ANNOUNCEMENT: Gibson styled products

Jumble Jumble said:
As a thought experiment: let's say I design a new body shape tomorrow. It has some cool new contours, it's comfortable to play and some people are saying its the best thing to happen to the electric guitar for 50 years. I'm only just getting started so I don't have CNC - I cut each body by hand. But I've got a good waiting list building up and my business is starting to grow. I can quit my day job.

Then the waiting list suddenly starts shrinking. I'm getting cancellations every day. After a week or two of this I ask a customer why I'm getting so many cancellations. He says "oh didn't you know? Warmoth are doing the same body shape now for less cash and there's no waiting list!"

Is this OK, or am I allowed to be a bit pissed at Warmoth here? I created that shape, which immediately implies a copyright. Should I ask them to stop?

Or is it bad in this situation because I'm the smaller of the two businesses? It's OK for W to use (rip off) IP from a big company, but not a small one?
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I was disappointed that nobody engaged with this.
 
Like I've said before, I don't think it was at all wrong for Gibson to make Warmoth stop. In this business, you can create new designs, or you can get the unoriginal ones licensed. It's quite simple, Warmoth should not have made the Gibson designs, the "VIP", the Z, the Iceman.. Or any other design that does not belong to them without consent. Twisting it doesn't make it all right either.
 
SustainerPlayer said:
It's where the fun part comes in. Having to ask Ibanez for using one of THEIR original designs.  :laughing7:
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I know, I know... It's just that Warmoth has great potential if they stop stealing ideas and expand their original and licensed offerings. Vintage models for each F design would be great, so many people on OSG would buy into that. Focusing on the Fender designs is really their best bet. I would love to use Warmoth over Musikraft, they have better prices and overall W QC is exceptional. But Warmoth has very modern and incorrect (why?) specs on designs like the jaguar and musiclander. I'd love to build myself a swinger, and the only place that sells them is Warmoth, and it's so far from original spec it makes me cry.

The strat and tele offerings are great, why not put some effort into making other Fender style bodies work with Fender parts? There is a literal fear of Warmoth all over the internet, "If I buy Warmoth, my parts might not fit!". Warmoth started offering a vintage spec JM neck, but it isn't popular because it's one of the only "vintage" designs Warmoth does right.

So yeah, more "vintage" bodies/necks would be great.
 
I don't why so many assumes that Warmoth just can reproduce any Fender design they want to? Maybe Fender is not interested in licensing the more obscure designs they have/had. And maybe Warmoth sees no business in them. I think the latter is the most important factor in this.

"There is a literal fear of Warmoth all over the internet ..." ... the internet is made of 95% bullshit and 4% water ... and all those "it's gotta be vintage correct"-freaks will never be satisfied anyway. Why start up a business where you know up front that most of your customers will be over obsessive bitches? I think Warmoth does well steering clear of that.  :sign13:

 
All good points, but it's not difficult, if you are going to copy anyways, to find decent correct templates. Why Warmoth insists on making ugly modifications to old designs, I don't know.
 
The possibility exists that your opinion is in the extreme minority, circling a tight little orbit around your head, and has already been considered and rejected by a company that's making millions of dollars a year successfully fabricating necks and bodies the way they think it should be done for 33 years now.

But, I could be wrong.
 
Cagey said:
The possibility exists that your opinion is in the extreme minority, circling a tight little orbit around your head, and has already been considered and rejected by a company that's making millions of dollars a year successfully fabricating necks and bodies the way they think it should be done for 33 years now.

But, I could be wrong.
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:icon_biggrin:

You are absolutely right.

But seriously, pop on over to the mods and projects section of OSG sometime. A new project starts almost daily, mostly people making vintage repros or slapping new parts an a favorite guitar. Sure, Warmoth parts are an improvement on old designs, but when these "improvements" are no longer optional, many look to other companies for their parts. Which is fine of course, that means Musikraft gets a ton of business, but the W could open themselves up to a whole new market just by adding one or two new options. Wouldn't hurt to try.

