Making Guitars And The Teenage Opinion 

Hey Chris, this was an awesome discussion post! I'm 61 and have lived in various parts of the USA. I'm now in Vermont and getting ready to start semi-retirement next year. I've learned so much from your channel that I cannot tell everything that has changed through what I've learned at your instruction. The opinions that I once held have been shattered and I have found a new enjoyment in trying out the many and various options available. I have about 25+ guitars NOW and have tried out many of your techniques. Back then I had ONE. The big take-away is that I spent many years tucked into a mind-set and could have had SO MUCH MORE at my disposal, if I had only been open and known about all this... Thankfully, as you have said, the ability to try out these things is more attainable today and I'm enjoying it tremendously... Even more than playing out... I enjoy "playing in" these days" You are appreciated! Just wanted to let you know...Thanks!!!

From doing guitar repairs as a side gig, the thing that always gets me is when people think that they have to swap out perfectly good parts on a relatively inexpensive guitar for ultra-premium parts because the internet said so.

I've been fighting narrow-minded opinions passed as fact for years, even in real life. At 41 and playing almost 30 years and building almost 25, the most valuable lesson is to keep an open mind on this stuff. I learned early because I'd go to the guitar shop and play anything the shop would let me touch....anything from a 52 Esquire and 63 Jaguar...almost every mainline Gibson from a 69 SG to a brand new Les Paul Custom...superstrats and pointy 80s guitars out the wazoo as they were cheap, a few PRSes including a custom 24....if I made a spreadsheet itd be obscenley long. Even some of the cheapest and poorly designed Asian guitars of the 60s/70s/80s. It taught me to appreciate them all for what they are and are not. When I started building and modding....it gave me a great benefit to start with. My classmates were obsessed with name brand parts and guitars, and while I lusted after that stuff...I learned through experience of learning WHY those parts were good that what I didn't pay for I could do myself and even alter to taste into something I could'nt buy anywhere. Now I'm sitting pretty on a unique collection of axes I really like with a unique mix of my own identity with a few traditions and lesser appreciated celebrity designs altered to taste. Bashing other people for differing taste is not constructive and I feel may be holding advancement in guitar building and playing back somewhat. We did'nt get guys like Les Paul or Edward Van-Halen because they followed the trends....they made em!

50yr old gal here who's been playing guitar since '86. The fact is thanks to technology most kids know more than a lot of adults due to a lot of adults not wanting to learn new things, and young kids being far more aware of the kind of information that's out there. Whenever I see a close-minded response it's almost always someone who's older.

62yo from Tasmania Australia, been building electric guitars for 3 years, thanks for your wisdom and knowledge as always, cheers!

Doing my first fret job and inlay work on a mid 1990s Ibanez RG neck. You have been a big help on my journey to becoming a luthier. I have a long way to go. Your videos are appreciated! Little lessons add up to big ideas.

As a young teenager I didn't know much about how guitars were put together except that I "understood" abalone was supposedly special -- so I always kept an eye out for abalone inlays and such. I carried that thinking for maybe fifteen years or so. Now I perceive the guitar world differently both as a builder and a player. There are so many cool things that can be done; I'm open to anything inside, or outside, of the box!

I'm in my early 60's. Worked on my sister's guitar from the Blue Chips Stamps in mid 70's Built first body for a Strat neck copy in '79. I bought the tools from Builder's Emporium. Built my first complete guitar in 1981. 1985-1986 I worked at Jackson/Charvel doing inlay and fretting. I built several acoustics and even a lute for my sister from plans. Came out great. Late 80's to early 2020's I was in the fire service. Now, I'm getting back into my passion and not obsessing over it. It's fun again.

