If You Are Considering A G&L Guitar:

Read This First!!!

Recently I was contracted to build a custom guitar for a customer (I will supply his name upon request). This was a younger person and he was limited in the funds department. He indicated to me that he wanted a Fender style guitar but one that was made from solid wood (no veneers etc) and he required a better tremolo and a custom neck like what came with our 1500G Modification.

Based on the fact that he had a low budget, I suggested he use a G&L body, pickguard, and tremolo, since we could order the guitar directly from G&L. Coincidentally, I had a second customer for whom I was building a Fender conversion at the time. It seemed like a good idea to simply purchase a new G&L in the color he wanted and use the neck with the left over Fender parts from my other customer for his 13 year old son.

In this way one customer could save the cost of having a custom body made and then having to pay for a paint job etc. The other customer who was throwing away his entire Fender except for the neck figured that it made good sense to use the G&L neck and pair it with the throwaway Fender parts. It was a sound idea and it seemed to make sense at the time. After all it was for his young son who didn't even know how to play yet.

Both of my customers agreed that they would be able to use the G&L parts so I ordered it.

Upon taking the G&L apart I discovered that G&L was no longer routing their guitars in the original way.

In fact they were using the same horribly unacceptable swimming pool route that Fender used throughout the 80's and 90's. Upon trying to make the necks interchange I discovered, the G&L neck was totally different from the Fender that we were intending to use the neck on. Up until that time I had thought that G&L guitars were the same  as Fenders.

For these reasons I hereby rescind any positive recommendations I have made regarding G&L instruments. I hereby will no longer recommend the G&L product to my customers.  And I will buy back any G&L guitar that was purchased from me within a two year period for full price paid.

When I first discovered these facts I put a new recommendation on my G&L pages. I was recommending Pearlcaster guitars to any and all of my customers. If you are looking for a G&L Bass I suggest you look at the Low-Rider Basses instead. The G&L Models are heavy, clunky and hard to play. They sound decent but that headstock is ugly and the Instrument is unwieldy. Even when I was recommending G&L Guitars I never liked the basses.

My Selling Style

My selling style has always been to analyze a product and all the competitive or like products. Then I make a decision on which one to sell. I then approach the company that I have decided to promote and apply for a dealership. When a company that I have chosen changes their product or makes a number of cost cuts. I tend to change my recommendations.

Many times a company manufactures a number of great products, but also manufactures a number of not so great products. I tend to try to cherry pick the great products and stay away from the other ones. Today it is becoming increasingly harder to do this. Computers are aiding companies by reporting what dealers are selling what products. A computer could very easily report to a sales manager that XYZ dealer is not selling a particular model. Typically when this happens I will get a call from the sales manager (Usually a new hotshot). He will invariably push me to buy some of the products that I don't want to carry.

As of this writing Gibson is trying to force me to buy their lower cost Epiphone products. They also want me to carry their line of Banjos, Yeeehaw! They say that if I don't buy these products and their line of Dobros and Acoustic Guitars that my prices on Electrics will go up as much as 10 percent. This new policy of theirs will probably cause a serious train wreck between our two companies. No one tells me what to buy !!!!!  that's why I don't carry lines like Peavey & Yamaha.... Those are typical Guitar Center products these days and I want no part of that end of the business.  I am not a strong proponent of selling Christmas Guitars. 

I have been selling guitars for 28 years, and my unique selling style has made me successful, and has gained me many loyal customers. It's just good business to recommend a product that a customer will be happy with, it breeds return customers and good will. This selling style has served to piss off some people who feel that certain products are sacred and shouldn't be put to comparison with other products. The PRS Forum people tend to bash me pretty hard because I have brought to the public attention many of PRS's costcuts and design problems.

I was recommending PRS guitars 10 years before the general public finally caught on. Generally by the time the public does catch on to a good thing it forces the quality down. The public demand forces mass production and cost cutting, so the quality suffers when the volume goes up. It's just simple economics. It has happened with almost every guitar company. And the ones it hasn't happened to are generally the new kids on the block. Just give them a little time, they will probably all make the same mistakes.

In the case of G&L Guitars their representatives had always indicated to me that their guitars were built from solid wood that was routed in the original vintage fashion.

I now see that the factory rep was taking Ass talking lessons from Jim Carrey (Are you getting a visual?)

