Aristides Guitars

[Fred the Shred]

That's why I said it's a great time / hassle saver in the case of the hobbyist that has no big live requirements or anything like that, yet I have to agree with narad when he says that some people are often a bit overenthusiastic and really blow things out of proportion, as if Aristides made the very first stable instrument ever and all others end up with bananas for necks 24/7 - the benefit definitely exists and is quite simple to verify, but it's just untrue that, basic maintenance considered, everything else just decides to go utterly wonky for no apparent reason. They're the most stable, not the only ones stable, if you know what I mean.

 

[Jonathan20022]

Absolutely

I actually think it's funny that the whole roasted maple thing has become the latest fad, when I talked to a luthier about it he felt that roasted necks were actually far less stable than standard rock maple. Especially since people aren't getting plain roast necks, they're getting these insane birdseye and flamed necks that can and will shift pretty often. Exotic and figured does not lend itself to that unfortunately

 

[diagrammatiks]

Eh the r series is now almost cheaper then what people usually get from mayones or skervesen or paldalka. So if you want one. Just get one. If not. Then don’t. Yay.

 

[I play music]

Ah, the nXt! Those were super cool things, but Catalyst appeared to have some "eh..." craftsmanship in the end of the day, so you'd get the material but not the Aristides quality tied to it. A shame though - I always found the nXt to be super cool looking.

So how is Catalyst related to Aristides?
It's exactly the same material? Or some previous revision buy the same people?

 

[Fred the Shred]

Catalyst was the first real implementation of what would become Arium (Enserink Design lent its name to the guitars for the first couple years IIRC), and the whole process has been evolving ever since - they called it "Sound Compound" back in its inception, and I believe that's what Catalyst called it as well. The whole thing has been evolving for a good while, and the Aristides crew are bound to keep pushing that aspect of the technology, as they have before.

 

[I play music]

Catalyst was the first real implementation of what would become Arium (Enserink Design lent its name to the guitars for the first couple years IIRC), and the whole process has been evolving ever since - they called it "Sound Compound" back in its inception, and I believe that's what Catalyst called it as well. The whole thing has been evolving for a good while, and the Aristides crew are bound to keep pushing that aspect of the technology, as they have before.

So you mean what they call Arium has not always been the exact same thing but has been and is still evolving?

 

[narad]

I mean, negating neck warping from ever happening, fret sprout/lifting, shrinking fretboards, almost any shift in relief, and an ever changing setup is stability literally anyone can appreciate not just touring musicians.

But to this point, just control your environment. That's going to be a smart solution to most people and it actually benefits yourself. Low RF is terrible for your skin, nose, throat. That's not going to be everyone's situation, but I'm amazed at how people gloss over the smart solutions for "let me replace all my guitars with 4 070s in different colors", when their guitar room is like a small, self-contained box.

There's plenty of benefits to the marketed stability any composite instrument offers. Like I said before, if I don't have to wrestle with my truss rod and setup to get my guitar feeling how it did everytime I sat down I'll happily avoid it. I'm more observant about action and setup than others I know, so if my action changes from 1mm -> 1.4mm it's pretty glaring to me.

You are in the 99.99% on guitar pickiness. Way above the typical Aristides owner or guitar player for that matter. But even then, having to "wrestle with the truss rod" "everytime" is just indicative of a larger problem. Like do pros who have the most reason to be the most discerning also ~wrestling all the time with their guitar trussrods?

Wood guitars are stable, some less than others. But these clearly have the edge. I've adjusted my RG550's truss rod probably 3 - 4 times in the last year. I've only tweaked my 070 the day I got it 2 years ago now to set it to my preference, can't beat that.

My second Daemoness was super stable, and so was my Ibanez. Both had titanium/carbon rod supports in the neck. I don't see why people compare their Aristides to $800 guitars and say, "Wow! It's super stable! Arium FTW!" when you can just get guitars built out of wood with composite or metal supports in the neck that essentially need no significant tweaking either. Most of the people raving are not comparing apples to apples, or as much as one can in this scenario. Being sort of in the same price bracket is a decent start, since you need proper treatment and materials to have a chance at a stable wood neck without support, and you need to be in a premium price bracket to get additional reinforcement otherwise.

I mean, it's nice that I could right now order an Aristides and I know it's going to be basically best-in-class resistance to humidity. No risk. But I also just prefer to be generally smart about the guitars I order: I keep my humidity in bounds for the traditional LP/strat stuff that doesn't have reinforcement, and I typically get reinforcement when I spec out more progressive custom instruments.

 

[xzacx]

I live in a climate that can fluctuate 30+ degrees in 24 hours (has happened multiple times this year) and haven’t had to touch a truss rod all winter on guitars with just plain old quartersawn maple necks.

 

[Jonathan20022]

But to this point, just control your environment. That's going to be a smart solution to most people and it actually benefits yourself. Low RF is terrible for your skin, nose, throat. That's not going to be everyone's situation, but I'm amazed at how people gloss over the smart solutions for "let me replace all my guitars with 4 070s in different colors", when their guitar room is like a small, self-contained box.

