Music Stores... swamped with Asian imports

[Doug Beaumier]

It seems like about 80% of the musical instruments and accessories in USA music stores today are imported. Many familiar "name brand" guitars, basses, effects (and probably drums and other instruments) that we assume are American made by American companies... are built for those companies by other companies in places like Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, China, and India.

I’m wondering what percentage of the guitars sold in the USA are built outside of the USA? These imports would include some former all-American companies like Fender, Epiphone, Peavey, etc. that now farm out part of their production to other countries. Many buyers assume that any instrument that says "Fender" on it is American made. Sadly, that is no longer true, and it’s been that way for a while now.

[Earnest Bovine]

I wonder if Lou Dobbs has heard about this.

[Doug Beaumier]

Good one, Doug!

[Bill Hatcher]

I have a friend who just opened a small music store outside of the Atlanta area. He started out as primarily a keyboard oriented store but soon learned that guitars make money. I asked him since he did not have a Fender franchise what he was doing to have a Fender looking guitar to sell and he told me he found a distributor in Atlanta that sells him a Strat copy made who knows where for $40!......$40!!!! He turns them over for a bit over $100 and sells sometimes 30 or 40 a week.

Imagine how many a large store turns over or an internet site with no bricks and morter.

Materials is the key when looking at these. Most are made of terrible wood and most have nut widths of 1 5/8". Some though are made of decent grained woods. You just have to look through them.

Global. We've gone global. Beware.

[Greg Cutshaw]

Should I buy the Korean/Mexican guitar that says Fender/Peavey on it or the one that says Rondo/Agile on it? The USA name brands in many lines of merchandise have been selling for big bucks many year ago, long after they quit making them in the USA. Now that the imports sell direct, they don't need the USA trademark or corporate logo anymore. My new Hondo Agile 3000 is one of the nicest guitars I've ever seen or played in the Les Paul genre. It has hand filed frets, triple binding, abalone fret markers and comes fully adjusted as far as intonation and truss rod all for under $450. I paid $700 2 years ago for a Korean made Peavey generation custom guitar when I should have been looking at the Agile, a much better guitar for $250 less.

I think this is an exciting time to buy and sell guitars if you are the type that can't afford to buy vintage instruments.

Greg

[Donny Hinson]

It seems like about 80% of the musical instruments and accessories in USA music stores today are imported.

That's true, if you buy cheap stuff. Luckily, I don't see many multi-thousand dollar amps and guitars coming out of China, Japan, Korea, or Mexico. There will always be American-made guitars and amps. You may have to look to find them, and you may have to pay a lot of money, but they will always be around. Big companies want cheap foreign stuff to sell, though, so American-made guitars and amps may only be available from big names for a short while.

Get 'em while you can.

[Doug Beaumier]

There are some good quality mid-priced import guitars today. And there are a lot of cheap imports, with cheap electronics and hardware. I guess you get what you pay for. I wonder if Any of these imports will ever be classics or sought after by players/collectors?

This makes me appreciate our handcrafted, precision-machined pedal steel guitars!

[Dave Mudgett]

On the original topic title - I think it depends on what store you go into. There are plenty of stores that carry lots of American-made guitars. One of the nicest is Dave's Guitar Shop in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Lots of nice US-made Fenders, everything from standards to expensive reliced out custom shop models. Gibson stuff is still mostly made in the US - again, pretty expensive, but not all of it that pricey.

My old guitar store store (that I got out of several years back) recently merged with another local store here. They have about 800-900 guitars in the place, perhaps not quite half are US-made. Of the non-US made, at least half of those are not cheapies, but high quality imported guitars.

I agree with others that the quality of a lot of these imported guitars is good. I've had some very good Mexican-made models. Even a plain-jain Mexican Standard Strat, that I picked up for less than $300, turned out to be a very fine guitar. Even some of the $150-200 skunk wood stuff isn't really awful. Yes, they've skimped on some things, but if you sort through them carefully, some are fairly workable.

Lest one get the idea that Japanese-made guitars are poor quality - I beg to differ. Japanese-made Fenders are among the best Fenders made in the last 25 years, IMHO. Some of them are just shockingly good. The good stuff by Ibanez and Yamaha is excellent. There are plenty of others. Many of the Korean guitars are just fine now.

