Altius Guitars / Chris Letchford

[dschonn]

Hi everyone,

this playthrough of Chris Letchford playing 'The Gentleman' was just posted on Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnBylUvtqxI

Now the guitar the majority assumed to be a Jackson was officially proclaimed to be an Altius Guitars, a company I personally have never heard of before. Here is their very new Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Altius-Guitars/1517730358504707

The guitar itself seems very nice to me, but I was just wondering whether anybody here had previous experience!
Would be very nice to hear your thoughts and comments

 

[KristapsCoCoo]

They seem to be new, I couldn't find them myself at all.

 

[dschonn]

You're right, the facebook page says it was only created 7 hours ago... I always find new brands appearing interesting, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops. Just seems odd all in all. Surely must be a builder with a lot of experience or maybe someone close to the artist.

 

[Cloudy]

The facebook page is brand new, doesn't look like they've been around too long.

Maybe one of his friends who decided to start building professionally? I don't imagine hes allowed to start using other brands too freely with his .strandberg* endorsement. Could be wrong though .

 

[Fiction]

Tread lightly fellas, not that it is ultra fishy, but sure the guitar looks nice, lots of people can make nice guitars, but what happens when his first exposure to public is offering a guitar run to 10 people and realizes he can't keep up. Of course it's all speculation, but speculating is all we have when a new company pops up announcing a guitar run, without showing any previous work other than the one guitar in a video..

 

[teamSKDM]

Guitar is fugly as all hell.

 

[Roland777]

s7g all over again...

 

[Andromalia]

An Ibby clone. No thanks.

 

[7 Strings of Hate]

Chris also played Shermans, and then Sherman had some big issues.

All you guys need to realize that because alot of the new young guitarists get a million fancy guitars, it doesnt mean that all those companies are good.

It actually pisses me off how many young hot guitarists, mostly on here, get people hyped for a fly by night flavor of the month builder and then it burns everyone.

 

[TheRileyOBrien]

I wonder if it is Chris's company? Didn't he go to a luthier school at some point?

*After reading the post on his page he referred to "their page" so I guess not.

 

[TheStig1214]

I'm definitely thinking Chris is affiliated with this company on a personal level in some way, like more than just playing their guitars. Maybe he helped start them up? I dunno. Too early to tell. Guitar looks okay, not totally my thing. Looks like a cross between a Carvin DC700 and an Ibby RGD.

The facebook page is brand new, doesn't look like they've been around too long.

Maybe one of his friends who decided to start building professionally? I don't imagine hes allowed to start using other brands too freely with his .strandberg* endorsement. Could be wrong though .

From that I've read Chris talk about with strandberg, Ola is apparently very open with his endorsements. He'll let the artists use whatever they want and not tie them down to just using a strandberg 24/7.

 

[Roland777]

I've never been a fan of the "hard bevel"-look, but that guitar took my dislike to previously unheard of levels. That looks abysmal combined with the color scheme.

 

[narad]

I love the gradation of the burst - very well done - but the page and this whole secret guitar thing is just so stupid. Stayed tuned to a limited run of something you know nothing about, from someone you know nothing about, that there are no reviews of, no specs of, and we've been building hype about for 2 months now! Where can I sign up!

 

[stevexc]

Guys, remember: Don't be the guinea pig. These guys are gonna do a small run of low-priced custom guitars with every option you've ever wanted, and then next thing you know it there's gonna be a 50-page thread that starts off with optimism and excitement and quickly descends from mild complaints to scathing hate.

Remember our mistakes with Etherial, S7G, Roter, Sherman, etc... wait until we know if it's a bandwagon or not before you jump blindly. And if you do volunteer to "try one out and see" remember the risk you're taking.

 

[Randy]

All you guys need to realize that because alot of the new young guitarists get a million fancy guitars, it doesnt mean that all those companies are good.

Shades of grey. Some guys are just pimping 'flavor of the week', some are pimping whatever guitar company will send them a paycheck, etc. Not all guitarists on here overburden themselves with expensive custom guitars for the same reason.

I can't read Chris Letchford's mind or intentions, nor can I endorse the business practices of the companies he does business with, but Chris doesn't seem to get as involved with 'flavor of the week' builders (didn't have a BRJ, didn't have an S7, etc). I still wouldn't just go out and hand somebody money because Chris owns one of their guitars, but I do respect his taste in what he chooses to play more than most.

 

[MoshJosh]

I don't want to be that guy, but to me it kind of looks like it was left in the oven to long and melted a little bit.

not that I dislike the body or headstock shape, they just look. . . off.

that said, I'd probably still rock it haha

 

[IChuckFinleyI]

I've never been a fan of the "hard bevel"-look, but that guitar took my dislike to previously unheard of levels. That looks abysmal combined with the color scheme.

I'm at work and generally don't like to click on anything that's FaceBook related. After reading your post, I had to take a look at it and I agree with you 100%. That thing is just ugly and uninspired. Some of the "new brands" you see on eBay look to be higher quality than that thing is.

I know everyone has to start somewhere, just look at how far RAN has come, but I don't see this brand going very far.

 

[Shredmon]

the guitar on their fb page looks like a ....ed up version of the Ibanez RGD shape imho....

 

[asher]

Nice shade of blue and nice quilt. The RGtrucci body style, not so much... would like to see other angles, it might resolve okay (but I kinda doubt it).

 

[wannabguitarist]

Chris also played Shermans, and then Sherman had some big issues.

All you guys need to realize that because alot of the new young guitarists get a million fancy guitars, it doesnt mean that all those companies are good.

It actually pisses me off how many young hot guitarists, mostly on here, get people hyped for a fly by night flavor of the month builder and then it burns everyone.

To be fair, Sherman was pretty straight back then and had a history of actually building guitars back then. Wasn't exactly a fly-by-night ss.org special

Totally agree with everything else