You are in the 99.99% on guitar pickiness. Way above the typical Aristides owner or guitar player for that matter. But even then, having to "wrestle with the truss rod" "everytime" is just indicative of a larger problem. Like do pros who have the most reason to be the most discerning also ~wrestling all the time with their guitar trussrods?

My second Daemoness was super stable, and so was my Ibanez. Both had titanium/carbon rod supports in the neck. I don't see why people compare their Aristides to $800 guitars and say, "Wow! It's super stable! Arium FTW!" when you can just get guitars built out of wood with composite or metal supports in the neck that essentially need no significant tweaking either. Most of the people raving are not comparing apples to apples, or as much as one can in this scenario. Being sort of in the same price bracket is a decent start, since you need proper treatment and materials to have a chance at a stable wood neck without support, and you need to be in a premium price bracket to get additional reinforcement otherwise.

I mean, it's nice that I could right now order an Aristides and I know it's going to be basically best-in-class resistance to humidity. No risk. But I also just prefer to be generally smart about the guitars I order: I keep my humidity in bounds for the traditional LP/strat stuff that doesn't have reinforcement, and I typically get reinforcement when I spec out more progressive custom instruments.

I'll just go one by one, the whole "just control your enviornment" thing isn't exactly accurate. If there was a be all end all solution to humidifying and dehumidifying rooms that have musical instruments then I'm pretty sure most of us would be doing that by now. I have a humidifier here for the winter, not really much reason to use it atm since most of my guitars are unaffected. My bud in LA bought all this insane humidity controlling hardware for his studio room and where he stores his instruments and even after programming it all the rooms are still constantly in flux and guitars go out of whack when he's out working. Who wants to wrestle with separate pieces of equipment just to keep their rooms in check when climates shift? I certainly don't, that's a whole load of extra steps just to keep my wood guitars in check. So while having 4 070's isn't going to net you the most versatile setup in the world, it still certainly is a viable solution to the problem.

My pickiness in general is all justifiable, I notice that 0.3mm shift in my action when my necks end up with more relief by the end of the week/month because it changes the tension and feel of my strings and they react differently. The only reason others aren't perceptive to this is because it's not even a concern in their minds until your action doubles, but I'm pretty sure if I increased your action by 0.3mm right after you played it with the lower setup, you'd immediately know the difference. It may be my hyper sensitivity to the problem, but it could equally as well be others simply not noticing it and letting it bother them, one of those "once you see it" moments. As far as pros, I'm pretty sure professional touring musicians with a decently large following bring along a guy who makes sure all of these things are in check for them before they hit the stage.

The sensationalism is definitely there, but I don't see to the degree you say it happens. I'm in the that same group and usually newcomers are in the honeymoon phase and are floored by their guitars especially the guys who saved up and made the jump from a beginner/intermediate guitar to an Aristides. It may seem cringey, but just mentally discredit their opinion due to a literal lack of experience in the middle ground and gush over their guitars. It'd be like me scoffing at people for getting a liquid cooling setup in their PC because they don't know what a high end fan cooling solution can do for them temperature wise without going through all the hassle of a radiator/pump/liquid setup.

If I order a guitar with a reinforced neck and a richlite fretboard I'm pretty much 90% the way there for my needs. The richlite keeps my board from shrinking and the frets from popping out, and the reinforced neck keeps truss rod adjustments to a minimum but not every single guitar on the market has those. And I get your notion about being smart with your instruments, but your Parker got clouded up out of nowhere and the truth is wood reacts in unpredictable ways all the time. If we had general humidity and temperature ranges that always worked for people and scaled based on origin no one would ever have issues and seek stability elsewhere.

At the end of the day, these guitars are awesome to me and fit me well. The "stability" is a talking and selling point of the guitars, and I also doubt a very large percentage of players are strictly buying these things JUST for the stability. Composite guitars have been around for ages, if people just wanted stability the options have existed in whatever capacity they appear in.

 

[Avedas]

I'd love to see more Richlite color options. I absolutely can't stand that blonde

 

[narad]

And I get your notion about being smart with your instruments, but your Parker got clouded up out of nowhere and the truth is wood reacts in unpredictable ways all the time.

That's not wood reacting, that's finish reacting. So unless you're out to disparage the Washburn shop's finish guy, I don't think that example's going to lead anywhere.

 

[Jason B]

No one’s going to point out that Jonathan doesn’t seem to keep a guitar long-enough to worry about making periodic truss adjustments in the first place? The only reason this discussion is even happening in the Aristides thread is because he’ll be selling one to fund a custom with somebody else.

 

[prlgmnr]

So you mean what they call Arium has not always been the exact same thing but has been and is still evolving?

It achieved self-awareness at 5:47am; the first strike of highly stable, resonant instruments wiped out all luthiers on the west coast of the USA, knowing that immediate retaliation would also take care of any builders in the east of Europe and the former Soviet Union.

 

[narad]

It achieved self-awareness at 5:47am; the first strike of highly stable, resonant instruments wiped out all luthiers on the west coast of the USA, knowing that immediate retaliation would also take care of any builders in the east of Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Advanced prototype. Made of mimetic poly-alloy.

