|
|
Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Interestingly, when Ovation came out with the EA Viper models in 1994, where they could've finished the back of the mahogany bodies with a pretty natural stain to show off the wood grain, they decided instead to perpetuate the "bowl" look by using the same paint finish. Was this decision based on cost, or was it product branding based on Ovation's unique bowl? |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15676
Location: SoCal | Slightly off the topic, but I wonder how many O's/A's are built in CT, yearly, these days........ |
|
| |
|
Joined:
January 2009
Posts: 1249
Location: Texas | Prof..."branding based on Ovation's unique bowl?" I always thought it was to make it look Ovationish. JonMark has a nice example of a finished out body and I would love to strip mine down. Years ago, Ovation told me that if I wanted to order one, they would finish out the wood...it was for a 63 so they were made by order anyway. I never gave any thought to spraying on the back was a cost effective measure...but it makes sense. Like the Gibson CE, imo Ovation missed out in making a beautiful instrument, front and back... I think the EA68 was a much better looking looking isntrument than the Gibson Chet steel string version of the CE. It was the stars on the fretboard and bridge that really turned me off, aside from my Ovation fetish. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
September 2011
Posts: 402
Location: New Hartford CT | That's a good question moody. Even though the finished product was more labor intensive to build, in the years around 1990 they were producing approx 20K units/year in New Hartford alone.
That factory was humming right along. As the decade progressed several labor saving ideas were implemented. Not only did they save labor, the quality improved. Perfect neck profile, perfect finish and standardization so they all have a very similar feel within each given model. That's progress, right?
It's not that simple. This is just an opinion but when you reduce the amount of human effort involved in producing an instrument something is lost. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | bkok999 - 2012-10-19 9:05 AM AdamasW597:
"50 bucks says they've never played one. It's that plastic bowl thing."
Bingo. This is what people think of when they think Ovation, and it is largely viewed as being cheap. Kind of like what people think of plastic tubas that you see in high school bands. That is why I think that if Ovation is going to stay married to the plastic bowl design, they need to play it up as an advantage rather than just a way to build a guitar for less money. I think the best way to do this would be play up synthetic materials like Rain Song and CA guitars do. Come up with a synthetic guitar that maintains tone and playability, but more importantly do it at a Celebrity (or near) price point. We all know how great the high end Adamas models are. the problem is that when other guitarists look at a $3000 Adamas, all they see is the plastic bowl and they are inclined to thumb their noses at it. Like wise I would have a very hard time paying more than a grand for an Epiphone or Mexican Fender. Now if you can find a way to build a guitar with those Adamas attributes, particularly the carbon sound board, into a guitar that sells for $600-$1000, I think you would really have something to make Ovation stand out in a positive way. I know I live in a parallel universe, but this just stuns me. Please name ONE example where Ovation has ever pitched the LYRACORD bowl design as being cheaper to build and that's what they do it. Just one! It's always been about the sound and that is what Ovation has always promoted. The cheapest Rainsong you can find is $1500 and most are approaching $3K. CA went out of business. There is no way in hell you can ever build an Adamas for $600 retail. Or even $1000. When someone figures that out, please also find me a beachfront house in SoCal for $200K. Every single guitar store I've been in around the SF Bay area over the past couple of years have had Ovations displayed. Except for a local little Mom&Pop that had <20 guitars total and every one of them come from Samick. But all the rest had some there. No, not too many high end ones, but lately there's been more now that they are in the sweet spot of <$1000 price point. I'm talking both chain and independents. Hell, every store Moody and I have been to in SoCal have had Ovations in stock. I play out pretty often. At least once a week, usually two to three times. I see a lot of different guitars and guitarists. I've only ever had ONE person diss my Ovations ... it was a Taylor player who came out to an Open Mic for the first time and he sucked. Almost every guitarist complements and is interested in the Ovations, many fawn over them, and yes, some say they don't like them. Usually because they prefer flat backs ... it's a comfort/playability thing for them and I can accept that. For the most part, these people are real players and accept Ovations as a different flavor. And for all the supposedly huge sales numbers, what I rarely see (and what is usually denigrated by the guitarists at the shows when one shows up), are Taylor guitars. Maybe some of you are putting too much credence into the opinions of the wankers out there. The cork sniffers and know-it-alls who can't play but spend thousands on their guitars so they have something to brag and pontificate about. Ovation has never tried to build guitars to appeal to the wankers ... Ovation has always promoted their guitars to PLAYERS. Who cares what the wankers think? But like I said, I probably live in a parallel universe. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | amosmoses - 2012-10-19 11:59 AMI think the EA68 was a much better looking looking isntrument than the Gibson Chet steel string version of the CE. It was the stars on the fretboard and bridge that really turned me off, aside from my Ovation fetish. Because I like hybrids, I have one of the Chet Atkins SST models, too. I find it comparable in many respects, with the Gibson SST's neck being a bit more chunky and its electronics seeming to give it a slightly brighter tone. I don't mind the stars at all. I think I may have posted an A/B comparo between these two models a few years ago. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
May 2003
Posts: 425
Location: SE Michigan | Bobbo: " I know I live in a parallel universe, but this just stuns me.