Very often people present an idea as an opinion, and are not aware of the differences between the two. One of the skills of a teacher is to take this into account and consider the effect of the nature of your rebuke. As a student, a humble approach bears fruit. It's a cause and effect scenario. For what it's worth, I'm a white 50 year old male and I am going to learn how to make an awesome guitar. Listening to others has allowed me to learn how to make many things to a high standard. 👍

You know what's weird? I'm a 65 year old guy from Brisbane Australia!👍

I am 51 years old. I built my first guitar, using the cnc mill at my job, in 2003 or 2004. I gave up the hobby for a while because I had young kids and guitar building supplies were not a priority. Chris, your videos inspired me to build my own cnc router and get after it again. I have a fanned fret 7 string on my bench. I've screwed up the neck 3 times and the finish on the body once. I've picked up a ton from your videos! Always learning!

I’ll admit that when I first started building and working on guitars and basses I was looking for “the one true and holy way” to do things. Now that I know more I realise there are a number of ways to do things that all can yield good results so use the method that makes sense for you, your tools and your abilities. I think another thing that happens in the comment section and on forums is that people build one or two kits or do one fret level that isn’t challenging and goes ok and think they’re the ultimate in lutherie and their opinion is it.

I think you really hit the nail on the head when you brought up when people can or can't back up what they're saying. I think to an extent, age is almost irrelevant (though i suspect a lot of early teens are most likely to be beginners and so not as knowledgeable, equally, some older people never learn more than the basics and can also not know much). I also think the car analogy is brilliant, it can even extend to how two people can give seemitgly contradictory opinions which seem to have scientific backing: the best specs for a rally car are not going to be the best specs for a Formula 1 car, and yet, in each case both types have an optimal spec. If anything, guitars are a less extreme case because the amp and other parts of the signal chain make such a big contribution to the overall sound.

I'm 59 and have been playing since '83. I am self-taught in guitar repair and maintenance. I am also at an age where I know I don't know much and have learned how to shut up and listen to those who know more. 😊

I’m glad you tolerate opinions V’s experience. I’ve built a couple of electric guitars just to better understand how they work. Always appreciate your knowledgeable input on the subject. Thanks for sharing your work. PS. No hiding behind an alias here

I’m a 58 YO male that got my nickname when I was in the Marine Corps. I don’t play guitar but I have always loved the instrument. My teenage Grandson plays so I try to learn as much as possible about the instrument so I can talk about it with him and help him understand what equipment he needs and the difference in kit. He is preparing for the fall concert at his music school. Next spring he will be playing his first solo so I’m looking into amplifiers. So many wonderful choices, but the decision is his. I just guide him.

OMG. Before you even got to the tremolo part of the video I was thinking of the commission guitar I just built with a Bigsby tremolo and I got so many comments on how it should have been a Floyd rose bridge. The customer wanted a vintage surf guitar and the Bigsby was the right fit. Some people just can’t see anything but what they think is the best option. Nice video. (As usual). Thanks

i loved the anecdote - this was a brilliant video :)

I prefer to explore all options when it comes to the bridge, pickups, tuners, etc... to find out the best option that will be best suited for the instrument and the end user. Great point of view, I enjoy all of your videos!!!

This is why i stopped going to the Fender and Guitar subreddit. The amount of misinformed people there is insane and I feel like im taking crazy pills when people argue things that are just tried and true facts when it comes to the guitar. I hit the breaking point when i had like 4 different people arguing with me that string gauge doesn't matter when it comes to tone. And the same thing happened when i suggested that a Jazzmaster owner try a thicker gauge string set because he couldn't understand why his set of 9s were constantly going out of tune and intonating badly. Instead, he was just inundated with comments about how the JM bridge is a bad design and that a Mastery was his only option. Like man, i have played and built offset guitars for 15 years, so i knew what i was talking about. But nope. I was wrong in their minds.

GuitAr lore has always had a lot of woo. Because we have a kinda new word for doesn’t make it a new thing. And woo can last a lifetime. Is it Jim Lil? Not sure, but a guy a lot younger than me does a lot of actual testing. - great stuff. With nearly forty years in engineering, I’m sold on his methods. And I’m subscribed to your channel too.

