Gig Bag Question

[László]

Your comments on "One guitar, You run what you brung" ... (not your words ,but my protocol conversion !) are truly funny

But with this current round of price increases (and other prior pricing) ...

We seem to bee paying for hard cases ... But we are NOT getting them (Hollowbody SE an exception )

Well, except that everything gets more expensive over time. My first car, a brand new Mustang loaded with options, cost $2500.

You'd think at today's prices you'd get a free garage with the car. But you don't.

 

[CrimesAgainstMusic]

Well, except that everything gets more expensive over time. My first car, a brand new Mustang loaded with options, cost $2500.

You'd think at today's prices you'd get a free garage with the car. But you don't.

Point taken ...

But Les, If PRS (or others) were to offer a "Gig Bag Delete" option ...

How much do you think that would reduce price of the guitar ? The $105 bucks they list for ?

Naw ... something considerably less, if anything at all. But I would surely take that $100 bucks, as it would reduce the cost of the Gator hard case I'd be buying anyway by half ...

PS, My "first new car" was cooler than yours ! A 1977 VW Scirocco ! The most expensive car sold on a "per pound" basis (as told to me by a Detroit Police officer !)

 

[László]

Point taken ...

But Les, If PRS (or others) were to offer a "Gig Bag Delete" option ...

How much do you think that would reduce price of the guitar ? The $105 bucks they list for ?

Naw ... something considerably less, if anything at all. But I would surely take that $100 bucks, as it would reduce the cost of the Gator hard case I'd be buying anyway by half ...

PS, My "first new car" was cooler than yours ! A 1977 VW Scirocco ! The most expensive car sold on a "per pound" basis (as told to me by a Detroit Police officer !)

They don't make the bags, therefore they don't get them for free. Of course they mark up the cost!

Your Gator case didn't cost a hundred bucks to make either, and the price was not only marked up by Gator, it was further marked up by whoever sold it to you.

Capitalism. It's a thing. Businesses want to make money.

What do you suppose it costs me to write a piece of music that I sell to an ad agency for decent dough?

Plus my 1965 289 Mustang was arguably more badass than a Scirocco, but this Hartge 633 was my 80s ride (scirocco was late 70s/80s?)…

https://imgur.com/ly1zfFE

 

[CrimesAgainstMusic]

They don't make the bags, therefore they don't get them for free. Of course they mark up the cost!

Your Gator case didn't cost a hundred bucks to make either, and the price was not only marked up by Gator, it was further marked up by whoever sold it to you.

Capitalism. It's a thing. Businesses want to make money.

What do you suppose it costs me to write a piece of music that I sell to an ad agency for decent dough?

Plus my 1965 289 Mustang was arguably more badass than a Scirocco, but this was my 80s ride (scirocco was late 70s/80s?)…

https://imgur.com/ly1zfFE

Hey ,,, I worked for Ford at the time ... And knew better than to buy one ! (If you knew the cook spit in the soup... kinda thing )

Nice Bimmers !

 

[László]

Hey ,,, I worked for Ford at the time ... And knew better than to buy one ! (If you knew the cook spit in the soup... kinda thing )

Nice Bimmers !

Re: the Ford thing, I get it!

The M1 was a buddy's, and the two cars looked pretty cool together, so I couldn't resist taking a pic when he came over in it. The M1 was like a race car in street clothes, and while mine was no slouch - I raced it in club events - his was smoking, crazy hot.

 

[CrimesAgainstMusic]

Les,
You are strictly , a "High Priced Spread Guy "

 

[SinSir]

I tried buying a Les Paul tribute recently (which turned into a Core Starla, f-yeah!) and the Gibson gig bag they brought out looked phenomenal.

My point being, to Les's point, that to me the bag looked so nice I assumed 1\4 of the guitar price was just for the bag. Also the bag was super nice, and the guitar sucked as some here would have assumed.

I agree about the Gibson gig bag. It just looks cool. I have both the Gibson case and bag. I use the bag far more than case. I use the Gibson bag more than any other bag, even use it for my PRS.

I dig me a hard case, especially the PRS tanks, but living in the city a bag is exponentially more convenient.

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Well, except that everything gets more expensive over time. My first car, a brand new Ford Model T loaded with options, like windows and a steering wheel, cost $25.

Fixed

 

[DISTORT6]

Fixed

I would have went with brontosaurus.

 

[Alnus Rubra]

I would have went with brontosaurus.

…..with leather exterior.

 

[RedGuitars]

Mine don’t look like dkornel’s pic. I have three from 1999 or so.

They were $100-ish from the accessories store. Have backpack straps.

 

[László]

I would have went with brontosaurus.

