Warped Martin

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Oct 04 - 09:10 PM

Thanks to Google we only remain ignorant because we choose to.

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 03:38 AM

Dear Gibson

You never heard of them?

You re-inforce my point.

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 11:26 AM

No, Ii never heard of them.

Are you so arrogant to think that you have heard of everybody?

Oh wait, most lawyers are known for name dropping.

You are so blindly pissed off you obviously took this thread away from it's intent due to your lack of arguement.

Martins are not warranteed in Britiain for perhaps a good reason to the C.F. Martin Co.

Sit down, counselor. Take a deep breath

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 12:16 PM

Hmmm, maybe when CFM see some of the clowns who are supposedly in possession of their products in the States, may may decide to review that generous homeland warranty.

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 12:44 PM

I bought my first Martin in 1954 and I owned three Martins early on. I've seen quite a few old Martins and there are some still floating around. In fact, Deckman has two. Really great guitars.

But I've also seen some of the new Martins. Unfortunately, they just ain't what they used to be.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 04:32 PM

To old people, Don, most things are just not as good as they used to be.. I do know plenty of bluegrassers who are playing newer Standard Series as well as Vintage and Golden Era series Martin instruments.

They love them.

Guest, I doubt it. They treat their customers very well here. Keep humming.

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 07:19 PM

Marty, age per se has nothing to do with it. Experience, judgment, and knowledge of Martins and instruments made by a lot of other companies and luthiers does.

Martin generally turns out a fairly good quality product, but Christian Frederick Martin would not be too happy with some of them. Nor would Christian Frederick Martin III who took over the company in the Forties. They used to be mostly hand made, but not anymore. There has been a dip in quality within recent years as a result of cranking them out to meet the demand. If yours is one of the earlier ones, count yourself lucky.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: GUEST,cumbrian
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 03:55 AM

Don, there is some substance to what you say, in as much as turning out such large numbers of guitars across a vast range of models, there are going to be some QC issues, simply down to the fact that wood is such a variable factor.
I am lucky enough to have some very good Martins from recent years ( D28,D41,00028VS and 00028EC ) all of which stood out from the rest of the pack, I have also had a few, including examples of the aforementioned models that struggled to come up to scratch. The four Martins I mentioned all hang on in there against the smaller shop guitars I also own and play.
Knowing enough about wood selection, storage and ageing, I note that some of the more significant problems with odd guitars coming out of respected name factories is down to less than top grade woods. I suspect that due to turn over of wood stocks everything gets used, and sometimes too soon to have fully seasoned ( I have recently had two custom shop Gibsons where the ebony boards ( ebony being prone to dry out ) have contracted /expanded significantly within weeks of shipping. This suggests a use, in some examples of woods either, lacking stability or not having fully aged before use.
The general grade of woods used back in the Golden era were very high on production models, while now it seems that to get the best, it is safer to go to the small shop luthiers, where wood selection is generally high and instruments are built to bring the best out of the wood, rather than to specified production quotas.
Having said all that, it is possible to find a very good Martin these days, as,if anything, the existence and success of Collings etc. have forced up the standards from the old guard.

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Juan P-B
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 01:00 PM

Dammit! Will you STOP dragging Martine away from having her bloody photograph taken with her Martin Guitar
Juan P-B

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 01:22 PM

Earlier this month we had an opportunity to tour the Martin factory in Bethlehem, PA.

Martins are not hand made in the sense that no one in the factory can make a guitar by themselves. They are hand made in the sense that virtually every operation is still done by hand with very little in the way of machines. The entire process is broken down into dozens of steps and each step is done by a few people who are highly skilled and trained to do just that thing. The result of each step must meet a specification for that step.

We used to think that Martins were expensive but, now that we've seen how much hand work goes into them, we think they're cheap

They have about 700 employees working two shifts and they turn out about 215 guitars a day including all the models they make. Everything is done in that factory except inlaying which they contract out.

Making this many guitars requires a lot of wood so we can see how they might have to lower their specifications on the raw wood. From what we saw they have a great bunch of people trying hard to turn out the very best instruments they can.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Lanfranc
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 02:23 PM

Bev & Jerry must have been looking for the new born again D-45JC - the carpenter's shop is, I am led to believe, in Nazareth, PA, as it has been for some years.

Go to Bethlehem for a steel guitar, perhaps?

Dog in a manger, moi??

Alan

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Once Famous
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 03:05 PM

Good post defending Martins of today Cumbrian and Bev and Jerry, also.

Don, go buy a new one and try one out. Mine is a 1971 D-18 with an aged top, tone, and intgrity that kills. As I reiterate, many bluegrass people I know are playing D-16s, Hd-28s and new items like D-18V. These guitars are just fabulous.

Juan P-B, keep strumming that cheap piece of junk you found at the flea market. If you get good enough to play it, you to can one day step up to a Martin, after you get your 8th grade diploma.

