Blackmachine new headless models

[Sogradde]

I'm really not sure what people were expecting. I saw the thread title and already knew what I would be looking at. I saw the picture and thought to myself, "Yeap, that's a headless black machine". If people are looking at black machine like it is (or was) some kind of innovative design breakthrough guitar of the future, they are going to be disappointed. Black machine always was a minimalist guitar. Minimal build process. Minimal options. Minimal effort in design. It's basically a headless B2. Unless you want to count the slightly varied outline of a few curves of the body lines where he probably just free-handed it instead of using a template.

Tbh, my idea of a "minimalist headless design" is this, not a regular guitar someone dropped into a bandsaw:

 

[xzacx]

On my BM tribute guitars, I also went for the non-recessed style and what can I say, it's fine.
There is absolutely no disadvantage in comfort having covers like this. You don't realize it.
If you build guitars yourself you know the hassle of fitting these covers into the recess properly (granted, there are more complicated shape to fit). One problem less, no fumbling.

I think the issue is (at least to me) that there's just so little refinement for the prices these will sell for—it's all hype. In theory, "the hassle of fitting those covers" should be part of what people are paying for on guitars that are supposed to be at the level a Blackmachine is held at.

That's something that's always been my issue with Blackmachines. When you look at guitars that sell in the same price range, like a Yaron or Gustavsson, there is substantially more labor involved. From having owned and played multiple examples of both, there's a lot to appreciate in terms of craftsmanship that just doesn't exist on a Blackmachine, even if a Blackmachine is built as perfectly as it can be built. Even Strandbergs, which have relatively simple construction/finishing, have proprietary hardware and design concepts.

Great for Doug if he can sell them for those prices. If people love the design and are willing to pay for it, cool for them too—I'm not criticizing. I'm just saying that not all $10k guitars are $10k for the same reasons. For me personally, if I'm paying that much, it's because of the elegant/cool/interesting way these designs are pulled off, not because they did it the easy way and "it's fine" like that.

 

[crackout]

I think the issue is (at least to me) that there's just so little refinement for the prices these will sell for—it's all hype. In theory, "the hassle of fitting those covers" should be part of what people are paying for on guitars that are supposed to be at the level a Blackmachine is held at.

That's something that's always been my issue with Blackmachines. When you look at guitars that sell in the same price range, like a Yaron or Gustavsson, there is substantially more labor involved. From having owned and played multiple examples of both, there's a lot to appreciate in terms of craftsmanship that just doesn't exist on a Blackmachine, even if a Blackmachine is built as perfectly as it can be built. Even Strandbergs, which have relatively simple construction/finishing, have proprietary hardware and design concepts.

You are absolutely right from this point of view. I was arguing from the bare technical side.

 

[Opion]

People on this forum sure are spoiled nowadays.

“A headless for the sake of being headless”

“It looks homemade”

“They didn’t even try to be ergonomic or cutting edge”


My 2 cents is purely this: Doug inspired a wave of guitar builders to copy his designs back when his guitars were being touted as Holy Grails on this forum nearly 10 years ago...and a LOT has changed since then. Everyone in this thread that is complaining has every right to do so. However, that doesn’t mean that Doug absolutely HAS to compete with these new trends. In my opinion, that is what makes his guitars special and always has been his agenda. He’s almost never advertised for his company and yet he still has no problems selling these guitars. Personally, I can’t imagine Doug ever wanting to compete with the trends of the metal guitar scene of today- this is the closest he’s gotten in recent years to it.

Maybe I’m beating a dead horse, because I don’t really play metal too much any more and don’t care for a lot of these kinds of guitars, but y’all should be grateful we have as many options as we do now.

I’ve never tried one or have any desire to try one. But it sure has been interesting watching the trends on this forum come and go, and now that everyone has seen it all, these guitars are somehow “homemade looking”? That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Can’t wait to see these people’s homemade CopyMachine builds going for $999 on Reverb.

 

[spudmunkey]

The "homemade" looking doesn't come from it following trends or not. It's things that look...unfinished.