Please name ONE example where Ovation has ever pitched the LYRACORD bowl design as being cheaper to build and that's what they do it. Just one! It's always been about the sound and that is what Ovation has always promoted.
The cheapest Rainsong you can find is $1500 and most are approaching $3K. CA went out of business.
There is no way in hell you can ever build an Adamas for $600 retail. Or even $1000. When someone figures that out, please also find me a beachfront house in SoCal for $200K".
I do not disagree regarding the advantages of the lyrachord bowl, but any good salesman knows that perception is everything. People unfamiliar with the brand perceive it as cheap. I have hung around the various all-wood guitar forums long enough to know this. There certainly are some (like the members here) who do not see the lyrachord bowl this way, but we are not the problem, we like and already purchase Ovations. The problem is attracting new customers and growing the brand. I wonder if anyone knows the approximate cost difference between building an all-wood box or using the lyrachord bowl? And I challange your assertion that you cannot profitably build an Adamas or comperable carbon fiber guitar and sell it for $600 to $1000. The price of carbon fiber has come down and smart people are always devising ways to improve manufacturing techniques. Someone could find a a way to do it and I'll wager that they will provided that the market for guitars stays strong. If the demand for guitars dries up then all bets are off.
Edited by Brian T 2012-10-19 1:20 PM
|
|
| |
|
Joined:
January 2009
Posts: 1249
Location: Texas | "wankers out there. The cork sniffers" LMAO...I wonder if there is an Ovation board dedicated to us Wankers and Cork Sniffers. Spoiler alert...most wankers are not sniffing corks. Maybe it is different in CA. " Ovation has never tried to build guitars to appeal to the wankers" Who cares what the wankers think?" I am sure Charlie K did and Fender certainly appears to, as well as GC. The Wankers and know it alls have kept Ovation in buisness, I would assume, as well as FMC Or...if you were referring to "true" Ovations, when you said Ovation, then, in the words of Rosanne Rosannadanna, nevermind.
Edited by jay 2012-10-19 1:39 PM
|
|
| |
|
Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | 40 years ago, I was the prime customer Ovation was looking for. Having played used guitars for 12 years and becoming frustrated with the used market (then limited to pawn shops, swap meets at the drive-in theater, or if you were really lucky, a friendly neighbor), I went shopping for a new guitar. Back then, my sources were limited to mom-and pop music shops or the department stores (Sears and Western Auto). There were no big box Guitar Centers nor on-line retailers. So I went to the local music store (located in either the Eastland Shopping Center or La Puente Mall in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles) ready to plunk down maybe $300 on a new Gibson acoustic (since I’d been playing a 1958 ES-125 for 10 years).
I tried a Gibson and was impressed with it. The salesman then pointed to two funny looking guitars with round plastic backs and said they sounded just as good as the Gibson and were the new rage. He played it for a few minutes, as did I, and he was right, it sounded every bit as good as the Gibson. Nonetheless, I said I wasn’t interested because I thought they looked cheap and unconventional. Then he added that the darn things were nearly indestructible whereupon he reared back and swung it like a baseball bat hard against the corner of his counter. The guitar bounced back with such force that it almost knocked him over. We then inspected the bowl and there wasn’t a mark on it. I promptly bought the other one hanging on the wall and have owned the brand ever since.
Maybe Ovation should return to their once successful sales strategy of pushing the multi-purpose usefulness of their guitars as baseball bats? |
|
| |
|
Joined:
August 2009
Posts: 381
Location: Miami | I do not disagree regarding the advantages of the lyrachord bowl, but any good salesman knows that perception is everything. People unfamiliar with the brand perceive it as cheap.