Love you as always, Cagey! :icon_biggrin: :eek:ccasion14:
 
There's no question in my mind that there are people out there who want to build/repair vintage reproductions. But, even if a new project starts almost daily, that's probably less than 300 units/year. That's a pretty small market, and the likelihood of any substantial company paying attention to it is pretty small. There just isn't that much money there. It's what they call a "boutique" market, which is generally serviced/satisfied by professional hobbyists.

Companies any larger than boutique builders have costs that many don't consider, such as inventory, payroll, insurance, various legal paperwork, accounting, taxes, etc. That means they have to charge more than most would pay for low-demand parts. Boutique builders generally don't deal with that stuff, as they're making so little money that they don't show up on anybody's radar (read: the IRS, OSHA, EPA, FTC, CPSC, NLRB, etc.) Take all those things into consideration, and you need to sell a helluva lotta bodies to justify the aggravation in order to make money.
 
I have nothing better to do, except practice.  But...I can't wait for new member posts in the suggestion box, something to the effect of, "I think Warmoth should make some Gibson designs like a Les Paul, SG, Explorer, and V.
 
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
I have nothing better to do, except practice.  But...I can't wait for new member posts in the suggestion box, something to the effect of, "I think Warmoth should make some Gibson designs like a Les Paul, SG, Explorer, and V.
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:laughing3: Oh, it's gonna happen...
:rock-on:
 
Someone has already asked the L5s shape & got told why it was withdrawn....  :icon_thumright:
 
I hope this been discussed already...

There are many talented and experienced guitar geniuses on this board.  Why not have a design contest to come up with new shapes? 

Think of the possibilities.
 
DavyDave53 said:
I hope this been discussed already...

There are many talented and experienced guitar geniuses on this board.  Why not have a design contest to come up with new shapes? 

Think of the possibilities.
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I think there's been plenty of suggestions. The boss @ Warmoth is the one who decides. They pretty much run their own show.

But with 2 companies now closely watching them (Gibson & before that, Ernie Ball Music Man), not to mention the touchy Rickenbacker people, they really do have to be careful what they put up.

Warmoth have always had the modus operandi of being a parts supplier. The kit guitar idea is definitely secondary. So if they were to embark upon more original designs and even contemplate things out of the box, like a neck through design with add on wings in a kit form, they step further away from their business core.
 
Right. And their Fender licensing specifically prohibits it. If they want to start selling kits or anything that makes them look like a guitar builder, then they lose the Fender license. That's probably another way of saying "they lay everybody off and shut the doors". Back when I had an RSS feed of the Showcase necks, it was amazing how many Fender necks they put up every day, and those were just the ones for general retail. Who knows how many get made for customers? You don't see those unless somebody posts them online somewhere like here.
 
How did we get from ‘Shapes’ to ‘Kits’?

Gibson had a problem with the shapes that Warmoth was selling.  Fender didn’t care about Warmoth selling those Gibson-like shapes.

Gibson has stopped Warmoth from selling certain shapes.  The solution is new shapes.  New shapes that no company can claim as theirs.
 
DavyDave53 said:
How did we get from ‘Shapes’ to ‘Kits’?

Gibson had a problem with the shapes that Warmoth was selling.  Fender didn’t care about Warmoth selling those Gibson-like shapes.

Gibson has stopped Warmoth from selling certain shapes.  The solution is new shapes.  New shapes that no company can claim as theirs.
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I mentioned the kit idea in my previous post. As a comparison to what Warmoth's main business is, which is as a parts supplier. That's all.

New shapes, yes. Ones that no-one else can lay claim to? That can take time.

I'm sure they won't entertain outside help for it either, competition & well meaning suggestions or not. I doubt the company will even suggest what styles they are looking at until they know their own original designs can pass legal muster.

 
To be honest it looks to me like maybe they're doing just fine with the bodies they make now. I think we can all agree they're not in any kind of rush here, it's been 7 months now. So I wouldn't be surprised if there never was a replacement for the LP and SG styles.
 
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