Weird customer stories.....

[achase4u]

Those are some top notch stories.

I am with you Dave on the the emails instead of phone. I made a no phone policy from day one. I knew this is what I wanted because I had worked for Callaham before. In the old shop wed have to shut down the machines to do the phone. It took production nearly to a halt and each time it was the same questions. I understand the sincerity of some people's questions even if they dont make sense, but it wears on you after taking calls all day. Then there are folks who call and say something like "Fender's trem arm is .001" larger in diameter than yours, is that still going to work"? Or stuff thats plainly explained on the website, which bridge goes with what etc...

So, after I saw how much time and effort it took to answer the phones, half of the time to people who take 15min or more of your time and never order, I decided no way. Email is just way more convenient, I can dispatch answers to questions quickly enough without all the time wasting stuff on the phone. If someone doesnt end up ordering after I shoot a couple emails back, then it doesnt feel like a big loss...

Hell, I even like talking to people - I just know how much time itll take. Not willing to do that.

I remember one guy that had only put 200 down for the down payment so far in the year since hed place the order, and would call Bill at his home early on the weekend in the morning, asking about how close his guitar was to being done. Ugh.

[belwar]

i've always been one of the people to do service for my families business, and I dont know what it is but "the crazy's" always seem to come from New York. I *dread* seeing new york area codes on the caller id.

No offence meant to new yorkers here, but man you got some crazy dudes there.

[David Schwab]

No offence meant to new yorkers here, but man you got some crazy dudes there.

Probably just more musicians per square foot. The larger the sampling, the more crazys you will find! NJ actually has the densest population, but I think the crazy musicians head to NYC or LA!

[Zhangliqun]

Alnico 8 Strats? You weren't getting heavy string pull with them?

That reminds me of another story...

Back when I was using Alnico 8 in one of my strat models, I had a fantastic set of A8 strat pickups in my strat. My personal pickups. They were great. Glassy, smooth, everything I wanted.

Had a guy come in one day and he wound up trying them out. He wigged out and wanted to buy them, bad. At any cost. He had to have a set, no matter what. "These are the only ones" I explained to him...

Well, he wound up going home with them after I got my asking price.
He called several days later, and complained that they were microphonic. I asked him to come in...
When I got there and opend the case, I told him "It's because of your aluminium pickguard"
He insisted that it wasn't, because he'd just paid $75 for the pickguard. He inistsed that I re-pot the pickups.
Funny...they weren't microphonic in my guitar...
I told him they would change, but he insisted anyways. So, I took them out, potted them, and re-installed them. And didn't charge him for it.
He tried them, and went away happy.
He called a week later, complaining that they were STILL mcrophonic, and that they had changed thier tone and he didn't like them. He wanted me to buy them back.
I told him that I'd wanred him they would change, wanred him about his pickguard, and that I could not buy them back because they were now unsuitable for "ME"

In the end, I wound up making him a second set of Alnico 5 pickups, because he'd threatened to "tell everyone, everywhere" He went away with both sets for the price of one.
I never saw him again, thankfully, but I did see the A8 set in a local store, which was eventually bought by the store's owner and he LOVES them.

[Zhangliqun]

Anyway, just wait Zhangq you'll get a weirdie pretty soon, I get about 2 a year and they are usually doozies, though I do take steps to weed those guys out.

Here we are 3 years later, and so far so good. I do take steps to weed customers out, primarily those teen and early 20's adolescents who flat out just don't know what they want. With rare exceptions, they're nothing but trouble and I do everything I can to discourage them. As if anyone in here doesn't know what I mean, when they use words like "prolly" in their e-mails or other words or acronyms that make them look like texting girls, run, do not walk...

Beyond that I did have a weird guy last year who hated Alnico 5 but didn't understand that the metal cover on the Phat Cat clone he wanted meant Alnico 2 would be too dark so he really needed the A5, especially in the neck position where he would use it. He hated it both ways (he sent it back for a mag swap) but never sent it back a 2nd time because he felt bad about all the work I put into it. So far, that's not totally nutso, but his descriptions of what he wanted were almost as convoluted as Wolfe's "burnished tone" guy. Luckily I haven't heard from him since.