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 05:02 PM

I am not unfamiliar with Martins.

There was a shop in Seattle years ago—the Broberg House of Music—that sold a variety of instruments, but they specialized in Martin guitars. Mrs. Broberg, a venerable old lady, played classic guitar herself, and she rightly considered Martins to be the best American-made guitars, exceeded only by European makers such as Herman Hauser in Germany and two or three of the Spanish luthiers such as Manuel Barbero and José Ramirez. Mrs. Broberg tried to keep at least one of every model Martin in stock. Many of them were set about the shop on display stands. We used to spend a lot of time at the Broberg House of Music just looking at the various Martins and feeling something akin to lust. As far as I know, no one ever sacrificed a goat before one of them, but then. . . .

I bought my first Martin there, a 00-18 steel-string with spruce soundboard and mahogany back and sides. It was all I could afford. It was $95.00 and I had to buy it on time. $15.00 a month. This was in 1954. It was a fine sounding instrument. A year later I started taking classic guitar lessons and I traded it in on a 00-28-G—spruce soundboard, with the back and sides made of really beautiful Brazilian rosewood. $175.00, would you believe? Later, I got a 00-18-G (spruce, mahogany back and sides), for about $110.00 as I recall, as a second guitar. All these Martins sounded great and felt good to play.

It was in the late Fifties, when I joined the Seattle Classic Guitar Society, that I was introduced to some of the guitars by European luthiers. Since then I've owned seven Spanish-made guitars (four classics and three flamencos), and they were better than any Martin I've ever played—fuller sounding, longer sustain, more projection—although the Martins were quite good. I could definitely have survived had I just kept the first Martin classic that I bought. But GAS (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome), as we all know, is a powerful motivation. . . .

Wood is definitely a problem. There has been such a demand for good guitar woods within recent decades that the really choice woods are exceedingly hard to get in any quantity. This is one of the reasons why the quality of many formerly top-name guitars has diminished. Back in the Fifties and early Sixties, you could buy the first Martin that Mrs. Broberg handed you and be sure that it was top quality. After all, it was a Martin. But not anymore. It is definitely possible to get an excellent Martin these days. But you have to be very selective.

But the same is true for other makes. Through much of his career, John Williams has played guitars made by Ignaçio Fleta of Barcelona. I once heard him say that Fletas were all excellent, but some were better, and at Fleta's shop, he tried seven guitars before he found the one he really wanted. The most recent classic I purchased was Japanese-made (not mass-produced, but made by a Japanese luthier who apprenticed in Madrid), imported, inspected, and labeled as approved by José Oribé. It looks and sounds like a José Ramirez and some people think it is. In fact, I played it once at a Seattle Classic Guitar Society meeting and everybody assumed it was a Ramirez. But even so, I had my pick of five guitars of the same model.

Because of the wood situation and because most of the big name guitars are turned out in much greater quantities than they used to be, no matter what brand you're looking for, you have to be very picky. It isn't wise to buy one just by "brand name" anymore.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Once Famous
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 05:17 PM

I agree Don. and quite frankly, I don't buy any new guitars at all myself. All 5 acoustics I own are 1960s guitars except the '71 D-18. I just like the vintage jive I get from them. However I do believe the Martins and the Gibsons are going through a new renaissance of quality again.

The foreign makeclassical guitars you mention are really in a different league and for a different type of musician, so I really don't find the comparrison relevant for a picker and power strummer like myself.

But if I played flemenco............

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 05:27 PM

Flamenco the true path

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: GUEST,Martian Gibbon
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 05:39 PM

Totally agree you have to be very selective these days.

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: cumbrian
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 06:15 PM

Don,

Have you had a chance to check out any of Greg Smallman's instruments, as used by John Williams for the last few years ?
I was interested to find out that he was using laminates for the back and sides rather than solid woods which seems very radical in the conservative world of classical building.
By all accounts the tone and projection of these guitars is amazing.

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Juan P-B
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 06:41 PM

Ooh! I do love a vintage jive! Especially during the Gibson renaissance! Martine? Do you do fries with that?

Juan P-B

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 11:30 PM

Perhaps you are new to Mudcat Juan, but it is a general consensus that personal invectives (even those aimed at willing targets) are best kept below the line.You seem to feel it's OK to scatter it in multiple music posts. Come on Dude, grow up, or if you can't, at least play your childish games in the BS section where we expect that kind of drivel.

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 27 Oct 04 - 01:29 AM

Nazareth, Bethlehem, what's the difference? Jesus was at both of them!

Actually, they're both in Pennsylvania and quite close to each other. We kept getting them confused even when we were in one of them.

Anyway, right you are, it's Nazareth.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Warped Martin
From: Once Famous
Date: 27 Oct 04 - 04:49 PM

Thanks, Guest. wish you would have posted that under your regular posting name, but hopefully it will shut this guy up.