# A friendly suggestion.



## El Caco (Oct 11, 2009)

I do not need to tell anyone that one of the great things about sevenstring is that it has a number of active high profile members. Unfortunately a few have been scared away in the past, a few are not as active as we or they would like and most of these are unable to enjoy the same experience you and I do.

These high profile members are here for various reasons, some are here to promote themselves, some might be here for research but most are here for the same reasons as you or I, they are here to relax or they are here to hang out with and make friends with like minded people or their fans. Most of these are also happy to answer questions and help out and often do in the appropriate threads. The problem is that sometimes members have questions and realise that it is quicker to go directly to an authority instead of creating a thread and hope that someone like Dan or Patrick will answer their question. So what is the problem with that you ask?

The problem is that we have up to 2000 active members per week and a large number of those are clever enough to work out that sending a builder a PM is easier and faster. Can you imagine being as busy as these guys, coming on here to relax and have a good time with the friends you have made only to find your profile wall and PM box filled with messages asking questions that can be easily answered most of the time with a quick search here or on google? And do you really think these guys want to give away all their secrets?

If you have a question chances are that someone else is wondering the same thing or will ask it down the track, that is what the forums are for. If you cannot find it with a search, start a thread and chances are in a couple of days your question will be answered if not sooner. This also means that later on when another is wondering the same thing they can find the answer easily.

We have lost some great members here because when they joined everyone on the site decided to send a PM to tell them how great they are at the same time or ask a question. We have some great members who need to turn off their PM's or profile messaging due to the volume of mostly ridiculous questions or messages, you should see some of the crazy shit that gets forwarded to me.

*So please keep the questions in the forums and leave the messaging services for personal conversations and business enquiries where applicable.* The same can be said for their business emails, leave them alone, they need those to conduct thier business and it is hard for them to respond to their customers and they lose a lot of productivity when they must sift through thousands of "how do you do your dots?". Also asking if you can have feature they do not offer or asking why they do not offer those features are not business enquiries. If you are really interested in doing business with someone do your research first, find out what they offer, it isn't hard to go to the BlackDroid guitars site and see that some of his build features include flat fingerboards and fixed bridges, if this is not for you then look elsewhere. If you have the cash to spend with someone ready and you just want to find out if you can get certain features then sure thing, send a email saying you wish to place an order and want to know if you can get those specs. But please don't abuse their messaging services if you are thinking about getting something from them in the future as soon as you win the lotto or get that money you're sure that your parents are giving you for Christmas.

In conclusion, please let our celebrities enjoy the same experience you enjoy. Cheers


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## hufschmid (Oct 11, 2009)

Thank you very much for this thread s7eve.

Yeah, at one point its getting out of control (and I'm not the only one), I had to cut the PM's because I was receiving 8 mails daily of members asking me building and tips questions...

Members who sometimes only enter this forum because they know I'm here. They dont post, have 0 forum posts and only sign up to send me PM's.... 

I'm not even talking about the guys who are using my contact website page to send me questions all the time...

After a days of work, I really enjoy relaxing in here (or like today sunday, free day, got my weeks work done, just relaxing) and trying to help whenever possible and I do enjoy it a lots, after all guitar is my passion in life.

There are many members in here who are my friends and I have some wonderfull contacts with them and I also hang in here to share guitar passion with those members.

I dont hang out in any other forums really because I love the 7 string forum for the quality of the members and moderators and overall source of information in here...

But comming up to a builder and asking him some help and advice by PM only because he is available is a little  (That's one of the reasons why I decided to not reply to building questions anymore)

I could also start charging 50$ for a reply after all, i'm self employed and my time = money  

Building a guitar is a passion but certainly not a hobby for me since I make a living out of it. Taking your free time to build your own guitar is one thing and does take a lots of guts, for this you deserve full respect, but you have an other source of income.... please respect the fact that we are not information freebie centers...

Thank you 

EDIT: I will forward this link to any further guys who PM me for building tips


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## Fred the Shred (Oct 11, 2009)

Actually, one would presume that common sense would prevent people from sending shameless PM's asking for advice when a thread could not only help them get things clarified as it would also enlighten people who might have the same question in the future.

I do understand why someone would think along the lines of "this guy makes this so perfectly - he's the one to ask", but I really find it abusive to intrude in one's business and ask for sometimes "secret" techniques used when building instruments, which happens to be the way their bills get paid.


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## Mattmc74 (Oct 12, 2009)

I get a lot of refinish questions from a lot of members on here and thats OK with me, but being a builder I could see how they would get tons of PMs on how to build guitars and how to questions. And like you said the builders really do not want to give out their secrets! Thats one of the things that they need to keep to themselves to keep their guitars special and different from the rest of the crowd.


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## Scar Symmetry (Oct 12, 2009)




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## hufschmid (Oct 12, 2009)

Mattmc74 said:


> And like you said the builders really do not want to give out their secrets! Thats one of the things that they need to keep to themselves to keep their guitars special and different from the rest of the crowd.



That's an other thing, you cant imagine the number of mails I receive daily about ''how do you do this black distressed oil finish''


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## ajdehoogh (Oct 12, 2009)

hufschmid said:


> That's an other thing, you cant imagine the number of mails I receive daily about ''how do you do this black distressed oil finish''


 
1 million?


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## hufschmid (Oct 12, 2009)

ajdehoogh said:


> 1 million?



 Sure, I send you my paypal account, when I receive the money I will even come to your front door to tell you how I do the finish


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## phaeded0ut (Oct 12, 2009)

On a similiar note to this, way back when on [email protected] Group we (the players) were extremely lucky to get to see a thread that was started by a player asking functionality/interoperability questions (and one installation question) using one conversion brain box to control another company's brain box that had internal sounds to it. The resulting conversation yielded quite a bit of information between three competing companies (Roland, BlueChip Industries (Axon), and Shadow). 

A second thread came out between RMC, Starrlabs, Shadow, Roland, Yamaha, and Axon wherein their respective lead engineers joined for the specific purpose of those threads. The second one had to deal with data standards and as a result there were changes made in a few products' next production generation and patches made available to take advantage of these updates.

For those who need added incentive to be passive in such discussions, we (the list members) were generally given some preference and discounts, though you had to be an active member and not one in poor standing (someone who SPAM'ed the list).


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## DevinShidaker (Oct 12, 2009)

I feel like a shithead for asking Patrick about his finish a while ago. It honestly didn't cross my mind that he got so many messages about it, and I really didn't know it was a secret. But he told me to just go with instinct, I did, and I'm really happy with my final results.


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## Rick (Oct 12, 2009)

Excellent thread, Steve.


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## Daemoniac (Oct 12, 2009)

^ Seconded.


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## ajdehoogh (Oct 12, 2009)

hufschmid said:


> Sure, I send you my paypal account, when I receive the money I will even come to your front door to tell you how I do the finish




PASS! You got it bud!


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## hufschmid (Oct 13, 2009)

ajdehoogh said:


> PASS! You got it bud!



I'll make it more simple for you.... 

There is a donation button in some pages on my website... 

As soon as the money is there, I reserve a plain ticket


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## shotgunn (Oct 22, 2009)

Thanx man, that really helped me out too. I was getting really overwhelmed with ?'s about my MIDI - Piezo mods.......


NOOOOOOOOOTTTT!!!!! Just kidding, actually I wish more people would inqure. Although I am sure I would also be a bit irritated by stupid questions. I HATE stupid questions...

shotgunn


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