Compared to when I started playing guitar in 1967, I think it's much easier to find a very gigworthy guitar for reasonable $$$. Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI calculator at http://www.bls.gov/cpi/ - $300 in 2008 dollars would have been worth about $47 and $200 in 2008 dollars would have been worth about $32. What I saw for $30-50 bucks back then were some seriously junky foreign-made guitars. I know - my first electric was a $39 Kawai that I had to sort through dozens to find one playable one, plus $5-10 for a case. It's easy to find a 2008 comparable-worth Mexican, Korean, or Japanese-made guitar that will eat this kind of junk for lunch. If I sort through, I can find much better $100-200 guitars, to my tastes.

The other side of that coin is that a roughly $300 new Fender Strat in 1967 would be about $1900 in 2008 dollars. You can get a killer new NOS custom shop American-made reissue Strat for pretty close to that money now. This isn't even considering what one can easily find used now.

I think, on average, young kids learning to play have much, much better equipment than the typical kid in the mid-late 60s had.

I wonder if Any of these imports will ever be classics or sought-after by players/collectors?

I think so. Older Ibanez Artist Series solids and semi-hollows, Japanese-made Fender reissue Strats and Teles, the high-end Japanese-made metalhead stuff, and I'm sure plenty of others. They've already started up.

[Mike Perlowin]

As you all know, I'm involved with one of these Asian guitar companies (Ravenwest) and I have quite a few of their guitars in my personal collection. I also have guitars by most of the big brand names, Fender, Guild, Gretsch, Ibenez, Music man etc. (At present I don;t own any Gibson guitars)

I see little or difference in quality between my Ravenwest guitars and the others. They really are that good.

And while I like to think that we're better than the competition, the truth is that companies like Agile and Dillion are also making really good guitars and selling them at reasonable prices over here.

Just like all the steel manufacturers are making fine instruments today, so are all the Asian guitar makers. They leaned how to do it right.

[Leslie Ehrlich]

Notice that the word 'Asian' is in the thread title, but 'Mexico' is included in the discussion.

The only 'made in USA' guitar in my collection is my steel. But if we're just talking six string electrics here, my favourites are my Mexican-made standard Strats.

[Ken Lang]

In 1986, when my no 1 son who was 16 wanted his own guitar, we went to a local store. I couldn't afford an expensive one, and we happened on an import for $90. Don't remember the brand, but I played it and was amazed how well it played. The strings were at a nice height off the neck, not 1/4 inches like the old imports I remembered. I bought it and he had many happy hours on it learning to play. I remember him asking me about double hand playing. I hadn't the foggiest idea. Those were the days of Eddie VanHalen and I soon found out what it was. Still can't do it tho.

[Doug Beaumier]

Notice that the word 'Asian' is in the thread title, but 'Mexico' is included in the discussion.

That's true, I did include Mexico in my list of countries in my opening post.

I'm not criticizing foreign-made instruments per se... some of them are high quality, and some are low quality. I'm just pointing out that most people would be very surprised to learn that about 80% of ALL the items in most music stores in this country are manufactured in another country.
This post is more about the outsourcing of instrument manufacturing than it is about the instruments themselves. Also... I think it's an unfortunate situation, but that's where we are today, not just with musical instruments, but with thousands of other manufactured goods.

[David L. Donald]

Most of my instruments are American made.
Except the custom mandolin made in France,
And Ibaneze Artist which is super,
and the plastic body mini guitar with built in
amps for portable slide work.

But I just got a Joe Pass model Epiphone archetop,
more or less by accident, and it is very fine quality.
Really quite surprising.

The majority of this lower end market is parents getting kids a half decent to good instrument.
Unless the kid proves truly dedicated and a bit of a savant,
few parents will shell out for a real made in USA marque unit.

These imports fill a niche market, and have for 40 years.

[Tony Prior]

Don't worry Doug, after the election in Nov all of the out sourcing will be outlawed and we will all be back to paying $2500 and UP for an ES335 , Les Paul or Tele again !

It's gonna be great, a 6 string slab bodied Guitar at ZUM Steel Prices ! I can't wait !

ok, on a comical note:

I have two mid 80's MIJ Fender Squires, a Strat and a Tele, both quite good.

I have TWO early 2000 Epiphone MIK Guitars, a Les Paul and a Wildkat, both excellent.