That's because all of the bowls hanging out at GC are attached to Celebrities, not Elites or Adamases. When I see a low end O (not with the standard soundhole, but with the sideholes), I try not to play it, but sometimes I give in, fooled by its beautiful familiar look. I pick it up, strum it once, and immediately put it back, hoping nobody heard how horrible it sounds as I embarrassingly put it back on the wall.
People used to call it plastic in the old days too, but they couldn't argue with the sound of a good O. Now, they can call the sound plastic, and they're right, compared to other wooden boxes in the same price range. I miss being able to blow people's minds with a real O at the store. At least I still can at the gig.
|
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | boltonb - 2012-10-19 1:28 PM I promptly bought the other one hanging on the wall  That is too funny! I would have done the exact same thing!
|
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | bkok999 - 2012-10-19 1:17 PM
Bobbo: " I know I live in a parallel universe, but this just stuns me.
Please name ONE example where Ovation has ever pitched the LYRACORD bowl design as being cheaper to build and that's what they do it. Just one! It's always been about the sound and that is what Ovation has always promoted.
The cheapest Rainsong you can find is $1500 and most are approaching $3K. CA went out of business.
There is no way in hell you can ever build an Adamas for $600 retail. Or even $1000. When someone figures that out, please also find me a beachfront house in SoCal for $200K".
I do not disagree regarding the advantages of the lyrachord bowl, but any good salesman knows that perception is everything. People unfamiliar with the brand perceive it as cheap. I have hung around the various all-wood guitar forums long enough to know this. There certainly are some (like the members here) who do not see the lyrachord bowl this way, but we are not the problem, we like and already purchase Ovations. The problem is attracting new customers and growing the brand. I wonder if anyone knows the approximate cost difference between building an all-wood box or using the lyrachord bowl? And I challange your assertion that you cannot profitably build an Adamas or comperable carbon fiber guitar and sell it for $600 to $1000. The price of carbon fiber has come down and smart people are always devising ways to improve manufacturing techniques. Someone could find a a way to do it and I'll wager that they will provided that the market for guitars stays strong. If the demand for guitars dries up then all bets are off.
carbon fiber is expensive ovation has had trouble sourcing it since it is now used for many different things
an elite T made in USA used to list for 1100 so tell me how you expect to make an adamas for that much?> |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7233
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | alpep - 2012-10-19 2:17 PM bkok999 - 2012-10-19 1:17 PM Bobbo: " I know I live in a parallel universe, but this just stuns me.
Please name ONE example where Ovation has ever pitched the LYRACORD bowl design as being cheaper to build and that's what they do it. Just one! It's always been about the sound and that is what Ovation has always promoted.
The cheapest Rainsong you can find is $1500 and most are approaching $3K. CA went out of business.
There is no way in hell you can ever build an Adamas for $600 retail. Or even $1000. When someone figures that out, please also find me a beachfront house in SoCal for $200K".
I do not disagree regarding the advantages of the lyrachord bowl, but any good salesman knows that perception is everything. People unfamiliar with the brand perceive it as cheap. I have hung around the various all-wood guitar forums long enough to know this. There certainly are some (like the members here) who do not see the lyrachord bowl this way, but we are not the problem, we like and already purchase Ovations. The problem is attracting new customers and growing the brand. I wonder if anyone knows the approximate cost difference between building an all-wood box or using the lyrachord bowl? And I challange your assertion that you cannot profitably build an Adamas or comperable carbon fiber guitar and sell it for $600 to $1000. The price of carbon fiber has come down and smart people are always devising ways to improve manufacturing techniques. Someone could find a a way to do it and I'll wager that they will provided that the market for guitars stays strong. If the demand for guitars dries up then all bets are off. carbon fiber is expensive ovation has had trouble sourcing it since it is now used for many different things an elite T made in USA used to list for 1100 so tell me how you expect to make an adamas for that much?>
Many also seem to forget how many human hours and the number of humans it takes to make an Adamas or any Ovation for that matter. Using the most conservative estimates, I'm pretty confident in saying that the street price of an Adamas is LESS than just the Time and Materials to build it. Just think of the electric bill for the machine that sandwiches the Carbon Fiber top, the ventilation, the epoxies, and insurance and that's just the top, no bracing, no neck, no bowl, no paint, no strings.
I don't think it's any secret that for many years prior to FMIC, the large quantity of overseas built guitars and accessories enabled the Hartford plant to make affordable high-end guitars.