Over the past 10 years or so I have personally sold well over 500 G&L Guitars, This year I intend to actively promote Pearlcaster guitars instead.

Ed Roman

02/28/00

 If you are looking to buy a G&L or Fender Style Guitar Ed Roman Recommends Pearlcaster

If you are looking to buy a G&L or any Fender Style Bass Ed Roman Recommends Lowrider Basses
 

G&L Customer Nightmare

So, the details on my G&L nightmare are as follows:

I bought an ASAT custom bass which I ordered through Performance Music Center up in Peabody, MA about 2 years ago. I think the whole bill was $1,100.00. I customized the paint, the pickups etc.

I was very pleased with the tone of the bass, but there was this intermittent and very annoying electrical noise thing that popped up periodically. I noticed it was on one of the pickup settings, but sometimes turned up on the other one. I am not a gear genius and only recently have really gotten into understanding the electronics of the guitar. I had the guitar set up once in the meantime, but didn't have the guy check the insides. It was just an intonation job.

Finally I brought the bass to Mouradian Guitars here in Boston and I asked Jim to check all the electronics. After working on the bass, Jim told me that only ONE of the ground wires was hooked up on the inside, and he said it was a 'bird's nest' wiring job, too. You probably know Jim from carrying his guitars and he's as honest as the day is long, so I have no need to doubt the guy. Additionally, he's a big fan of G&L. The most disturbing thing was, he told me that he sees this fairly often in custom-made instruments (from a lot of manufacturers) and that my guitar was the second G&L custom axe which he'd seen in the last 6 months with a similar kind of wiring job. And I don't think he's seeing G&L customers all the time.

Now I have to bring up the fact that I had forgotten how long the G&L warranty was. As it turned out I paid some $$ for repairs which I could have taken care of thru PMC, which is a G&L licensed shop. But you know what, because it was G&L and I had bought into the myth of their attention to detail, it never even crossed my mind that there may be something seriously wrong with the guts of the guitar.

But the point is, how can you pay $1100.00 for a custom-made instrument and they don't hook up the ground wires properly and do a sloppy bird's nest wiring job? I emailed G&L and somebody named David McLaren answered. He was very nice and sympathetic in his responses, but all he seemed to focus on was the fact that I had brought the guitar to a non-G&L shop for servicing the problems. That's all well and good, but he never totally answered my point that a custom-made guitar should not have those kind of problems in the first place. I like G&L a lot Ed, and I know $1,100.00 is not a lot compared to some of the guitars you sell, but the reason I spent that much is that I was trying to get away from the 'machine-made soul' of the $500 - $800 Fender axes. I was hoping for some real attention to detail and quality. And I think G&L failed because there's no excuse for that kind of workmanship and quality control. I'd be pissed if I bought a $300 guitar and it had those problems, why wouldn't I be pissed if it's an $1,100.00 axe?

Regards,

Ian

Hello Ian,

First of all I must say that even when I carried G&L, I hated the Basses, they were clubby, clumsy and too heavy. Leo would have rolled over in his grave if he knew what those guys were doing to his creations. The pickups were OK but the basses were real Oinkers.

As for Dave "LipService" McLaren, He is the son of the new owner. A nice enough guy, even likable, but absolutely no spine. He used to try to placate me all the time with my problems. I finally told them all to burn in Hell and decided to blow off the line. I am glad I did. I never looked back for even a second.

Jim Mouradian is probably your best bet in Boston. I like him and trust his work. I send him any and all work that I can. It's a pity that Boston is such a no money town. Hardly anyone in that town buys expensive guitars. They are a bunch of retro heads up there and I don't do much Vintage. I sell more guitars in Eugene Oregon than I do in the entire state of Massachusetts, The population of Eugene is probably less than Revere or Brookline or some other Boston suburb.

I would go out of business in one week if I relied on Boston business. No offense to you, I spent money advertising up there etc etc and I even did a couple of guitar shows. I was completely blown away with the lack of people with any money to spend. I do more business in Plano Texas than the entire state of Massachussetts, Hey this is starting to sound like a rant.... Oh well.

I'll close this little letter by saying SCREW G&L!!  they are definitely not handmade!!

Ed Roman

2000

A Custom Made Ed Roman Conversion Guitar using a Pearlcaster Body, Duncan Pickups and G&L Neck

Nobody would buy this with the ugly G&L Neck so Ed dumped that and made his own neck.

It sold within 3 weeks