[paggerman]

Free gear for endorsements

I had a guy I did free pickups for a band called Oppera, some weird spelling like that. They sent me a media kit and some tshirts, seemed like they had potential. The guy was real nice and I did a custom vintage type strat set for him. He had a really cool strat that would have made a great Fender "artist" guitar if they ever made it famous. Well then Parker Fly gave him a free guitar and that ended that mostly, also I made the mistake of pointing out that on one cut on his CD he was trying to sing in a key too high for his voice, it didn't sound good, he never talked to me again after that. I've had some semi-famous guys contact me, who used to be famous in the 70s, in some sorta famous bands, expecting to get free pickups......NOT. I don't give away free pickups anymore, if they're famous they can afford to PAY. I'll work with them to get what tone they want more than most. Endorsement deals are a real shaky thing, artists will use your stuff and then move onto the next "free" thing someone gives them. I'm sure DiMarzio is smart about that and has strict contracts that the artist can't be seen playing someone else's products....a good idea in my opinion.....

My understanding is that Jim Marshall has NEVER given away his gear to anyone. It's good gear - it's worth something.

This is my first post on this forum - you guys have educated me so much in the last few weeks. I really appreciate your efforts (which are free!) to inform and eductae. Thank you.

[David Schwab]

Alnico 8 Strats? You weren't getting heavy string pull with them?

I realize that rod magnets pull more than blades, but I was doing some R&D recently and made a dual rail Strat type pickup with two big ass neo magnets in it. I put it in the neck position. I had no issues at all with string pull with a set of 9's... no wolf tones or anything. Great sustain too. I had it practically touching the strings. It sounded like poop though.. was way too bassy sounding and very loud. I switched to a single rather small neo and now it sounds a lot better. You would think neos would make it brighter right? They have a lot of low end. Now I have to rewind it with less turns to clean it up.

So I think that string pull stuff is exaggerated, though we all know what a set of Strat pickups too close to the bass strings will do.

Getting back to the subject, I'm happy to say that I've not had a single unhappy customer, though clearly I'm in a different market niche than guitar pickup makers. The only two issues were one guy who had the pickup a half inch from the strings and wasn't happy with the tone... until he raised it closer, and another guy who had a dark and dead sounding bass who was hoping a new pickups would make it brighter with more sustain, even though I said it wouldn't. He said it sounded better, but still had the same issues.

[ken]

Dave, I know where you're from there.

I like how neos sound muself, but I think they may have too much string pull for me.

I had two unhappy customers, both locals, in the last year or so. One said he didn't like my pickups because they were 'too vintage' and had too much string pull for him. I asked him what music he played, and he said he played speedmetal. Go fig.

The other one kept changing his mind every few days. First, he wanted an underwound set for maximum chime, then he wanted a flaming hot set two days later. This kept up for almost ten days, then I gave him his money back.
I found out later from his GF that he tried out all the pickups I made for him in a particleboard Strat copy he bought somewhere.

I have a 24/7 line here so anyone who wants to talk to me can do it, and it has gotten me many sales. I have no problem talking to anyone about what they want, as long as they are 'serious' about wanting pickups. Of course, you learn very quickly about which people really do want pickups.

ken

[David Schwab]

I like how neos sound muself, but I think they may have too much string pull for me.

They don't really. Well maybe if you use neo rod magnets, but I don't do that.

I've posted this before but once they are in the pickup it has a lower gauss reading at the poles than an Alnico Strat pickup. It's around 400G while a Strat pickups is about 900G on each magnet. So which one is going to pull more? It's all about how you use them.

[Zhangliqun]

I may order up some A8 rods then. I still think they would likely be best limited to bridge pu's, but then the effect I think they would have would be needed only on the bridge anyway.