Martin CEO on embracing radical change.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

It's more like a dinosaur hiring new management. It'll be interesting to see what the new guy can do.



Yes, most of use have. You have every right to be indignant.



Of course not. But they can't very well say they've been behind the eightball and now have to follow what other companies have been doing for quite a while. Insulting past leadership (or lack of it) would be dumb. It would be saying to all their loyal customers that the beloved Martins in their livingrooms, bedrooms, and studios are crap.

Bad, bad, bad idea, right? They want people to buy the new guitar. So they're pitching it to sell. Earth-friendly. Innovative. And a terrific instrument.



Yup. But years ago, they didn't think they had to. Now they know they do. So the are. Better late than never.

Just to cut them a little slack, their whole business model was built around tradition — that is, mahogany, rosewood, and ebony. So it's a big change. Often, bringing in new management is an acknowledgement that big changes are needed.



The trouble with SWAT analyses (and theories of change, logic models, mission statements, brainstorming, popcorning, blue skying, planning consultants, and all the other popular strategic planning "tools" is that they assume (usually rightly, unfortunately) that the current leadership lacks the imagination and courage to lead. Strategic planning retreats, workshops, and processes let everyone play with their pencils and feel good about themselves.

Which means that strategic planning tools are dull, flimsy, flawed, and useless. Their only real value is that they distract leadership from the hard work of doing even more damage.

So let's see if the new axe cuts it. Maybe it's not the beginning of the end. Maybe it's the beginning of a beginning. What's the worst that can happen? Another dinosaur goes extinct and makes room for a few more evolved species.

You make some good points Charlie. This is a challenging time for US guitar manufacturing. Does Martin keep playing on "tradition" or move somewhere else. The Martin "tradition" was innovation back in the day. And the woods used were pragmatic choices (particularly mahogany) which were cheap and coming into the US by the boatload looking for a market. Maple was more expensive!

Originally Posted by mercy

I suppose someone has already remarked on the obvious, it is not taking Martin in a new direction for 4K. If they did it as a cheap line then yes but as it is, no.

Originally Posted by koine2002

Godin has been doing this since day 1 with many of their lines (locally sourced cedar and spruce from forests they manage and wild cherry back and sides).

The only two guitars that I presently own are from Godin. Maple, cherry plywood and spruce. Godin always have been an export focused manufacturer, like Yamaha. It's a different mindset to companies focussed just on the internal US market.

Originally Posted by Gryf

Did he discuss the radical change of keeping Martin binding from separating?

I'm not sure if there will ever be an announcement on this. Has the question ever been asked at a press interview?

[PineMarten]

The big complaints I see regularly are both the binding issue and the number of guitars needing neck resets early in their lives. I'd be fairly livid if I spent Martin money and it needed a neck reset at <20 years, especially with the poor warranty support outside the US. I'm not sure who needed holes in the bracing, but I suppose a reinvented, easily adjusted neck joint would be harder to market as innovation when Taylor have had that figured for decades.
The domestic or alternative sustainable woods I'm all for, and North American makers have a number of good and suitable hardwoods available already.

[Sadie-f]

Notably you can't please everyone .. some choice comments:

"lesser tone woods" umm .. I wouldn't call either maple or walnut that. My first build was maple b&s, and I find her remarkably expressive. If my SCGC OM has a beautifully exotic voice, this guitar can deliver a broader range of tones.

"God save us from the MBAs. And their lawyers" .. juxtaposed with "If they had done a SWAT(sic) analysis"

I've been a practicing engineer & scientist for 40 years now (worked as a machinist before that). Along the way I learned managerial and financial accounting standards because if you don't understand the rules of the game you're at a disadvantage. I would rather die than practice accounting or marketing, and I'm none too fond of the reality that most operating decisions at the university where I work today are made by accountants.

On the other hand, if I had to rely on me to do the various things MBAs do, I'd starve. I can make new things, make new science because someone is doing those jobs.

Don't even get me started on SWOT .. or go watch Jared, Dinesh and Gilfoyle making absurd fun of this "analysis" tool in Silicon Valley.

