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Location: Carle Place, NY | As many of you know Guild guitars has taken over a big part of the New Hartford factory. There was a Guild factory tour last April and now the nice folks at Lets Talk Guild have another factory tour planned for 10/7/11. We had a nice showing of OFC members at the first tour: Al, Dave W., Stephen T, my friend Craig and myself. The tour attendance limit has been expanded so that 75 people can attend this year.
This is a great opportunity. You have to join the Lets Talk Guild forum and check the site to find out when registration will begin.
At the first Guild tour, the famous "Lobby Jam" was a bit short on guitarists, however Kim explained that the first couple of OFC factory tours were the same thing. It takes a while for the attendees to get familiar with the completely open atmopshere of a group jam.
Be it Ovation or Guild the New Hartford factory is a wonderful place to visit and the Homewood Suites is a great place to stay. I hope that those of you that can do it will be there. |
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Location: SoCal | I didn't attend the very first OFC gathering, but hit every one after. The second one, when I got to the hotel Thursday evening, was already in hard-core jam mode in the hotel lobby.
The OFC group attending, was not one to sit around waiting. Don't know about the Guild people...... |
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Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Originally posted by Mitchrx:
At the first Guild tour, the famous "Lobby Jam" was a bit short on guitarists, If it hadn't been for the OFC members you mentioned there would have been NO LOBBY JAM!
However, we represented quite well and had a heck of a party! Looking forward to more of the same this year! |
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Location: Nahant, MA | Given that I'm relatively new here, is there an Ovation homecoming every year? Or is this just an informal thing? |
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December 2003
Posts: 1071
Location: Carle Place, NY | Originally posted by Carol:
Given that I'm relatively new here, is there an Ovation homecoming every year? Or is this just an informal thing? There has not been an Ovation open house for the OFC for several years. Now it's Guild's turn to do them. The tours are not informal. They are well planned events. I encourage all who can attend to do so. |
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Location: south east Michigan | I dunno... seems kinda wrong to weasel in on someone else's event.
And just a little sad. |
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December 2003
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Location: Carle Place, NY | Originally posted by Slipkid:
I dunno... seems kinda wrong to weasel in on someone else's event.
And just a little sad. Not so Brad. The Guild folks are openly inviting Ovation and Hamer fans to attend. |
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Location: SoCal | Carol, the last Ovation gathering was in 2007. I'm kinda with Slipkid on this. It's a Guild gathering, not an Ovation one. They should be allowed to have their get together without a lot of OFC players (unless they play Guilds or have another reason to be there).
I wouldn't go and bring an Ovation or Adamas to their party..... |
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Location: Flahdaw | Originally posted by Mitchrx:
Not so Brad. The Guild folks are openly inviting Ovation and Hamer fans to attend. So, It's an open bar? |
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Posts: 187
Location: Nahant, MA | Anybody know why they stopped the Ovation gatherings, or was that a result of the sale to Fender? |
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Location: closely held secret | Originally posted by Mitchrx:
The Guild folks are openly inviting Ovation and Hamer fans to attend. I read the whole thread, I didn't see that. T, Al and Pez are mentioned, but they're all active members on the Guild board. |
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Location: SoCal | Originally posted by Carol:
Anybody know why they stopped the Ovation gatherings, or was that a result of the sale to Fender? Pretty much so. Everything was in a state of flux and now, most of the major Ovation manufacturing in overseas. The factory, as far as Ovation/Adamas is concerned, is a custom shop (or at least that's my understanding)..... |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | The problem is that I believe they are limiting it to 50 people and last year almost all 50 spots where spoken for months in advance. They are considering expanding it to 75 but I don't think that has officially been decided.
The fact that Dave, Al, and I are members of LTG and all own guilds certainly made us legit. I think PEZ also owns a guild but I am not sure.
With all the chatter on the LTG forum, I seriously doubt that many openings (if any) will be available whether it is for 50 or 75 to non-ltg members.
Just my opinion........... |
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November 2004
Posts: 4413
| Why would you want to spend a weekend with a bunch of panty-waisters who don't acknowledge the superiority of Adamas guitars?
And before someone chimes in with all the politically correct "flavours of ice-cream/YMMV/matter of opinion" and all that crap, Adamas guitars are just plain better.
Nuts to the other guys' opinion. |
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Location: SoCal | And there you have it..... |
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Location: Nashville TN. | I own 2 Guilds D25 and F512 |
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Location: Nashville TN. | It would be nice if there was aN OVATION EVENT
People I been running think NO American Ovations are being made. Ovation tour would be nice. |
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December 2003
Posts: 1071
Location: Carle Place, NY | It's time to face the reality. The New Hartford factory is now mostly dedicated to making Guild Guitars. The place is still run by the same people who made the USA Ovation guitars, with the same enthusiasm, quality control and innovative manufacturing processes. The people who work there are committed to building supemely fine guitars. Now those guitars are mostly of the wood box variety instead of the roundbacks.
The Lets Talk Guild folks were a great group of people at the first event. Craig and I brought our Ovations and never felt even the least bit out of place. I fully expect that the Fall tour will be memorable.
For me it's a little more than a two hour drive to the Homewood Suites. I guess that makes my decision to attend quite a bit easier than those of you that live considerably farther away. Be that as it may, the production process of building Guild guitars is facinating and certainly worth seeing. The factory tour is every bit as open and up close as when they were making Ovations. That alone makes the tour very unique. I've never seen any factory tour that allows visitors to go right up to the actual machinery and factory workers to watch how things are done.
I respect all that's been said about it being sad, but the decision to produce Guild guitars in New Hartford was a very sound business move by Fender. The guitars that were available for our enjoyment at the tour were every bit as good as any Martin, Gibson or Taylor acoustic, albeit with a different flavor.
I started this post merely to let those here know that there will be a factory tour and it's perfectly OK for OFC members to attend. |
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December 2001
Posts: 7247
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Originally posted by Mitchrx:
The place is still run by the same people who made the USA Ovation guitars, with the same enthusiasm, quality control and innovative manufacturing processes. +1 And isn't THAT what it's really all about. |
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Posts: 4236
Location: Steeler Nation, Hudson Valley Contingent | Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against the Guilds. But I've played quite a few now, and I like my Ovations better. Don't ask me for a reason, I just do. I've only played one woodbox that I can honestly say is a better guitar than my O's. And through an insane amount of luck, I now own one.
I think any quality guitar requires a level of craftsmanship and artistry that I will never posses, and I love playing pretty much all of them, even Taylors, but I simply cannot afford to buy them when it takes a masters level instrument (in both quality and price) to compete with what I already have.
I'm not so close-minded as to think I'll never buy another woodbox. But barring another alignment of the instrumental stars that led me to my D-42, I don't see any traditional instruments in my near future.
I love that the folks in CT are hard at work plying their trade. But I haven't seen a Guild yet that clicks my gears enough to set of a round of GAS. Still....I'm an occasional optimist....so ya never know.  |
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Factory Tour 10/7/11