…..with leather exterior.

I figure it this way:

4.6 billion years ago, the Earth was formed from dust and gas orbiting the then-new Sun, which was itself formed from a solar nebula.
The universe dumped all kinds of sh!t from asteroids, other planets, other stars, etc., onto the Earth as it formed.

The law of Conservation of Mass tells us that matter is conserved regardless of the chemical and physical changes it undergoes, and that the same amount of matter exists before and after the change.

While the Earth isn't a closed system (since there have been asteroids and other space junk traveling here for eons), in proportion to what was already here, it might as well have been very close to a closed system.

Therefore - for the most part - we're all made of matter that existed a very, very long time ago. As Joni Mitchell said, "We are stardust." And our genetic material comes from cellular instructions that have descended from a whole lotta generations or people much like us.

All of us certainly consist of very old matter. Our genetic code is very old as well; they've traced some of it back millions of years.

So. Am I older than you?

I guess that depends on when your matter was formed, the age of the minerals that fed the plants you and your food ingested, etc. Your stardust elements could have been created an instant after my stardust elements.

My matter, or at least some of it, could be more recent than your matter, or at least some of it, even if you became aware of your personal existence after I did.

You can see how complicated this gets. In comparison to the age of the planet, let alone the age of the universe, we are here for less than a nanosecond. Does it really make much difference that I'm a tenth of a nanosecond older than you, even if my matter is determined to be older? I think not!

This is why I'm completely unfazed by reference to my age.

Edward the Black Prince's tomb says,

"Such as thou art, some time was I,

Such as I am , such shalt thou be.

To which I will add:

Eventually, if we're lucky enough to live long, we all find ourselves bedridden wearing an adult diaper, in hospice, waiting for the end. It isn't pretty. But it's what there is to look forward to.

I'll get through that before you will. Alternatively, I might be lucky enough to kick the bucket in my sleep and avoid it, or get hit by a bus.

That is NOT a bad thing!

 

[László]

Les,
You are strictly , a "High Priced Spread Guy "

Life is all-too-short. I figure I should be good to myself while I'm still around to enjoy it.

You can buy oodles and oodles of horse sh!t for $10,000. Or you can buy a little bit of gold.

We've all got our priorities.

 

[CrimesAgainstMusic]

Naw ... NObody buys horse sh!t when opting to buy the carefully considered cost effective solution, as opposed to the gilded lily plushie good that satisfies ego above all, while providing no other advantage over lower priced goods ...

Creating that reality where one purchase shows how much you know, where the other ... How much one has to spend !

And if my man Ed the Broski Primce above had his sh!t in A Hard Case ...He would have been the mutha reading the eulogy ,as opposed to the one who grave was being weied on !

 

[watelessness]

Mono.

 

[László]

Naw ... NObody buys horse sh!t when opting to buy the carefully considered cost effective solution, as opposed to the gilded lily plushie good that satisfies ego above all, while providing no other advantage over lower priced goods ...

I know you mean well, and weren't trying to insult anyone. Still, I have to reply because I don't think you're being fair to an awful lot of people.

"No other advantage" is in the mind of the person paying for something, and no one else. 'Satisfies ego above all", sorry, that's a judgment based on some pretty big assumptions. You can't really know what someone else is thinking.

Let's talk guitars, what we're all presumably here for.

The only example I can knowledgeably give on the subject of motivation is my own. But mine might be a worthwhile case in point.

An instrument that's cost-effective for me might be very different from one that's cost-effective for someone else. I have different requirements that the casual observer might not even know about.

I get my music business from competitive demos, where three or more highly professional production companies, composers, and producers submit tracks for a project. Ad campaigns at a certain level can be worth a lot of dough. I'm going up against the best folks in my biz for my work.

Do I want an extra little bit of an edge, even if it's only one tenth of one percent? Do I want that extra one horsepower if I'm racing?

You bet. Why wouldn't I?

I did a national campaign for Ford truck last year where the client who chose my demo said the guitar tone from what you might call my 'gilded lily' was exactly what they were hoping for. It's not the first time this has happened. It's taken place many times in my career.

After a while (32 years in the music biz) I figure I know what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it. The campaign made a good chunk of my year.

Creating that reality where one purchase shows how much you know, where the other ... How much one has to spend !

I might ask, what do you know about my business? If the answer is, "Not all that much," you're not in a great position to comment on what I know about my instrument requirements. You certainly can't claim you know more. The same is true of many other situations.

Give others a little credit. They might know more than you do, at least about what works for them. And they certainly know more than you do about what's in their head when making that choice.

No one's really the arbiter of what makes good sense for someone else, at least re:gear.