I don't see Martin stopping production of EIR or mahogany guitars anytime soon, and like the exclusively custom small shops and solo luthiers, they've got inventory of old / exotic woods for custom work. This doesn't mean they can't also plow new fields.

Otoh, for a guitar maker that was actually driven to bankruptcy by really bad management, look no further than Gibson (KKR the owners of Gibson are quite clear they're calling the shots until they get their desired return on investment).

For my part, I am looking forward to laying hands on the SC-28/18s and GPCE Inception models. I truly don't care a whit what other people think of them, there seem to be some good ideas in these. There don't seem to be any in local shops for now, I'm sure in time there will.

[jimi junior]

Originally Posted by Leocino_2804

If it's not broken, don't fix it.

It is broken.

A business which contributes to the destruction of precious planetary resources, or one which can no longer source it's raw materials at the volumes, quality and prices necessary to continue unchanged, is broken.

[zoopeda]

Originally Posted by lowrider

But I still don't see what makes the Inception a $4000 guitar.

It's made in Nazareth with all the standard series appointments (dovetail neck joint, scalloped bracing, euro spruce top, etc). Street price will be less than $4k after typical discounts, a few hundred more than a new HD-28.

Originally Posted by lowrider

It's not a new design. It's a shape that has already failed for Martin in everything except its least expensive guitars. Maybe if it was a deep body SC it would seem inovative.

This is the biggest head-scratcher to me too. He even mentions the M shape in the article. That would have been the perfect guitar to try something like this on. Or maybe an OM/0000. The GP series was a total flop and has since been discontinued. That they're going after the Taylor crowd is a mistake. I think the failed GP series proved that. I wonder what the rationale is on pursuing it again.

Originally Posted by lowrider

It has lesser tone woods

This I do not agree with. Certified sustainable European Spruce is considered a significant upgrade to many players. Something in the direction of red spruce. Back is maple with a walnut wedge. Those are not exotic, but they've long been used in guitar building and are emerging as desirable tonewoods. Worst part about that back isn't the tone wood, in my opinion; it's the goofy shaped wedge!

Originally Posted by lowrider

Machine cut braces...Satin finish

These are two cost savers. This guitar is much less espensive and quicker to make given these features combined with cheaper tone wood. The average player isn't going to care how the braces were made if the guitar sounds good, but I bet players will see the satin finish as a downgrade on a $4k guitar.

Originally Posted by lowrider

But I really want to try one!

Me too. Looking at the braces, body shape, and back woods, I bet it's tight and bright sounding. Maybe a good recording guitar? Only one way to find out, I suppose!

Just noticed Spoon did a review on this one. He has a remarkable way of making every guitar sound the same (not a knock on him, just means his presence and playing personality dominates the sound, to my ear), but fun to hear nonetheless.

[PineMarten]

I can see the logic of introducing new design features on a model some way up the price scale. If they introduced these features on an entry level model first, rolling them out further up the range would be seen as cheapening those models. For examples, see the way people talk about some of the Bourgeois-initiated design changes at Eastman, or in the other direction, how unlikely Gibson are to trial soundports on higher end models after the Generation series.

[Steve DeRosa]

As it stands right now CFM IV & Co. can, if/when they so choose, do one thing (and one thing only) better than any other mass manufacturer - build world-class, traditionally-styled/appointed guitars with traditional methods/materials (viz. the Authentics)...

Until they get a real hardcore guitar guy with a strong presence, in the mold of a Mike Longworth or Dick Boak, on staff - one who can keep pace with the likes of Andy Powers (BTW I found that pic of the good Mr. Ripsam at the workbench, chisel in hand, unimpressive at best - kinda like "assisting in the construction of an HD-28 during summer vacation" ) - the best thing they can do, in terms of organizational stability and financial health, is to fish familiar waters, leave "radical change" to those better-suited to the task for the time being, focus on tightening up QC and CS shortcomings, and regain the trust of prospective and existing owners...