For anyone curios to know what goes into building an Ovation, there are videos floating around from tours gone by. While I was blown away by the first tour I attended, it took at least three tours for it to really comprehend everything that goes into an Ovation. Just looking at all the ways Ovation uses air will boggle your mind. Just think about it. Any other guitar manufacturer can set the guitar on a work surface to adjust it, install parts, install binding, frets, etc.. Ovation has special suction cup stands, an innovation of necessity in itself.
Bottom line.... The Adamas has been at LEAST a $5000+ guitar for long time that on average you could buy for 1/2 of that. Those days are likely over, and I don't think it's a bad thing. Today if you want a $5000+ Adamas, you'll pay $5000+. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2008
Posts: 2985
Location: Sydney, Australia | stonebobbo - 2012-10-20 3:37 AM
The cork sniffers
We cork sniffers are really suffering with screw cap bottles! |
|
| |
|
Joined:
May 2006
Posts: 4232
Location: Steeler Nation, Hudson Valley Contingent | richard.parker - 2012-10-19 5:36 PM
We cork sniffers are really suffering with screw cap bottles!
Yeah! Those caps can give you a seriously painful slice right where your 'stache meets your nostrils! |
|
| |
|
Joined:
September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Dear Ovation Product Manager:
Congratulations on landing the job.
And tho I know you cannot post or participate here, Welcome to the Ovation Fan Club.
You have labored long & hard to get to the point where you have been put in charge of one of the most misunderstood brands among it's peer group. The only thing that equals the level of misunderstanding of Ovation guitars is their unrealized potential.
.
I'm not going to suggest exotic top material, celebrity endorsers, wild paint schemes, or let you in on the secret that by painting the inside of the bowl with a zinc oxide metal flake epoxy finish, the refection of the sound waves toward the top is greatly improved.
.
And I think most of us here know there are a ton of things to consider between where you have to make things work and where we are coming from. We end users don't have to give a thought to material cost, distributor needs, and intrusive corporate bean counters.
.
But this we do know.
Ovation is capable of making an instrument that will stand proud with any other high end guitar on the market as well as offer features, durability and reliability the others can't.
.
I can offer this.
If there is anything I /we can do to help you, all you have to do is ask. . I look forward to perhaps meeting you someday. Regards, Brad / aka: Slipkid
Edited by Slipkid 2012-10-20 9:35 AM
|
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2011
Posts: 97
Location: Marlton, NJ | bkok999 - 2012-10-19 1:17 PM
I wonder if anyone knows the approximate cost difference between building an all-wood box or using the lyrachord bowl?
That's an interesting question. I would find it hard to believe that making an Ovation bowl costs as much (or more) than building wood back & sides, especially when quality wood is being used. There would appear to be much more labor & costs of materials in an all-wood guitar. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | Appearances are deceiving. See Miles' post above for an idea on the labor involved in Ovation guitars.
Several of my recent Ovation USA guitars have hand laid fiberglass bowls. The labor involved is substantial. If you've got an ear and sound quality matters to you, it's worth it. But it's expensive. Maybe not as much as Brazilian Rosewood or Cocobolo, but then again you'll pay twice as much for those. Standard mahogany or IR are probably a wash cost-wise vs an Ovation bowl.
On the low and even medium end, I can pretty much guarantee that the cost of a bowl far exceeds the cost of wood for the back and sides. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7233
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I completely forgot about the hand laid bowls... I've done fiberglass work and just the mat and resin are expensive enough for joe consumer, but imagine the venting, and other ancillary costs just to prep the area to do the work.... then the hours of doing the actual work, then finishing...
I think we are touching on the grand flaw in the perception. The more I think about it, there is no way USA Made Ovation costs less than the average street price for at least the last 10-15 years. Ovation has always been touted as "affordable quality" but to most people I think that meant inexpensive to build, creative techniques, creative materials to keep cost down. In thinking about the factory tours where we have seen and talked to the people building the guitars, I don't recall seeing ANYTHING that was inexpensive. I saw a LOT of creative and innovative techniques to help the workers build more efficiently... but seriously... most efficient rarely means inexpensive. Cost was kept down by selling a LOT of other things that higher margins.
I'm guessing the electric bill has to be in the tens of thousands per month easily. wow...
|
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2011
Posts: 97
Location: Marlton, NJ | Not to cause waves, but I'm not believing that "the street price of an Adamas is LESS than just the Time and Materials to build it" - not unless you're talking used prices (and even then, I'm skeptical). Ovation is a business; not a charity.
Maybe back in the day the bowl was hand laid fiberglass, but for quite a long time now they are injection molded. And when it comes to the rest of the guitar - the top, the neck, etc. - the cost would be very similar to any other acoustic of similar quality. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2008
Posts: 2985
Location: Sydney, Australia | Brad Durasa - 2012-10-21 12:33 AM
I can offer this.
