Time and time again I have been challenged to place a custom order for a guitar. Time and time again, I have always found it risky -- more riskier than buying a guitar from a retail store. At least you can walk away from a piece of crap in store. For custom orders, you cannot walk from it that easily and I believe 90% of these guitars are bad sounding and without character -- no exceptions. Some people may justify custom order because of the need for specs or maybe because they cannot afford the real thing and are trying to save but that does not exempt them from getting a dud. Most of them will not admit it because of their ego or plainly because they cannot hear that its a bad sounding guitar. A lot of my friends abroad have advised me not to engage in custom order for my requirements and they would rather prefer to produce the guitar first and for them to test before recommending it to me.
Unfortunately, most of these guitar companies are filled to capacity and have no piece to spare for me to try and reject. On the other hand, retail store inventory is really sub par compared to those that are limited in production and usually unless you know the owner -- the good sounding pieces of a batch are kept in reserve at the back for their top customers. In addition, stores with online capability are afraid to stand by/recommend a guitar to me because of my high requirements. Some stores that are capable, just don't have the stocks or they feel that their current inventory will not meet my standards. I have also grown tired of trying out a hundred guitars in a day in stores such as Tom Lee and Swee Lee and disappoint the salesman that their precious stocks of Gibson Custom Shop, PRS and Fender Shop all suck. So am I tired of telling people that they have bad sounding guitars and looking at me as if I cannot afford what they are saying.
Well I have decided to take a risk on luthier that I will not name until the end of the build. The build time is one year, so I can only update this thread irregularly depending on the build status. I will also refrain from indicating the type/model of the guitar because I believe it will keep the build interesting. I am taking a risk on this luthier because I believe he is one of the best in the world. And more importantly, I want to show the STANDARDS that we should measure the Elegees, Jun Castros and Max Rufos of this world. The build is expensive so I am not expecting everybody to afford it but I feel that members of this forum should witness a truly world class building experience.
Take note that the task at hand for this luthier is to be aesthetically correct and build in the response and sound of one of the best sounding guitars in the world. As an analogy, its like designing and building a Miss Universe with intelligence.