• The trem block with no dive travel (and how it's a square-cornered block in a tight-fitting route with radiused corners)
• To some (including myself), the surface-mounted control cover plate that looks like an after-thought.
• The three different mis-matched pickup covers/bobbins/pole pieces
• To some, the cutout looks like it was done with as much thought as the Google Pixel 3 notch.
• How the top wood looks thicker than the binding, making it look like someone tucked their shirt into a belt, but outside of their pants.
• The binding that looks like it has rasp marks on it
• The three different finishes of hardware (the trem is gold and black, which is fine, but then the trem arm doesn't look like it matches the gold)
• The switch top looks something like rose gold plastic. It may not be but that's what it looks like.
• On it's own it would be fine, but along with everything else, the specific wood used for the body looks like douglas fir plywood (I know it isn't, but it just goes along with the theme).

 

[KnightBrolaire]

The "homemade" looking doesn't come from it following trends or not. It's things that look...unfinished.

• The trem block with no dive travel (and how it's a square-cornered block in a tight-fitting route with radiused corners)
• To some (including myself), the surface-mounted control cover plate that looks like an after-thought.
• The three different mis-matched pickup covers/bobbins/pole pieces
• To some, the cutout looks like it was done with as much thought as the Google Pixel 3 notch.
• How the top wood looks thicker than the binding, making it look like someone tucked their shirt into a belt, but outside of their pants.
• The binding that looks like it has rasp marks on it
• The three different finishes of hardware (the trem is gold and black, which is fine, but then the trem arm doesn't look like it matches the gold)
• The switch top looks something like rose gold plastic. It may not be but that's what it looks like.
• On it's own it would be fine, but along with everything else, the specific wood used for the body looks like douglas fir plywood (I know it isn't, but it just goes along with the theme).

few things:
1. the cavity cover not being recessed is his schtick (though i also dislike it)
2. the binding is naturally textured like that, see crackout's latest build or go look at binding types. it's usually called grained or textured ivoroid binding
otherwise i agree with you.

 

[cip 123]

On my BM tribute guitars, I also went for the non-recessed style and what can I say, it's fine.
There is absolutely no disadvantage in comfort having covers like this. You don't realize it.
If you build guitars yourself you know the hassle of fitting these covers into the recess properly (granted, there are more complicated shape to fit). One problem less, no fumbling.

"Fine" is what I expect of sub £500 guitars not £5000+ guitars. Plenty of builders do recessed plates, in fact plenty of builders in this bracket do grain matched plates. No matter the technical ability of the builder going "Meh I really don't want to do all this work" Isn't the attitude I want from a guy I'm giving thousands of pounds.

People on this forum sure are spoiled nowadays.

Maybe because it's fairly easy, on a guitar forum, to find custom built guitars that are designed and executed well?

I’ve never tried one or have any desire to try one. But it sure has been interesting watching the trends on this forum come and go, and now that everyone has seen it all, these guitars are somehow “homemade looking”? That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Can’t wait to see these people’s homemade CopyMachine builds going for $999 on Reverb.

I've seen builds on here that I'd happily pay for unlike most blackmachines I've seen. They may well sound and play amazingly, but it's not hard to take Dougs design and just do a better version of it. You could sit down for 10 minutes and make any number of better design changes to his originals.

OH a top that's not thicker than the binding?

Flush covers?

Homemade btw, - http://www.sevenstring.org/threads/just-completed-blackmachine-b7-clone-build.327078/

 

[narad]

I've seen builds on here that I'd happily pay for unlike most blackmachines I've seen. They may well sound and play amazingly, but it's not hard to take Dougs design and just do a better version of it. You could sit down for 10 minutes and make any number of better design changes to his originals.

OH a top that's not thicker than the binding?

Flush covers?

Homemade btw, - http://www.sevenstring.org/threads/just-completed-blackmachine-b7-clone-build.327078/

Damn, both of this guy's builds are super nice. It's like all I want, and nothing I don't. No blue anodized mismatched hardware or translucent tele control cover.

 

[cip 123]

Damn, both of this guy's builds are super nice. It's like all I want, and nothing I don't. No blue anodized mismatched hardware or translucent tele control cover.

And isn't that like the dudes 3rd build?

 

[narad]

And isn't that like the dudes 3rd build?