 

[Fred the Shred]

The formula is, like any other, able to be tweaked, just like the curing process itself, and that is actually true to most composites today - Arium just happens to be used to build musical instruments, that's all.

Other than the jokes about Jonathan's gear antics, I did have situations where neck relief was just going bonkers on a couple guitars, and that's not as uncommon when gigging, and it can get even more drastic when fly-ins are involved. Sometimes you can get 30+ degree changes and outrageous changes in humidity from that alone in the course of a single gig. Typically, when you or your tech finally get that thing sorted, stage lights and /or pyro deliver the killing blow to any hopes you might have had of control. Granted it's situational, but I did have that a bunch of times. There's a reason many builders made it a standard to use carbon fibre / titanium inserts, often alongside filets of something stupid hard like purpleheart or bubinga, and many of the big guys took a bit to catch up. I mean, one of my old JEMs was nicknamed the banana and it wasn't yellow...

 

[Flappydoodle]

Just to chip in, after owning this 060R for a few weeks.

Great guitar. I'm going to keep it because it fills a role in my guitar arsenal. But it's nothing revolutionary that a similarly high-end ESP, Jackson etc couldn't fill. The synthetic material and lack of wood is a cool thing, but probably not a super selling point for me by itself.

It's a very nicely made guitar, with good specs, and a reasonable price (R series anyway). Fret ends are great, the setup and playability are great, and attention to detail is all very good. It sounds good, but that's because it's well set up and has expensive, good-sounding pickups.

My other high quality guitars stay in tune just fine. My Caparison has titanium rods in the neck. I went away for a month and it stayed in my house with fluctuating temp/humidity etc and everything was 2-3 percent off. Not a big deal. Too early to say whether the Aristides is better, but I don't have too many issues with tuning stability anyway.

 

[prlgmnr]

I mean, one of my old JEMs was nicknamed the banana and it wasn't yellow...

That's what my wife calls one of her former boyfriends, I've never thought to ask why.

 

[Fred the Shred]

Just to chip in, after owning this 060R for a few weeks.

Great guitar. I'm going to keep it because it fills a role in my guitar arsenal. But it's nothing revolutionary that a similarly high-end ESP, Jackson etc couldn't fill. The synthetic material and lack of wood is a cool thing, but probably not a super selling point for me by itself.

It's a very nicely made guitar, with good specs, and a reasonable price (R series anyway). Fret ends are great, the setup and playability are great, and attention to detail is all very good. It sounds good, but that's because it's well set up and has expensive, good-sounding pickups.

My other high quality guitars stay in tune just fine. My Caparison has titanium rods in the neck. I went away for a month and it stayed in my house with fluctuating temp/humidity etc and everything was 2-3 percent off. Not a big deal. Too early to say whether the Aristides is better, but I don't have too many issues with tuning stability anyway.

I find the sound itself is a major selling point alongside the rest you described (evidently, if you choose to shove crap pickups in it or have an atrocious set up, no composite can save you), but that is one of those personal things.

Capas are quite solid as well - never had any issues with mine, and when adjustment is necessary, they are super simple, one-shot affairs. The reinforced necks play a big part in that, I'm sure..

 

[Jonathan20022]

That's not wood reacting, that's finish reacting. So unless you're out to disparage the Washburn shop's finish guy, I don't think that example's going to lead anywhere.

Not trying to disparage anyone but like we went over, it could be improperly cured nitro/poly whatever their paint guy used to clear over the wood. Or it could be the Koa wasn't dried properly and caused it to shift, I don't know enough about that stuff to make an absolute statement, but we definitely talked about the wood potentially being the cause when you showed me it.

I find the sound itself is a major selling point alongside the rest you described (evidently, if you choose to shove crap pickups in it or have an atrocious set up, no composite can save you), but that is one of those personal things.

Capas are quite solid as well - never had any issues with mine, and when adjustment is necessary, they are super simple, one-shot affairs. The reinforced necks play a big part in that, I'm sure..

Capas are really amazing too, wish I could have gelled with my Horus more. I really didn't dig the shorter scale after trying a few different strings and setups, should have grabbed the TAT instead. Me and my buddy grabbed Capas from Destroy All Guitars and his Brocken was also insanely stable too from what he was telling me.

 

[narad]

Not trying to disparage anyone but like we went over, it could be improperly cured nitro/poly whatever their paint guy used to clear over the wood. Or it could be the Koa wasn't dried properly and caused it to shift, I don't know enough about that stuff to make an absolute statement, but we definitely talked about the wood potentially being the cause when you showed me it.

We might have talked about it in the sense I would have said, "Unlikely". We're talking about a body with a carbon fiber backplate over the entire thing, sealed in poly.

It's also unlikely it's improperly cured nitro/poly (poly), as the guitar was literally 8 years old when I got it.

My own hypothesis, and one that's been echoed by the luthiers and finish guys I've chatted with in attempts to get it repaired, is that a screw or route in the back that goes up through the body and clear coat has allowed moisture to seep through the more raw areas on the back, condensing under the clear like fog on a window. Not a "wood guitar" problem.