[urklvt]

Welcome Barry!
Looking forward to hearing about your progress.

[Digital Black]

Originally Posted by Barry Bergeron

hello sevenstring. i,m Barry Bergeron, the aliminum guitar maker. not here to try to sell anything. just interested in the comments and to tell a little more about me. first thing is i did not sell 10 guitars at Dallas. i have sold only one. i'm sure because of the high price. just quickly say this project of mine may never fly, but my intent is to get the price down. i want everyone to get to play an aluminum if they like them. very high startup. working no sound and video for the site. end of the day, they are superb guitars. would like to check in on your group from time to time and hear what you have to say. it is how i will continue to build em better.

sorry, mean to say working ON sound and video.

I'd be interested in hearing what a Aluminium guitar sounds like. I must agree, other than the fact that they are built out of metal, there is no other unique factor that would have the cost so high. With a price like that, you've eliminated 90% of your potential market. 99% if you expect to sell web only, without customers being able to try it out.

[Durero]

Yes welcome!
I'm very intrigued to learn more about your guitars. Be sure to let us know here whenever you have any updates to your site. Sound and more detailed pictures would be awesome. There are quite a few headless guitar fans on this site. Keep us informed

[ts73]

Originally Posted by VforVendetta00

damn! thats waaaaaaaay too much for a guitar, any guitar. but nice ideas.

I agree it's a lot. But you obviously haven't checked the prices of carved solid top hollowbodies...
I think those are very cool designs. I wonder how they sound and play. I'd assume they'd be pretty light.

[Jerich]

Barry welcome to the Board but i hope i can speak fro everyone hear...and if i am wrong they will let me know!!! your guitars are beyond very interesting..I myself am always looking for that cutting edge guitar...your instruments seem...a great Idea please fill us in ...in your own words WHY!!! a aluminum guitar would be better then say graphite or wood..or like a PARKER composite?and what price range are you looking to get the guitars down to ...to become more feesible for the normal consumer?...I am very interested in these guitars....and am sure we all would love to hear from you...your forum:

[Barry Bergeron]

Hello sevenstring.org

Thank you for your response to my post and for welcoming me to your group. The questions and comments get right to the point. I could write a book here, but I'll try to stay on my leash.

None of this expensive aluminum guitar business would make any sense without good affordable guitars. I want everyone wants to play the guitar to be able to do so. For me personally, it isn't even the guitars that are so much the point. For me the point is much more about the way people communicate musically. Having said that, we are trying to do something new in interesting here. It is just a matter of fact that costs me $7500 to build one of these guitars. I mean to build players guitars. I mean to build road warriors, and not display case pieces of art. I'm think I'm building guitars that can last many lifetimes of everyday use and remain pretty much the same. Okay enough of that.

We purchase electronics, strings, springs, knobs and screws. Pretty much every part of the Bergeron Aluminum is made by us. I will be glad to talk about technical details of these guitars. Just tell me what you want to know. For now, I'll say this. As a final part of the manufacturing process, our frets are qualified by the machine tool to be the right shape and in the right position for exact intonation. I'll also say that aluminum is a good material for keeping the frets where they are supposed to be perminantly.

we have some experience with the carbon graphite material. We chose not to use this material or a variety of reasons. Call or e-mailed me about this and I will tell the story.

There is a lot of misinformation about thermal characteristics of aluminum on the Internet. We have done the tests and we will post results on our site. Again I'm glad to answer any questions, but I can tell you that the news is good on balance when compared with wood.


What you really want to know is what do they sound like. This is the hardest thing for me to tell you. Some very good players can make these guitars sound exactly ordinary and unremarkable. Other players literally have people stopping what they are doing to listen. It's really is a matter of the right guitar matched to the right guy. I can,t say for sure, but I think it has a lot to do with being able to use the guitars very fast attack. They sound good when you really wack strings. Kind of funny, but it really is the country players who are getting the most excited about these metal guitars. It's because you can hear the aluminum resonance more on the clean setting that you can when you crank the gain up. Truth is these little guitars are serious twangers.