Great video, Chris, as always. So, I am going to both agree and disagree with you about ebony vs. Indian rosewood fretboards and their effect on sustain. Being in the acoustic camp for many years, I know full well how different an ebony fretboard can sound vs. a rosewood one on the same guitar - because I've changed them before. As to the effect on sustain, the ebony is more rigid and dense than Indian rosewood - and therefore cannot eat up as much string energy with out of phase vibrations. As is the basis for noise-cancelling technology, the same frequency 180 degrees out of phase will self-cancel and the result is a sustain killing muting effect. If you've ever played a guitar with one fretted note on the fretboard where the acoustic sound volume drops drastically, you've heard what happens when a freq is out of phase. In that case, the cause is usually an air space or void under the fretboard in that spot, which can also be on a freq nodal point. Anything that makes the overall structure of a guitar more rigid can increase sustain. You most likely will not see a gain in replacing a softer mahogany neck/rosewood fretboard combination on a solid body guitar with a hard maple/ebony neck combination if your body is made of a soft wood like basswood. Most, if not all of the gain in rigidity will be eaten up by the damping in the softer wood. Carbon rods in a neck can increase rigidity, raise the inherent freq of the neck and increase sustain. Again, if your body is too soft and has too much inherent damping, you likely won't hear the difference. The ultimate example of rigidity, for the most sustain possible, would be a tuned string between a steel nut and bridge on a 2000+ lb steel I beam. You would think that in that case, there would be no way inherent damping could ever affect the vibrating string with out of phase vibrations - which is what damping is, but you would be wrong. If you put a piezo element on the end of that beam and connected it to an amp, you would hear the note on the plucked string amplified. If the piezo can pick it up - the metal beam is vibrating. If it's vibrating, it can cause damping and reduce sustain. It is said that Stradivari - when he went to buy wood in the log form - he would tell his assistant to go to the other end of the log and hit it with a mallet, while he placed his ear against her end. How well he could hear the blow told him how resonant the wood was. Now, to agree with you - in a sense. The amount of effect that the magnets in the pickups can have on the strings is such that it can cause more sustain loss than any gain (via rigidity) that I have mentioned, and is what I think may be the main reason that any wood choice vs, another might not matter so much in a solid body electric guitar. I have a cheap Chinese suspended humbucker pickup on an archtop guitar (but not for much longer) that measures almost 600 gauss on the surface. Yes, it is an extreme example of excessive magnetism, and the amplified sound of any plucked string on that guitar generally completely dies away in about 3.5 seconds. It is also a great example of "just because its cheap doesn't mean it's a good deal". Again, great video, Chris.

Firebirds ❤. Had a 75 Trans Am back in the day. Still miss the sound of the 6.6L V8.

I hate to say it, but I've been there myself. According to me in my youth, Mahogany and Maple are the best tonewoods for solid body electric guitars, the only tremolo that mattered was a Floyd, and humbuckers were superior in every way to Single coils. When I started doing some more experimentation on guitars and guitar-related projects I gained a lot of perspective that I wouldn't have had if I had just stuck to what was posted on guitar forums or Guitar World Magazine. It can be difficult, I think, because when we have stuck to those opinions for a long period of time and invested time and money pursuing the gear that supposedly was "perfect", there can be a need to justify it to yourself. For me, though, when I started to learn that things weren't as simple as I thought I became MORE excited about guitars and gear because it meant I had so much more to learn and try out that I had previously written off.

Keyboard experts are not in short supply 💜💜💜💜 Sarah xx

"that's one of the problems with social media" i really like this special episode. i belive that i got those parts that concern teenage ideas/beliefs/opinions (which i think are unavoidable/to be expected) and the problems with unreasonably klinging on to those for way too long, when in fact some of them might be revisable... however, this special social-media-wrap-around is something that couldn't fully convince me yet. for the reasoning in thisepisode states that the main problem is having or klinging to those teenage opinions that could be revised. yet, this episode itself as well as other commentators seem to confirm my intuition that an unwise (sticky) state of mind cannot always and easily be explained by any arbitrary attributes of humans. it seems to me that the only information added to a user name that definitely could inform us about teenage opinions might be some sort of a certificate which proves that someone has failed a proper wisdom (reasonability) test. other than that we'll have to find out in a conversation when it fails to present reasonable thinking. well, it is the old school way but i believe that it still works. and i don't think that anonyms (nor any personal meta data) in social media are to blame in the department of wisdom or the lack there of.