 

[RC Mike]

I don’t disparage anyone for having nicer things than I do. I don’t look down on anyone for using what they can afford or wish to spend, regardless of whether it’s a low-price thing or a high-end piece. I just don’t care what others use—I use what makes sense for me, and assume others do, too.

I don’t understand the complaints about a gig bag. Things cost what they cost. Don’t like it? Buy something else. It’s that simple.

 

[László]

I don’t disparage anyone for having nicer things than I do. I don’t look down on anyone for using what they can afford or wish to spend, regardless of whether it’s a low-price thing or a high-end piece. I just don’t care what others use—I use what makes sense for me, and assume others do, too.

I don’t understand the complaints about a gig bag. Things cost what they cost. Don’t like it? Buy something else. It’s that simple.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[CrimesAgainstMusic]

You can buy oodles and oodles of horse sh!t for $10,000. Or you can buy a little bit of gold.

We've all got our priorities.

HeyButLes

Its kinda hard to know how to take a statement like the one above ...Although by now, I know it is all in jest, and no offense meant / none taken ...

BUT ... I'm sure that you can see that there is an easy equation to be made here between say ... SE guitars or other cost effective product lines that "punch above their weight" as being (Horse sh!t) and Core /PS / WL being Gold ??? Lines which employ premium components and methods, and result in a premium instrument (that despite its vastly increased price represent the epitome of diminishing returns , and may sound a 'smidge" better ?
Talk about maybe being " unfair " ??? Hey , that was you sayin that ... Not me ...

Like I have said in another thread, folks tend to spend their $$$ in the way that give them the most pleasure , or "Utility " A basic Econ 101 concept. I

If one has to have the high priced spread, and is willing to pay scads of $$$ for tiny increments of "improvement" ... Then that is what they do. Such a customer is not going to be satisfied with anything else. Hey ... did Jimi Hendrix ever play a $6,000 guitar ? SRV ? even Jeff Beck (well him maybe)

Being willing to endure the diminishing returns of lily gilding comes into play for me in stereo high fidelity. I will pay for the gilding on the lily... cause I know if I dont' , Ill be wondering how much better (or more like real life) the system would sound if I had spent the extra $$$.

But for this particular toy group , Guitars, I know because of the nature of the beasts, where there is the reality of having to have some innate talent to wring the most out of these devises ??? That I ain't gonna sound any better with a $6,000 guitar, as I would with a $600 guitar !!! (Yes, there are some really cool guitars, can be had for $600...or less !

AND to me ... they are toys . I do nothing professional with them , nor do I have any aspirations to do so . So ,there are limits as to what I will spend on such a toy, and I have come to rejoice in the the fact, that in this particular toy group there are a plethora of cost effective toys !

I don’t disparage anyone for having nicer things than I do.

Neither Do I ! And I am not doing that here. But please do not call choices like SE' /Squier/ Harley Benton/ Sire/ EART ... "Horsesh!T !

That is insulting, and betrays a degree of ignorance. (have you ever tried one of these products. or heard one in the hands of a skilled player ? ) They produce a satisfying result, for an extremely modest price. THOUSANDS of people enjoy them. Sales of products like them keep the guitar industry vibrant.

Heck, they may even account for a good portion of PRS's $100,000,000 in sales . I'm sure, the company would be considerably less profitable without it ..And the guitar industry, a much smaller boutique industry without so much "horsh!t to sell

Hey , in another toy group (semi-automatic handguns) I see the value in paying top dollar for say, a SigSauer product, versus say a Glock or S&W . I have them all. They are all cool. But if I was a professional, who's life might depend on using one of these things in the line of duty... I'll take the Gilded Lili Sig every time (apparently, so will the US Military !)

So Les, Your "retort " was an over reaction. But do look at the "statement" you made regarding "gold" and horsesh!t.

Nobody here makes the decision to buy crap with their $$$. Everybody attempts to maximize utility...

And we all do in ways that bring us the most enjoyment for our money. Maximizing "utility"

If for professional reasons , you need the edge provided only by that increment of improvement added by all the $$$ necessary ?

Then so be it . But please recognize, that for most non professionals, a satisfactory (and in some cases even professional result) can be obtained with much more modest gear

Hey ? Dan Auerbach, (The Black Keys) play a $6000 guitar ?

 

[RC Mike]

I’m a crap guitarist. It’s a hobby. It’s about enjoyment and personal growth, and exploring a different part of myself. I’ve found I enjoy US-made PRS guitars. My wife doesn’t get it, but she sees how much joy it brings me. She accepts it.

My advice is to see the joy others get in their instruments, experience the joy that yours bring you, and drop the chip on your shoulder.