The guitar business is in a weird spot. It’s the
best of times for some, the worst for others.
Never before has so much quality gear been
available to players. Never before have there
been so many of us looking for gear. You’d think
everybody would be happy. Yet the folks who
build and sell the gear are struggling to stay
in business. And the players, well, they’re still
hunting for that perfect piece of gear.
Since the mid 1980s, we have seen a
resurrection of the entire industry. We’ve
come from a point when it looked like both
Fender and Gibson were about to go under
(1985 and 1986, respectively) to now having
more manufacturers of guitar gear than ever.
In straight numbers, production hasn’t been
this high since 1964—and that was a spike
sparked by the Beatles, not a sustained period
like we’ve seen over the past few years. This
renaissance was built on three trends: 1) The
popularity of reissues of the iconic electric
guitars of the first golden era, 2) buyers’
desire for high-end gear, and 3) the ability of
manufacturers to produce gear of excellent
quality at lower prices. It’s a rare case of an
industry actually listening to the market. It was a
good business model and, for a time, it worked.
The Economic Blues
The state of the economy, of course, has
not helped. According to Music Trades, the
oldest and probably most-read journal of the
musical instrument industry, sales of musical
instruments dropped by 19% in 2009. That’s
the single biggest dip ever recorded—and
Music Trades ought to know, because they’ve
been in publication for well over 100 years.
Shaky economics have put a pinch on the
pocketbooks of gear buyers at every level.
Perhaps we’ve come to a point where the
industry has gotten so good at what it does
that it’s almost too much of a good thing. The
quality of the gear available today is really
astounding. There are more high-end builders
of guitars and amps than ever before, and
the products they produce are mini works of
art—pieces of craftsmanship well beyond any
production-line pieces of previous periods.
They take the best of what we know about
building and make it available to every
player. For a price. Many of the small shops
reside in what has come to be called the
“boutique” category—a term that has become
synonymous with “expensive” and that has,
I believe, unfairly categorized a lot of good
builders who truly do make a superior product.
Savaged by Overhead
Take, for instance, my friends over at Savage
Audio. I have known Jeff Krumm and his
team for years. They have a solid reputation
for quality repair and tremendous customer
service, and the amplifiers they build are some
of the best offerings ever available. Savage
amplifiers reside squarely in the “overbuilt”
category: heavy cabinets, massive transformers,
better-than-military-grade wiring, and circuits
that have some serious thought and expertise
behind them. Savage got into the amp
business back in the mid ’90s, building amps
for rock stars like Beck, Pearl Jam, and R.E.M.
to take out on the road—where quality is
paramount. If you’re building an amp for a
guy who is about to go out on a 200-show
world tour, you build the amp to stand up to
any abuse. You overbuild it, because that’s the
type of quality a pro player requires. It’s not
overbuilt to be expensive.
Savage has sold these amps to the general
public for some time, and they have always
commanded some of the highest prices in
the amp game. But the Great Recession of
the last few years has really put a squeeze on
high-end amp sales. This leaves Savage and
their dealers in a tight spot. In fact, recently
Savage found themselves forced to sell their
amps direct from the shop as the only way to
continue to build to their quality standards
and still be able to offer amps to the public.
The Quality Conundrum
The odd juxtaposition here is that the big
guys have gotten much better at offering
great quality gear at the lower end of the
price spectrum. Back in ’64, when you bought
a budget guitar that’s exactly what you
got—something that was just barely playable,
might last for a year, and probably produced
a sound that was dubious at best. Now the
budget-level offerings are much different. I
was at Larry Taylor’s house a couple months
ago (Larry played with Canned Heat at
Monterey, Woodstock, and Altamont, and has
played with a zillion other artists since—Larry
knows gear) and he was freaking over a new
guitar he had just bought. I figured it was
another classic piece, something that would
go right along with his collection of fine
vintage gear. But when I got to Larry’s gear
room, the new jewel he so proudly handed
me was a Jay Turser JT139T hollowbody with
two P-90s. I thought he was kidding until he
showed me the build quality. Nice frets, good
fit and finish, fine hardware. He plugged it
into his reissue tweed Fender Deluxe, and
I’m telling you it sounded righteous. I had
the same experience recently when I bought
a Squier Classic Vibe ’50s Telecaster. It’s truly
one of the best axes I’ve ever played. And at
$300, I don’t feel guilty about it.
So, good for the big guys. They finally got to
the point where they’re building boutique-style
gear in China. They’ve worked out the
kinks, and even the pickiest internet forum-jockeys
are impressed. But where does this
leave the small guys? Jeff Krumm and his
team continue to build Savage amps one at
a time, using the best materials they can get
their hands on and playing and listening to
each amp for hours until they are completely
sure it’s A-1 quality. I think we all admire that
kind of dedication to craft. At the same time,
it’s hard to deny the satisfaction you get out
of thrashing around on a well-built budget
piece of gear that you didn’t have to take out
a second mortgage to buy.
I admire the guys at Savage for their work
ethic. I also know how much work it took
the folks at Jay Turser and Fender to get
their factories abroad to build their guitars
exactly to spec. I’d hate to think that these
two extremes are a mutually exclusive deal—
that, to like one, you have to hate the other.
Because I sure don’t—I get quite a kick out of
playing my $300 Classic Vibe Tele through my
$3000 Savage Glas 30.
Wallace Marx Jr.
Wallace Marx Jr. is the author of Gibson Amplifiers, 1933–
2008: 75 Years of the Gold Tone. He is a lifelong musician
and has worked in all corners of the music industry. He is
currently working on a history of the Valco Company. He is
a children’s tour guide at the Museum of Making Music, a
struggling surfer, and he once hung out with Joe Strummer.
