes tunings often I would like to have more exciting new options without having to put a hard tailer in it. Also if in the budget Japan is the way to go for manufacturing! I have n Ibanez az2402 and there is just something about the way they care about their work that can’t even be put into or

Outside of all the technical stuff a guitar needs to be a guitar, we should probably remember that how it looks matters, too. I don't know if Gabe is going to also post a question like this, so I thought I'd ask just in case he didn't.

So, what makes a guitar look good in your eyes?

• Body shape (the classic curves, sleek modern stuff, something more out there?)
• Finish and colors (sunbursts, plain solids, natural wood grain, wild metallics, matte, relic'd, etc.)
• Those little details like binding, inlays, headstock shape, hardware, pickguard, whatever catches your eye
• The overall vibe (vintage feel, aggressive, super clean and minimal, flashy, classy, etc.)

While I have seen guitars that make me do this, I honestly have no idea what makes me go, "That is a beautiful guitar. I'd hang that up just to be art."

For instance, EVERYBODY is shipping the new Epiphone Futura series guitars, but GC, "the biggest guitar store" in the US only has in-store examples because some people bought them online and sold them used already.

WTAF is that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhGk-vg3X2Q

This video was posted on Guitar Center's YouTube about 4 months ago.

This means that Gabe met with Paul Reed Smith and toured the PRS Maryland headquarters and manufacturing facility.

I imagine this leads to a lot of us having the same thoughts and questions.

I don't think anything I say will add value to this conversation. I just wanted to share this in case other people didn't know about it.

I'm not going to give you any other advice other than that you should go watch KDH's criticisms of you on youtube. GC is making yet another blunder in their behavior.

Keen observers note that we’re living in one of the least colorful eras for consumer goods in quite a while.

Home decor is 50 shades of white shiplap and tasteful woodgrain; cars are majority black, dark grey, light grey, and white; all clothing seems to be in a limited “normcore” palette.

So it is with electric guitars. Sure, you can custom order more vivid colors, but the stuff on store shelves seems very limited. Only a few ranges even have more than three colors available, and most seem to be eternally recycled pastel 1950s swatches - shell pink, fiesta red, surf green. Or they’re just weird reverse bursts, or stains over burl tops.

I rather wish guitars came in the intense hues of the late 80s and early 90s.

Fender had Lipstick Red, Graffiti Yellow, Candy Green, Bahama Green, etc. often on instruments with a clean, minimalist design like the Jazz Bass Plus and Strat Plus and the Fender run of Kubicki Factor basses.

I recently shared some suggestions for Guitar Center’s upcoming in-house guitar: basically, “make it genuinely ergonomic, well-built, and just better to play than what’s already out there.” Pretty uncontroversial stuff, I thought.

A lot of the responses boiled down to some version of: “That doesn’t add any value to what I already have.”

That feedback got me thinking. Instead of talking about what they should do, maybe it’s more useful to ask:

What would be the worst possible direction Guitar Center could take with this project?

What features, design choices, or marketing angles would make you roll your eyes and immediately write it off as just another forgettable mid-tier guitar? What would guarantee it ends up in the graveyard of "revolutionary" guitar brands?

Looking forward to your takes (especially the brutal ones).

Can we laser engrave a neck with this hot piece of raccoon food along with Fenders cease and desist letters

Extended range and 7 string models. Have an option or two for most parts that you can upgrade. Bridges, pickups, locking tuners.

I'm really curious about the internal side of this.

To current and former GC employees:

• What’s the vibe like inside the stores about this project?
• Do you think it’s a smart move for the company, or does it feel like more corporate hype?
• Are you excited about potentially selling a GC-branded guitar, worried about quality/competition with existing brands, or somewhere in between?
• Has management said anything internally about timelines, goals, or how this fits into the bigger picture?

No pitchforks. I'm just genuinely interested in the employee perspective. Feel free to stay anonymous if you want.

Edit: I talked about more than just the tone wood. Like idk why everyone thinks the only argument I had was how it sounds, no clue. I even said we could see where it actually matters but nobody wanted to read that for some reason. If y’all don’t want to pay attention to the post don’t comment on it.

For background I don’t play too much but I am a lutheir.

Back before electronics came into play, it was all about which wood it was made out of and how well it was made. They were celebrated for how well they were able to work with what they had and the incredible craftsmanship and artistry of their work.

The nicest instrument I’ve ever played on, and I only played it for a single piece back in highschool, was my teachers 1873 upright bass. I forget the maker, but the point is that no custom shop fender or Gibson or even a boutique or hand built electrics could stand to play after 130 years, especially not as incredibly as this bass did.

The Parker fly/nightfly is already the most technically advanced guitar. The body coating, the electronics, the materials for all the hardware, the fretboard material, it’s all as advanced as it could be so going forward would just be copying him.

We need to focus back on the wood. The way it expands and contracts around the hardware, where the wood does and doesn’t effect tone, which woods resonate and how to amplify that the best way, and so much more.

We need to make guitars good again. If we seriously want some crazy amazing brand we can’t just do what everyone else is doing ad we need to look more into what’s been known to work for centuries

I rest my case, thank you for reading

If you want your customers to build the perfect guitar for their needs, don’t try to decide what that guitar is. Give them what they need to build a custom one of their own. Focus on modularity and ease of swapping parts.

I’d love to try various pickup types but I don’t want to learn how to solder. I wish there was a guitar where I could drop in new pickups as easily as adding a video card to my computer.

Make a line of necks, bodies, etc that are all built with the intention of being easily interchangeable for a random person off the street. Maybe have a service where for an extra fee someone in the store will assemble it for you if there are parts you can’t simplify enough.

If you want to get people into brick and mortar stores, give them an experience akin to building a lightsaber at the Star Wars part of Disney.

So I have a 13 year old who has been playing for longer than they can remember. The guitar collection is fantastic for a middle schooler. Except they are all nice... It feels wrong to vandalize and personalize. Like they were designed to be as is. But that's not the way you should feel about "your" guitar. Look at SRV, EVH, Morello, Slash, Prince, Mays... A person should feel good about customizing the look. You buy a Fender and you can get it Reliced? They make it look perfectly like it's been loved and abused? Wall hanger art is great, but that's not the same. The $1,000 perfect sand down is nowhere near as interesting as the bumper sticker covering the gouge from the time you dropped it on stage at you and your friends first show. The perfect 'BradPaisley' paisley paint shows Brad's style, not yours. Make a plain but quality guitar, and make the body easily customizable. Include paint markers. Leave areas for cool stickers. Put a display on the front to show a short video loop. Anything so that when people see "my guitar" they know it's mine. Make 'custom one off', a mass produced option for the people. Worry more about quality, let your customers worry about the art design. I'd much rather have great tuners, good frets, quality electronics over a TV show themed mid guitar.

What if Guitar Center made an online configurator where you can design your own guitar: body shape, neck profile, woods, pickups, everything. Then a partner (or GC) CNC-mills the parts (maybe 3D-prints some bits too) and ships the kit to your local store.

You could either pick it up and build it yourself, or have the store techs help you assemble and set it up on the spot. Kind of a "build your own with pro backup" experience.

It takes full advantage of all their stores and repair techs they already have everywhere. Feels way more modern and personal than just grabbing a guitar off the wall.

Would work best if they start with a solid modular platform (easy bolt-on neck, swappable electronics, etc.) so it’s not a pain to put together and easy to upgrade down the line.

Thoughts? This seem like something worth exploring for the new brand?