I know there is another thread about Taylor's new V-bracing, but I decided to open this new one to focus more on the transition from Taylor as an open, honest and passionate guitar builder to the manipulative marketing machine they seem to have turned in to. As a long time Taylor player, I am
so not impressed, and actually feel like I am not taken seriously anymore as a customer.
Let me get one thing straight: I love Taylors and I owned just about every body shape of their top models. I purchased several dozens of high end Taylors in the last 15 years or so and I still own a handful of their top-of-the-line instruments, including BTO's. Fantastic guitars!
And that's why it really saddens me to read all the marketing yadayada Taylor tries to convince their customers with today. It is all so fake, it's not sincere, and often the arguments don't even make sense from a physics point of view.
So, this morning I received the Taylor Insider email with a link to the video
What is V-Class Bracing where I saw Andy Powers sitting in his cabin, staring out of the window, scratching his chin and sketching in a Robinson Crusoe style diary, tinkering with wooden sticks, allegedly inventing V-bracing. Oh please guys...
how old do you think your customers are by the time they can afford a Taylor? This is all so clearly put in scene and made up... just like the whole rest of the story.
This is not how a top manufacturer designs guitars. I'll tell you what really happened. Taylor, or maybe Andy, has been experimenting with different bracings. Of course! If you have a Taylor factory at your disposal you can make ten guitars every day with all kinds of wild bracings and simply try them out. Fantastic, and its great they did this. And so, one of those new patterns actually sounded pretty good, and they decided to productise it in a limited series. So far so good.
At that point, they should have done something like this:
Now that would have been an honest and open customer communication that would have shown respect to me, as one of their better customers, and all other Taylor addicts. And it would certainly have attracted me to the Taylor headquarters in Amsterdam to try one of these new machines out - and even buy one on the spot. But after this whole fake fairytale story full of pseudo science and makebelief... it will probably take a while before I go to Amsterdam.
And in the mean time I wish Bob fires the Taylor marketeers. They are ruining what was once a great company i.m.h.o.