Unless of course "radical change," as I suspect, has nothing to do with actual guitar construction per se - let's not forget that Amazon-scale warehouse they built a few years ago - but that's grist for another mill entirely...

[jmagill]

Originally Posted by PineMarten

I worry a little about the thinned channels in the top on the pictures of the new bracing, it seems like a neat scored line to break along, or a stress riser for cracks to form, and it doesn't look like it would be easy to repair that cleanly.

Martin's 'new' channeled bracing is only new to them. Ryan guitars have been using laser-cut bracing for nearly 15 years without problems. As in other areas, Martin is playing catch-up and calling it innovation.

[PineMarten]

Originally Posted by jmagill

Martin's 'new' channeled bracing is only new to them. Ryan guitars have been using laser-cut bracing for nearly 15 years without problems. As in other areas, Martin is playing catch-up and calling it innovation.

It's not the holes in the braces I'm thinking about - on the Martin you can see a routed groove in the top itself parallel to each brace and behind the bridgeplate. With the bridgeplate in particular, I have visions of the top just folding along that groove as the top follows the natural tendency for the bridge to rotate forwards under tension and time, rather than the more gradual belly you would see on more conventionally constructed guitars.

[jmagill]

Originally Posted by PineMarten

It's not the holes in the braces I'm thinking about - on the Martin you can see a routed groove in the top itself parallel to each brace and behind the bridgeplate. With the bridgeplate in particular, I have visions of the top just folding along that groove as the top follows the natural tendency for the bridge to rotate forwards under tension and time, rather than the more gradual belly you would see on more conventionally constructed guitars.

Ah.

Yeah, I'm not sure what's up with that, but since I won't be buying one, it's not a concern for me, merely a curiosity.

[abn556]

I would rather see them focus on getting their QC issues under control. I just had to bring a brand new D-41 in for some basic setup work. I guess their Plek really is just a partial run of the neck geometry and that’s it. I assumed, evidently incorrectly, that Plek meant basic things would be corrected.

My 2 week old D-41 had two nut slots that were not nearly cut as deep as the rest of the nut and the Low E side of the saddle was well high. Plus the truss rod had been overtightened and the neck was starting to get a back bow. These are a simple issues to address, but you don’t expect them on a brand new $5200 guitar. This came after my buddy sent back an 000-42MD because the B string intonation was 4 cents sharp and in rural Arkansas up on the river he has no access to a good setup guy. That is two higher end Martins in the last couple of months that came out of the box with attention to detail issues.

[SFCRetired]

Originally Posted by jimi junior

It is broken.

A business which contributes to the destruction of precious planetary resources, or one which can no longer source it's raw materials at the volumes, quality and prices necessary to continue unchanged, is broken.

Isn't that just about everybody? And what they produce themselves is harmful to the planet.

We can use what mother nature gave to us, we just have to make sure we replenish what we can. Tired of hearing all this doom and gloom stuff, when there are answers.

[zoopeda]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

(BTW I found that pic of the good Mr. Ripsam at the workbench, chisel in hand, unimpressive at best - kinda like "assisting in the construction of an HD-28 during summer vacation" )

FWIW that photo was taken during his first week or so there. Thomas has actually built guitars, start to finish, as a hobby prior to joining Martin. I don’t know that he’s a master luthier but he’s actually scalloping braces in that photo. Reportedly he’s also a genuinely great person, which helps to know as well.

[phavriluk]

Has that 'genuinely great person' ever spoken out on his company's sloppy binding installations?

[zoopeda]

Originally Posted by phavriluk

Has that 'genuinely great person' ever spoken out on his company's sloppy binding installations?

I'm not sure that failing to "speak out on his company's sloppy binding installations" disqualifies him as being a good person. The binding problem was already massive by the time he took over. CFM is still chairman at Martin, and clearly Tom is following the company's policy as they've been advised by their legal and repair departments. I hate the binding problem and wish they'd done more to acknowledge it and make it right for folks. But it's also a ludicrous leap to suggest it means the recent CEO is not a good person.