I have a Steel made in Texas..

and my 3 GO TO Electric Guitars are all California born Fenders, and truth be known, for me, the MIJ's
,MIM's and MIK's, as nice as they are, are not in the same league. Sorry.

Oh and I forgot, I have an Ibanez made somewhere on the planet Mandolin, cost $170, it's great as long as you don't plan on playing above the 7th fret !

[Steinar Gregertsen]

I wonder if Any of these imports will ever be classics or sought-after by players/collectors?

I think so. Older Ibanez Artist Series solids and semi-hollows, Japanese-made Fender reissue Strats and Teles, the high-end Japanese-made metalhead stuff, and I'm sure plenty of others. They've already started up.

Late 70s and early 80s Tokais are going for high prices these days, - at that time the Tokais were better than most guitars Fender and Gibson put out.

6 of my students play relatively new Gibsons, and the level of craftmanship is not impressive. Sloppy nuts causing bad intonation, poor fret filing, there's only one of them that lives up to what I remember as solid Gibson quality - a Les Paul that must be the best guitar I've ever played. The rest of them I wouldn't have traded for my (slightly modified) Epi Les Paul..


Steinar

[Mark Eaton]

Doug, I think the only people who are surprised that most instruments are made outside the U.S. are people who don't play an instrument at all, and have rarely if ever bothered to think about the subject.

I worked in the horticulture industry for many years, and used to be a partner in a retail nursery. Some years in California we have had spring seasons with a lot of rain, which is bad for the garden center business, just like it is bad for the car wash business. Maybe I'd be talking to folks after church on Sunday in a year like that one, and they might ask me "How's business," to which I'd reply "not so good, with all this rain." They might say "oh, really?" with a bit of genuine surprise. Well of course rain is bad for the garden center business, but if you have nothing to do with that subject, it would never occur to you to even think about it.

Just as if you are a non-musician, and have little interest in guitars beyond hearing one being played reasonably well, you wouldn't think about the country where the instruments are manufactured, but as soon as someone takes a minute to explain the reasons why all Fenders are not American made, you would understand.

[Bobby Caldwell]

I have been playing a Peavey JF-1 guitar for sometime now. It is a ES335 style guitar and not only is it as good as some American made guitars, it's better than most. It plays great and sounds wonderful. There are some really good entry level guitars on the market from all over the world. I just wish they would have had those when I started playing. There are so many good guitars on the market right now. If you are buying, you have alot to chose from. Bobby

[Keith Cordell]

The percentage of imports in music stores is quite high- but not nearly as high as, say, the percentage of imports at Walmart or Best Buy... Reality is that the cost of these items being made in the US is incredibly high and most folks just can't afford it. I have longed for a couple of years now to get a PSG and start learning it purely for working reasons, but the low end units FEEL like low end units and the high end units are simply out of my league. If I sold my whole rig I couldn't come up with enough to but a decent steel. So objectivity about guitar prices here is gonna be a little skewed.
The other part of the argument is that in many cases US manufacturers are not making instruments as well as they used to. New Gibsons are still a hit-and-miss affair,Fenders are pretty good (especially the Custom Shop stuff) but are priced ridiculously high and even the imports from these makers are getting stupid. Priced a Fender MIM lately? $650ish for a good MIM tele.
On the other hand there are still US made used guitar bargains to be had. I bought an SD Curlee guitar for $50 and it is the best humbucker guitar I have ever had. My lap steel, an 8 string neck from a Stringmaster quad, is exceptional and I got it in trade for a Supro. Not investment grade stuff, but quite useable as players.
If Mexico and the Orient make better bang-for-the-buck instruments, they are going to make the sale.

[Jack Stoner]

The musical industry is one of the few that you still have a choice of where something is made (but in the case of electronics few components are US made). With many "consumer" (and industrial) items there is no choice and you have to buy "imported" goods.

I would love to have a new Gibson LP but if I were to buy one all I could afford is an Epiphone copy (which some say play as good as the Gibson's).

(Most)Music stores stock what will sell and what will sell is the low to medium priced instruments and the "imported" all fall into that category. Nashville is no exception, when I worked at Little Roy Wiggins lower Broadway music store we had the Grammer guitars (factory outlet and mostly 2nds) but we had a lot of Alvarez guitars and in the early 70's the Alvarez guitars were mostly the "under $200" range accoustic guitars - and what had a fast turnover.

