Tom Anderson Guitars

Beware of the Fakes!

Recently I walked into a Las Vegas Pawn Shop. The pawnbroker had 3 Tom Anderson guitars for sale. I was quite surprised because normally you won't find a Tom Anderson guitar in a Pawnshop. So naturally I asked to see them.  They were all obvious fakes. They were probably Samick or Tradition guitars with Rio Grande pickups. One of them still had the residue of the made in Korea sticker on the back of the headstock. The decal was on over the finish. EEEEEEEEEKKK!!!!!!  

I am not a huge fan of Tom Anderson guitars. Not because there is anything wrong with them, but because I think they are overpriced. They are actually a fine guitar, just horrendously overpriced. They claim that they only make three a day, which does not make any sense because these guitars are very definitely CNC made.

Well, to make a long story short, I saw another one in another pawn shop about a week later, so heed this warning. It is almost child's play to make a copy of a Tom Anderson traditional Strat or Tele style guitar.

Pawnbrokers are typically (and I apologize in advance to the honest, knowledgeable pawnbrokers) all ebay maggots, so watch out. Actually if someone is stupid enough to buy a guitar from ebay, he deserves to get burned and I won't feel sorry for him at all. 

Tom Anderson Decals are cheap and easy to get.   Ebay maggots always have that stuff to sell........

Pearlcaster Versus Tom Anderson

Tom Anderson guitars are a well made high quality brand. they are all made to high quality standards. I do however feel that they are horribly overpriced. The company has also been very unresponsive to my needs. Consequently I refuse to recommend them. I also carried John Suhr guitars which I found to be better but still much more money than a Pearlcaster.

• Pearlcaster offers 7 choices of tremolo systems
• Pearlcaster offers an all access neck joint that is clearly superior to any other Strat clone.
• Ed Roman guarantees the quality is as good or better.
• Pearlcasters can come with solid Macassar Ebony or Solid Brazilian Rosewood Necks.
• I guarantee that the prices will be much better
• I guarantee the quality and consistency of the wood tops is much better
• I guarantee the sound to be as good or better
• These statements are facts, not promises, and I stand behind them 100%

   

  Ed Roman

Tom Anderson on the Buzz Feiten Tuning System

This Buzz Feiten designed tempered tuning system allows our guitars to play more in tune than you have ever heard before!

As we all have experienced, a guitar is not an instrument that can play perfectly in tune. When we intonate and tune a normal guitar, even when using a very accurate tuner, we find that chords, especially, don't sound very in tune. For instance, play a C chord and the 3rd might sound sharp. Play a D chord and the F# is really off. G may sound pretty good but an E chord's G# note is very off. Go up the neck and play a D shape on the 9th fret (an A chord) and it really beats. Does this sound familiar? So for the sake of illustration, let's say that a regular guitar plays about 80% in tune.

Tempered tuning is primarily a visually undetectable structural neck change in combination with slightly altered bridge intonation offsets. Chords sound much more in tune. When you listen very carefully you can hear little to no out of tune notes in chords and very little to no beating. In fact, if you don't listen extremely carefully you may think that it is perfect -- however, nothing is perfect and we figure if a normal guitar is approximately 80% in tune then Tempered Tuning is about 95% in tune.

Every player here at Anderson is now using Tempered Tuning and is completely convinced that it is a marked improvement. As Tom himself says, "it changed my life." It spoils you and you want every guitar you play to tune like this.

So why not let Tom Anderson and Tempered Tuning spoil your life too.

The above excerpt is directly from Tom Anderson's website.

Ed Roman on the Buzz Feiten Tuning System

Tom explains it extremely well. However, I would like to make an observation.

Some companies offer the Buzz Feiten System as a standard appointment. Tom Anderson is one of them. When a company offers it as a standard it becomes much less expensive for the licensing and much easier to actually install.

Ed Roman believes that it is much better to actually install the system in each guitar individually.  instead of mass producing necks that will accept the BFT. Yes it costs a little more and yes it is much harder to do, but Ed Roman says that every guitar is different and  every guitar has its own idiosyncrasies and nuances.