.

Three-ColourSunburst

All that hype from StewMac, and out of the 25 sets of wood  they have from The Tree to make the back and sides of an acoustic guitar they have sold just one. Perhaps it is nothing more the '59 flame' of the acoustic guitar world - pretty, if you like that sort of thing, but nothing more.

https://www.stewmac.com/woodstax?facet=|WOODGRADE:TT

Rocker

There is a thread about people desperate to take offence.  This thread is exactly that: people wringing their knickers because someone has priced a guitar at half a million quid!  So what, my Anderson is available and for sale at that price too. I play it as often as I can but would accept that price in a heartbeat.

Guys, calm down. Change what you can change, ignore or accept what you can't change. The wisest (of us) know which is which.

ChuckManual

These chaps make guitars from "The Tree"

http://www.casimiguitars.com/

They're not cheap - but they're not half a million quid!

Whitecat

If you want a piece of it but don't wanna pay that kinda money...

https://www.thaliacapos.com/collections/capos/products/the-tree-mahogany-inlay-brushed-black

LuttiS

jdgm said:

I own some air which comes from The Sky. There is only one Sky and air from it has an unique composition which is very good at projecting tone and sound.

Hmm sounds like an Air-con... 


or Con Air... wasn't sure which way to go with this, both equally hilarious.. brb - getting coat.

Three-ColourSunburst

Rocker said:

There is a thread about people desperate to take offence.  This thread is exactly that: people wringing their knickers because someone has priced a guitar at half a million quid! 

They can put whatever price they like on it, it doesn't bother me. What I do have an aversion to is hype, BS, mythologising, voodoo, mojo and snake oil, and the view that science really tells us nothing about the way the world works. From feng shui, to crystal healing, 'directional' speaker cables and amplifier 'crystal lattices', irrationality is everywhere -  its like we are all going back to the Dark ages. 

deano

How can we be sure that anything claimed have been built from "The Tree" (really just  "A Tree" that was chopped down incompetently) is actually built from "The Tree" and not from "A Tree"?

I like the line...

The energy of music then explodes into the world and enters the minds and bodies everyone who is listening, everyone who can hear it and it transports them to a different place and a different world…a different time.

I do love the word "can" in "everyone who can  hear it". It's the market segmentation thing again. "You and I CAN hear it because we possess golden ears, and taste, and those over there who can't hear it don't possess those things. They are lesser beings, and can be ignored. Now, if you could just confirm your PIN for me please..."

The whole guitar business is built around this nonsense. The sad part is that we keep buying it! We keep falling for the same old hackneyed phrases and marketing screed and actually shell out for it.

There are so many threads recently moaning about this sort of thing (yes I know I am doing most of the moaning). 70's guitars being reissued or sold for stupidly vintage money, cheap pedals being labelled up as expensive ones and sold with the same-old marketing weasel words (why couldn't the buyers hear that the cheap pedal and the expensive pedal sounded the same - they were the same!), and now we have a guitar built with wood allegedly from some fabled tree being sold with the above bilge.

I am at the point now where I really want to see some companies fail because people have stopped falling for this kind of nonsense. It would make me happy to see a company fail because they are trying to flog a bunch of 70's guitars and people think "hmm they were rubbish then so why do I need to pay silly money for one?" or "this £400 pedal sounds exactly like this £30 pedal" or "I don't really know what tree the wood came from on this guitar, and can't tell the difference from this one at 1/00th of the price, or even 1/1000th of the price, so I'll not bother".

Am I too cynical? I just find it more and more difficult to believe anything about guitars, amps and effects these days. The only part of the guitar business I trust are chords, scales and music. All of the physical things leave me wondering about the profit motivation rather than the musical qualities, and threads like this don't help. Please stop exposing this kind of exploitative profiteering, it's not doing my blood pressure any good!

martinw

Questioning something, or ridiculing it, isn't "taking offence".

One should be encouraged, the other not. See, easy!  

earwighoney

deano said:

How can we be sure that anything claimed have been built from "The Tree" (really just  "A Tree" that was chopped down incompetently) is actually built from "The Tree" and not from "A Tree"?

It has a very distinctive visual patterning. 

Which isn't to say it's not snake oil, but having seen enough pictures of 'The Tree' on the AGF (AcousticGuitarForum), the sets of wood used from 'The Tree' do have an incredibly recognizable visual grain pattern.

In the acoustic side of things, exclusivity is a big thing but there's been more than 200 instruments made with the Tree and there are around another 200 sets out there, it doesn't seem that exclusive to my perception!  

prlgmnr

Rocker said:

Guys, calm down. Change what you can change, ignore or accept what you can't change. The wisest (of us) know which is which.

Yeah calm down everyone and stop....er....finding interesting articles about The Tree and posting them for us to look at!

HAL9000

jdgm said:

I own some air which comes from The Sky. There is only one Sky and air from it has an unique composition which is very good at projecting tone and sound.

Would it make a better air guitar than my current one?

Simon_M

prlgmnr said:

Rocker said:

Guys, calm down. Change what you can change, ignore or accept what you can't change. The wisest (of us) know which is which.

Yeah calm down everyone and stop....er....finding interesting articles about The Tree and posting them for us to look at!

Yeah @Rocker is right! Calm down with your fascinating information and links. I am absolutely furious about an interesting old tree and the furniture and guitars made from it. Literally livid.

merciful-evans

This guitar is from the future. Considering inflation, the price is fair (for them). There is only one tree remaining, and he cant sell it there because everyone is happy with their 4-D printed guitars made from nano synthetics that are self cleaning and self sustaining.

robgilmo

I didn't even read the advert, I know its shit just by the price.

barry2tone

Well said, sir!

Haych

It's a 'unique' guitar for sure.  A very pretty piece of wood, but looks like it was made from a piece of expensive antique furniture.

I never did get all the bollocks about highly figured woods on guitars - sure, make a guitar that looks nice, put a pretty top on it, I don't have an issue with that, but there has to be a balance between function and form IMHO.  

That's one of the reasons I really don't buy into PRS, the guitars are really well built but the obsession with ten-tops, figured necks and ornate inlays and other unnecessary bling just puts me off. 

Also, and I don't know if there's any science to this, but in my broken logic, plain wood, as opposed to highly figured wood, should sound better.  

Hattigol

Is it the Harrisons who are selling this?