It,s ironic, but at $7500 I'm still trying to talk about good value. For anyone who sends me check, once it clears, I will send a guitar. You can keep it for five days. You decide for yourself if this instrument is more expressive, or not. Send it back to me in the same condition and agree to not disassemble it within the five days, I'll return your money without hesitation. In the meantime, we will post shows and events we plan to attend so that we might see you there, and you can play like you stole it.

We will furnish a limited lifetime warranty on these guitars, the details of which are still being worked out. We will keep you posted about this on our site.

call me, lets talk
Barry

[Jerich]

kool!! thanks Berry! great Post as vauge as it seems it ment alot to me....I hate country twang!! I played a jackson alien crop circle alum guitar and it sounded like ...well aluminum.....

[noodles]

Originally Posted by Barry Bergeron

Some very good players can make these guitars sound exactly ordinary and unremarkable. Other players literally have people stopping what they are doing to listen. It's really is a matter of the right guitar matched to the right guy.

Truer word were never spoken.

It,s ironic, but at $7500 I'm still trying to talk about good value. For anyone who sends me check, once it clears, I will send a guitar. You can keep it for five days. You decide for yourself if this instrument is more expressive, or not. Send it back to me in the same condition and agree to not disassemble it within the five days, I'll return your money without hesitation. In the meantime, we will post shows and events we plan to attend so that we might see you there, and you can play like you stole it.

I can understand where you're coming from, and it's admirable to see someone stand so fully behind their product. I also understand that the price of the material you're working with, as well as the increased cost of labor and tools that it takes to work metal instead of wood.

However, your product is still far out of the realistic price range of 99% of the people that actually PLAY their guitars. Sure, the Corvette is a "bargin" in the sports car arena. It blows away cars that cost two and three times as much. However, at fifty grand, it is still out of the price range for most people. The ones that do buy it typically cruise around town at speeds that make you think they replaced that V-8 with a Civic engine. Rarely does someone actually open that thing up.

It's the same with your guitars. I'm sure they have lots of cool, innovative features, and I'm sure they sound amazing. The truth of the matter is I don't have $7500 sitting in the bank. It's not a matter of getting it back in five days--I don't have the money. If I did have the money, I wouldn't spend it on one guitar. It stretched me enough to put together my current live rig, which still costs less than your guitar.

I will never understand why small builders spend so much time working on new innovations that no one will ever get a chance to appreciate. The guys that are going to buy that won't care about the tone you can achieve, or all the neat hardware you built in house. They're only buying it to impress their buddies who are stopping buy the beach house for coctails after a hard week of laying people off.

[eaeolian]

Originally Posted by noodles

I will never understand why small builders spend so much time working on new innovations that no one will ever get a chance to appreciate. The guys that are going to buy that won't care about the tone you can achieve, or all the neat hardware you built in house. They're only buying it to impress their buddies who are stopping buy the beach house for coctails after a hard week of laying people off.

There are some that are sold that way, but a lot of small builders do sell to pro - or serious semi-pro - players to whom the innovations really matter. They just don't sell to "rock stars". There's a guy in southwest VA that builds acoustics that START at $7K. He doesn't sell a lot of them, but several guys who play five nights a week that I know have bought them.

Now, PRS, there's an example of what you're talking about...

[Barry Bergeron]

Thanks Noodles

sounds like you are probably a lot more like me than most people who would buy my guitars. i show up for work everyday, and i'm pretty damn sure i earn every penny i make.
a couple of quick things. i will never build a wooden guitar neck and i will never pound fret wire into any neck i build. past that, i wil consider a lot. the day i can build a guitar that you and i are both good with is worth working toward. i hope it happens.
should anyone take me for a snob, i will say this. unitl i did this project, the guy who would choose to have a guitar like i build them didn't really have that choice. more power to him, and you too Noodles.

thanks
Barry