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-Guitar Hero is all the rage for consumers.
-Need to take a break from searching for the latest gear during The NAMM Show? Here are some celebrity appearances and parties to check out.
-Attendance increased at Music China and Prolight + Sound, and Kenny G made a big splash.
-Improving next month's NAMM Show is like making the 1972 Miami Dolphins better. But NAMM is certainly not resting on its laurels.
-We reveal all of the manufacturer nominees for Music & Sound Awards to be handed out next month at The NAMM Show.
-Counterfeiting on MI products, particularly guitars, may have received minimal national press, but the problem is real and not going away.
-Find out how to sell products your customers are probably not looking to buy.
-M&SR features its second annual independent retailer roundtable. What's on dealer's mind's this year. Are things better than last year?
-Females playing musical instruments now outnumber males, according to a NAMM/Gallup survey.
-Industry leaders paved the way for the next 10 years.
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-The Latest, Industry, Dealers, People and Product Buzz and Showcases.
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-Dan Vedda shares every thought not appearing in his monthly column right here.
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-Robert Gault, president of Eminence Speaker, knows a massive amount about China and the pro audio industry. Enough said.
-To say Kurt Ballou, Converge's guitarist, doesn't treat guitars well is like saying the New England Patriots are a decent football team. Ballou had to find a guitar to take a pounding. Here's why he chose First Act's Sheena.
-The amazing story of how Gear Source Music reopened days after a flood took it apart. Spy ventured to the Pacific Northwest to the great city of Seattle. Five minutes with a great wealth of knowledge in the percussion industry, Remo Belli.
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-John Flansburgh, They Might Be Giants' John Flansburgh is a big fan of several independent dealers as well as a host of manufacturers.
-Matt Rubano, the bass player for the red-hot band Taking Back Sunday. Even better, he likes to shop for MI gear.
-Paul English, Willie Nelson has had four wives in 40 years, but only one drummer in that same time frame.
-John 5, When your name is a number, you must be cool. John 5, who played with Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie, says idolizing Eddie Van Halen was a big mistake. How is that possible?
-Luke Pritchard may be “all together Kook-y,” but he has cool memories from the days he visited retail stores.
-Eddie Ojeda; Lead guitarist for Twisted Sister.
-Will Lee; Getting that gig isn’t easy and took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
-Imogen Heap writes songs, plays piano and the nail violin,Does she plan to design her own instrument?
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Going Green
Manufacturers look to make eco-friendly guitars |
| By Brian Berk |
[July 2007 - Page 1] |
With an eye on perhaps an eroding environment, a group of manufacturers are producing or looking to make eco-friendly guitars. Eco-friendly products have taken several other industries by storm, including automobiles, utilities, and a gargantuan effort to design eco-friendly buildings. In MI, Taylor, C.F. Martin, First Act, Gibson, and others are involved in eco-friendly projects.
Nazareth, Pa.-based Martin Guitar is a charter member of The Good Wood Alliance, comprising woodworkers who work to protect the forest ecosystem to benefit this generation and future ones. The 174-year-old company has researched wood substitutes, which has yielded new acoustic guitars made from domestic woods such as ash, maple, walnut, cherry and koa, Engelmann spruce, larch, and Western red cedar. Martin refuses requests for guitars made from any endangered animal species. Woods used are not 100 percent sustainable, but according to Dick Boak, Martin’s director of public and artist relations, “the company is trying to be proactive,” and “this is a great start.”
Although using rare woods is not dangerous per se, the impact on the environment can be enormous, said Boak. “[As an example], there’s an initiative going on in Alaska now. One of the areas in the Tongas National Forest has been tremendously overharvested to the extent that instead of a sustainable situation, if they don’t take action quickly, they are looking at diminishing resources in a very short amount of time, due to irresponsible wood management practices. So we’re working with Greenpeace to preserve to exert the right constructive pressure in Alaska to preserve a sustainable resource.”
But that leaves one question: Do alternative woods sound good? Despite tremendous ecological efforts, if a substitute doesn’t sound good when your customer plays it, it’s unlikely they will buy it. “We test just about every species of wood that’s even remotely appropriate with guitars and have had tremendous success with that,” said Boak. “There’s no question it’s hard to beat Adirondack spruce and Brazilian rosewood. But we offer lots of different tone woods. The sustainable wood series guitars sound great. Our goal is to produce great-sounding guitars, period. Purists might see slight tonal differences. But that would fall into the category of slightly different character of sound. The sounds definitely don’t suffer at all though.”
First Act has been asked by an artist to create an eco-friendly guitar and the company also believes it can make guitars that offers excellent sound. “That’s a custom shop guitar we’re building for Adam Gardner,” said Jeff Walker, vice president of marketing for First Act. “He’s a member of Guster. He started a charity with his wife called Reverb. The organization works with bands and musicians within the music community. He approached us about manufacturing an eco-friendly guitar. We’re in the process of building that now and it includes special woods and recycled parts. There’s a possibility we might incorporate elements of that into future designs. But for right now, it is a one-time situation for an endorsee of ours.”
Boak admitted it’s difficult to see an environmental impact resulting from eco-friendly efforts yet. However, “you’ve got to start somewhere,” he said. “We have a ton of initiatives going on. And we’re committed to this on many levels. That includes a requirement for all of our dealers to participate in the program. In the dealer contracts, we require each dealer to order and stock sustainable wood models.”
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