Great vid. I really like the car analogies. I'm 50. 😎🤘

This video made me think if there was any statement that would be true for modern guitar building and wouldn't sound like a 'teenager's' opinion. It seems that there's no a single contemporary guitar building method, material or part that could be considered as an industry standard. After decades of guitar building industry progress that's rediculous. It looks like if the automobile or the airplane builders wouldn't be sure if the technologies they used nowadays were better than the ones from the beginning of the 20th century. Why do the guitar builders and the guitar players seem to think this way? I have no idea.

fun fact , this happened just last week son of my coworker is a teenager and he decided to earn some money by building guitar effect boxes. tube screamer , fuzz face , begginer stuff only he doesn't know electronics, he is just a highschool music school graduate he was embarased to come for help but when he did we had a lot of laughter because vericaps and potentiometers are not the same, and jack sockets have pins that got disconected after plugging cable in so troubleshooting was quite easy for me but when i was his age i probable was equaly dumb

Guitar as it comes at least 70% the sound, Pickups and wiring 25-30% everything else you could bolt on 3-5% excluding tremolo. fx boards/pedals 200%. Just my opinion. I agree that you cannot drastically change the inherant natural tone of a particular guitar by much, but it's fun experimenting and I feel that the process can make it feel more yours. Focus more on your playing and less on the placebo effect because gadgets will never beat ablity . Age 40

If people are talking about guitars, it's a pretty safe bet that they are old guys! Definitely holds true in my case.

Thanks!

I think the story you're describing about age, is more a story about getting properly educated and get the right information and resources. The older I get, the more I realize that age is unfortunately often has a poor correlation with wisdom. I very often run into much older people who are just misinformed but are very stuck into it. I have seen people actually going from wise to a lot wise this way. So i doubt if those opinions are all based on ideas that started early in life. I am actually an engineer and lately it seems to be very problematic. A lot of people get the impression that you can kinda cheat your way by taking a bunch of shortcuts. Not realizing how much time, effort and dedication is needed to actually understand all the nuances. You simply can't do that with a couple of hours a week.

I understand what you're saying & I've long thought the same BUT if you were to know the age; location &/or orientation of someone and base your opinion of their opinion on these then you've fallen into the same trap you're warning us about, surely?! The best thing to do for all of us is, when confronted with an opinion that is very contrary to your own, sure take it with a pinch of salt, maybe but if it's a new opinion (or variation on a known opinion) then it doesn't matter where it's come from just try it out yourself & judge from experience alone Just my 2ç

All right, let's play this game 😁 If I say the stainless steel frets are way better than the nickelsilver ones, does it look like a 'teenager's' comment?😁 And here's some more 'radical' guitar related statements: - conical radius fingerboards are much better than the constant radius ones; - PU finish is much better than the nitrocelullose one; - the active pickups are better than the passive ones; - glued-on frets are better than the unglued ones; Do they all look like a typical 'teenager's' comment?😁

i turn all notifications off on my channel besides my analytics recap. same for all my social medias, i want to be able to read comments and replies on my own terms, because i doint like being notified of comments in the middle of my day that 95% of the time is stupid and will likely frustrate me and ruin my day.

I've heard it said that a mind is like a parachute...If it's not open it doesn't work Lol... :)

The people who passionately chime in on whether a floyd or kahler is better and the other is total crap are the same people still arguing over who the best 80's thrash metal band is. We all know this is true haha

I'm probably getting this wrong. But it sounds like Chris is insulting the teenagers. "Teenagers are less informed," sounds like an unsupported opinion to me, not backed up by any real data. But again, I could be wrong. Just to be clear, I think he's right. But that's just my opinion. I hope there's a fun fight about it in the comments!

Exactly why boomers just want a custom shop vintage distressed several-thousand-dollar piece of over-priced crap! Leave teen-agers out of it! Just like the boomer-buying Harley market.... No one should give a crap about that old, tired crap! Analyze that!