If there is anything I /we can do to help you, all you have to do is ask. . I look forward to perhaps meeting you someday. Regards, Brad / aka: Slipkid
+1 |
|
| |
|
Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | MarkF786 - 2012-10-20 8:29 PM Maybe back in the day the bowl was hand laid fiberglass, but for quite a long time now they are injection molded. Yes, the original bowl were all hand laid glass before they went to the injection molding. The vast majority of Ovations still get the injection molded bowls. But hand laid bowls are still being used for certain USA models ... I have three guitars from the last five or so years made with them. Not surprisingly, they are the most expensive Ovations I bought; they are also the best sounding Ovations I have. If you were to order the best Ovation they could make, it would come with a hand laid bowl. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15676
Location: SoCal | I hadn't thought about it much, but the OFC I slothead has a hand laid bowl, as well as the rebuilt A braced Legend and the GC 12 string. And it is worth the money...... |
|
| |
|
Joined:
June 2012
Posts: 2333
Location: Pueblo West, CO | stonebobbo - 2012-10-21 9:22 AM MarkF786 - 2012-10-20 8:29 PM Maybe back in the day the bowl was hand laid fiberglass, but for quite a long time now they are injection molded. Yes, the original bowl were all hand laid glass before they went to the injection molding. The vast majority of Ovations still get the injection molded bowls. But hand laid bowls are still being used for certain USA models ... I have three guitars from the last five or so years made with them. Not surprisingly, they are the most expensive Ovations I bought; they are also the best sounding Ovations I have. If you were to order the best Ovation they could make, it would come with a hand laid bowl.
According to the factory tour article on Ovation Tribute, in 1984 they were using prepreg polyester resin/fiberglass cloth (thermoset) over a heated chromed mold in a 300-ton press to mold the bowls. (See: Ovation Factory Tour 1984 US)
I would be curious to know whether they're still using prepreg polyester resin/fiberglass method or if not, what manufacturing method they're using now and how the hand-laid bowls are made.
|
|
| |
|
Joined:
June 2012
Posts: 2333
Location: Pueblo West, CO | DanSavage - 2012-10-21 2:52 PM
...I would be curious to know whether they're still using prepreg polyester resin/fiberglass method or if not, what manufacturing method they're using now and how the hand-laid bowls are made. I searched around and found the answer to my question about hand-laid bowls in an online copy of The History of Ovation Guitar: "Richard recalled the original process for making the backs. "When I got there they had just made their first roundback guitar only a week or two earlier, which was the one my friend Peter Chiles played. That was a hand-made mold. What they would do is to paint the mold with wax and then with an epoxy resin, put fiberglass cloth --fiberglass cloth can be kind of pulled and stretched to form --and then they put on a second layer and put the whole thing under a vacuum. They would then take Vaseline so they wouldn't tear the plastic and squeegee out all the extra resin. And this was really the way they made tips for the rotor blades and other things in aerospace where you would have constant wall thickness but very high strength, where plastic that wasn't reinforced would crack. Those molds were really pretty good." "According to Bill Morhauf, who would spend a few months as a production manager before moving to sales, the hand-laid, hand-squeegeed bowls were thinner and more brittle, but better sounding --than the later molded type. However, the handmade process would have made the guitars far too expensive." "So then they made a whole bunch of molds that were the opposite, a female mold you put down into", Richard continued, "but those molds didn't work very well. So for the first few hundred guitars, maybe even more, a lot more than that, I don't know what number it would go up to, but they were all laid up by hand, by this process they way you make panels or wing tips in aerospace." So, the original bowls were epoxy resin and now they're using polyester resin. Both are available in prepreg form and both can have the same stability, but the epoxy is much more expensive. I use aerospace-quality epoxy resin for molding my parts and it's about $200/gallon. By comparison, a high-quality polyester resin would probably cost about $50/gallon or less. By going to the prepreg, or pre-empregnated cloth/resin combo, they're saving a lot of labor costs by not having to lay up the bowls and probably get more consistent thicknesses and less waste by not throwing away excess epoxy they squeegee out. By using the heated compression molds, they're probably able to crank out the bowls a lot faster, a bowl every 5 minutes or so instead of 4-5 hours for the hand-laid method described above.
Edited by DanSavage 2012-10-21 8:50 PM
|
|
| |
New guitars from New Hartford?