[Jim Eaton]

My #1-6 string is a MIJ 59'Telecaster Deluxe model that has one of the best feeling rosewood fingerboard/necks I've ever put my hands on, it's a 1st year issue. Got it new.
I just recently pick up a Squire Vintage SSH Tele with a mini-humbucker/strat/tele lead 3 pick-up set up that has the 5 position switch and a maple neck that is so smooth and nice.
Keeping in mind that my 6 string playing is my musical "hobby " these are way more guitar for the money than I could afford to have if I had gone for "real deal" axes. I like em' and as long as recording equipment can only listen to and not see what your playing, they will do for me.
JE:-)>

[Dave Mudgett]

Notice that the word 'Asian' is in the thread title, but 'Mexico' is included in the discussion.

True, but Doug brought in other locations in the opening post:

.. are built for those companies by other companies in places like Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, China, and India.

One of my points was that a $2000 new custom-shop Strat in 2008 dollars is about equivalent to a $300 new Strat in 1967 dollars. I don't think prices of these high quality American-made guitars are any more "insane" than they were back in 1967. In fact, I don't think they're "insane" at all. I think many people tend to selectively forget how hard it was to cobble $300 together for a guitar back then.

What is insane to me is many times markups for some of the stuff like specially annointed or aged guitars, like some of the extreme historical Les Paul reissues, and others. But whatever - it's what someone will pay.

On the Japanese Fenders - I'm specifically talking about the Japanese Reissue series. Also agree on Tokai, some early Fernandes, and so on. These guitars, to my tastes, blew away anything Fender was making in the late 70s or very early 80s, until Fender came up with their reissue series. In fact, I think those guitars were a big part of what prompted Fender to come to its senses.

Actually, I think the American guitar industry is a big success story. I believe that a very significant proportion of their US-made output is for export. If GM, Ford, and Chrysler, and other heavy duty manufacturere were doing half as well as US guitar makers like Fender, Gibson, Martin, and PRS, I think we'd be in a lot better shape.

[David L. Donald]

What is still being made for electronics in the states,
is boutique tube amp gear. Some reasonably priced
and some high zoot for sure.

But it is high quality remakes of classic types,
and almost custom in the one off fashion of
independent builders.

Our forumite Brad Sarnu is great example of
taking a great design from the past
and making a modernized more flexable variation,
at a higher quality than the original.

Sure the off-shore makers are doing tube preamps,
distortion and effects boxes, even midi'd and USB'd.
BUT the old amps are still finding a market with the discerning picker.

Fender and Peavey have also seen this trend and are
doing their reissues and retro amps, albieit with
more facility and some what less circuit purity
than the originals.

[CrowBear Schmitt]

back in 1965 when i went to buy my first lektrik guitbox, all my budget could afford was a crappy japanese guitar
less than 100 $ & it was crap !
it's a blessing that youngsters (& others too) can cop better quality instruments nowadays
like wow man, even the kids chops are a whole lot better than what i was playin' back in 65
i got a mij JD tele that i really dig,fer a lot less $$$ than a usa tele
i'm amazed at all them asian made jazz guitboxes too
is'nt better to take a 500 $ axe to a gig rather than a 5k model ?
Globalisation is all about sharing the wealth
it don't bug me none
just a sign of the times

[Eric West]

Best Squier I bought, the "SSH Vintage" Telecaster (R)was made in Madras India at Harmony Instruments. It doesn't even say "by Fender" on it. Just plain "Fender(r)".

Maybe it's got something to do with the armed guards at the gate on the Profile Page. I note that the "Logo" is photoshopped on. Probably to cover the prison name..

The "Indian Cedar", is VERY heavy, and is actually Neem Wood.

I think that with few exceptions, USA assembly lines are not able to compete.

I sure haven't noticed the "USA" made Fenders being any better. Not even for the money..

Oh well.



EJL

[Doug Beaumier]

A couple of years ago one of my students gave me a 1990 Squier Telecaster, and I use it for teaching. It sounds and feels surprisingly good. My student had upgraded the saddles and the pickups so that helped. The guitar has a lot of 'snap and pop', but not as much sustain as my American Teles. It's a 'top loader', not a string-through body, which makes a difference, in my opinion. I've never played the Squier on a gig, but I'm thinking I might try it on a gig in the near future.