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Would like to add something from a different, wider point of view.
Not diminishing or over-rating one group of things over the other, each one is unique, but there is *one* fundamental difference:
"classic" musical instruments are in general a "mature" technology.
Most have reached a peak in their development a long time ago, and have not changed *that* much from that stage.
I mean a saxophone, a violin, a flute, etc. have been basically the way they are today for dozens, even a couple hundred years !!
There are some changes, as, say, adhesives, some finishes, maybe some tasks are made using power tools instead of hand tools, but the instrument itself has not changed that much.
With a magical time machine you could bring today a Spanish classical guitar Luthier from 1890, or a Czech cello maker from 1912 , let them loose in your shop and they could probably do excellent repair work.
Maybe they would be heating hide glue in a stove instead of some cyanoacrilate, or lacquering instruments with rubbing alcohol and some real organic tree resin instead of polyurethane or sanding by hand, but their work would be valid (even more than that, they could charge a fortune by doing it "the old way")
*BUT* you could bring the most skilled technician in the World, from as close as 1985 (when most of us were already active), somebody who could fix *anything* in that year, and today he would fix, say, 70% of the stuff, but would be lost with, as an example, and in no particular order:
>>MosFets, widely used today but different from the bipolars with which he would be acquainted.
>>Chipamps instead of discrete output stages
>> SMT components instead of through hole parts
>> Massive presence of Digital effects and processing, and that with dedicated large scale integrated circuits instead of the general purpose CMOS or even TTL ones he would know.
>> Lack of backup from the Manufacturers, even from serious companies such as Fender or Peavey, who would now offer whole amp or at least board exchange instead of part by part troubleshooting and repair
>> market domination by mysterious OEM manufacturers, who can't even be found and which if so, speak a *very* different language (think character based ones instead of Roman letters)
>> programmed obsolescence, which renders many products impossible to repair, from a cost point of view, coupled to
>> very low manufacturing cost, which makes straight replacement attractive.
May I say ?:
Oh well !!
Anyway, I'm sure somebody with your skills and dedication will probably be able to repair, say, 70% of repairable stuff thrown at you in, say, 1 or 2 years, so I am not discouraging you, on the contrary, just providing a sobering point of view.
Good luck.
Not diminishing or over-rating one group of things over the other, each one is unique, but there is *one* fundamental difference:
"classic" musical instruments are in general a "mature" technology.
Most have reached a peak in their development a long time ago, and have not changed *that* much from that stage.
I mean a saxophone, a violin, a flute, etc. have been basically the way they are today for dozens, even a couple hundred years !!
There are some changes, as, say, adhesives, some finishes, maybe some tasks are made using power tools instead of hand tools, but the instrument itself has not changed that much.
With a magical time machine you could bring today a Spanish classical guitar Luthier from 1890, or a Czech cello maker from 1912 , let them loose in your shop and they could probably do excellent repair work.
Maybe they would be heating hide glue in a stove instead of some cyanoacrilate, or lacquering instruments with rubbing alcohol and some real organic tree resin instead of polyurethane or sanding by hand, but their work would be valid (even more than that, they could charge a fortune by doing it "the old way")
*BUT* you could bring the most skilled technician in the World, from as close as 1985 (when most of us were already active), somebody who could fix *anything* in that year, and today he would fix, say, 70% of the stuff, but would be lost with, as an example, and in no particular order:
>>MosFets, widely used today but different from the bipolars with which he would be acquainted.
>>Chipamps instead of discrete output stages
>> SMT components instead of through hole parts
>> Massive presence of Digital effects and processing, and that with dedicated large scale integrated circuits instead of the general purpose CMOS or even TTL ones he would know.
>> Lack of backup from the Manufacturers, even from serious companies such as Fender or Peavey, who would now offer whole amp or at least board exchange instead of part by part troubleshooting and repair
>> market domination by mysterious OEM manufacturers, who can't even be found and which if so, speak a *very* different language (think character based ones instead of Roman letters)
>> programmed obsolescence, which renders many products impossible to repair, from a cost point of view, coupled to
>> very low manufacturing cost, which makes straight replacement attractive.
May I say ?:
Oh well !!
Anyway, I'm sure somebody with your skills and dedication will probably be able to repair, say, 70% of repairable stuff thrown at you in, say, 1 or 2 years, so I am not discouraging you, on the contrary, just providing a sobering point of view.
Good luck.
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