First I remember seeing it, but people forget that it's not like Doug had a long history of building quality instruments to begin with.

 

[bracky]

People on this forum sure are spoiled nowadays.

“A headless for the sake of being headless”

“It looks homemade”

“They didn’t even try to be ergonomic or cutting edge”


My 2 cents is purely this: Doug inspired a wave of guitar builders to copy his designs back when his guitars were being touted as Holy Grails on this forum nearly 10 years ago...and a LOT has changed since then. Everyone in this thread that is complaining has every right to do so. However, that doesn’t mean that Doug absolutely HAS to compete with these new trends. In my opinion, that is what makes his guitars special and always has been his agenda. He’s almost never advertised for his company and yet he still has no problems selling these guitars. Personally, I can’t imagine Doug ever wanting to compete with the trends of the metal guitar scene of today- this is the closest he’s gotten in recent years to it.

Maybe I’m beating a dead horse, because I don’t really play metal too much any more and don’t care for a lot of these kinds of guitars, but y’all should be grateful we have as many options as we do now.

I’ve never tried one or have any desire to try one. But it sure has been interesting watching the trends on this forum come and go, and now that everyone has seen it all, these guitars are somehow “homemade looking”? That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Can’t wait to see these people’s homemade CopyMachine builds going for $999 on Reverb.

Metal is a way of life. Not a trend. \m/

 

[Ordacleaphobia]

I’ve never tried one or have any desire to try one. But it sure has been interesting watching the trends on this forum come and go, and now that everyone has seen it all, these guitars are somehow “homemade looking”? That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Can’t wait to see these people’s homemade CopyMachine builds going for $999 on Reverb.

Honestly, given some of the stuff I've seen you crazy bastards do, I'd take "homemade looking" to be something of a compliment in most cases. We've had TONS off SSOers build Blackmachine replicas (including some that posted in this thread) that came out so damn good I'd buy them over the real deal, and I am pretty confident that I'm one of the biggest Blackmachine fanbois on this board. Not to mention the other builds; Pondman I guarantee can get thousands for the crazy stuff he puts together.
--

I do think everyone is being overly harsh on this though; and I do get the vibe that a lot of people came into this thread already predisposed to disliking whatever it was- bagging on Blackmachines has been "in" for a couple years now. That said, personally, I'm not a fan, but I despise headless guitars anyway, so what does my opinion matter?

I'm not going to label it low-effort though. Doug's pretty proud of this thing; said he spent most of last year working on prototyping and getting it the way he wanted, he sounded really excited about it when I spoke with him. Sure, it looks like a cross between a voyager and a B2, and that isn't my cup of tea (and likely yours either), but I'm not going to be so bold as to make the claim that he phoned it in. Doug does what he wants; if it looks like this it's because he wanted it to. He doesn't really have a reason to try and ride hype...if he wanted an influx of attention, all he had to do was open a new B2 run.

 

[StevenC]

Flush covers?

Fair enough if you don't like the non-flush cover, but I find this picture far more offensive. Those screws are sitting way above everything else. If you're going to bother recessing some things, why aren't you recessing everything?

Like with the non-recessed cover, Doug specified a certain body thickness and couldn't recess the cover because he didn't have a switch that would fit or whatever. Then he decides to do the metal back plate to cover the jack and put the logo, but there's no point in recessing the screws to sit flush, so he chooses an allen screw. Or whatever order those things happened in. These things then become part of the brand, so he doesn't change them when a lower profile switch becomes available, and even then what's the point because the string ferrules are sitting up, too.

But then this build kinda misses the idea. None of those things functionally matter, but there's a consistency in not recessing anything.

Also, blackmachines with thin ebony tops also have tops which are thinner than the binding, but the thicker tops are thicker than the binding.

 

[bracky]

It is odd the guy countersunk the cover but not the screws.

 

[Demiurge]

It's to give your belt buckle guitar-rash.

 

[narad]

These things then become part of the brand, so he doesn't change them when a lower profile switch becomes available, and even then what's the point because the string ferrules are sitting up, too.

I thought Kiesel had the stranglehold on branding the idea of doing things the wrong way?

 

[Miek]

raising my hands like Goku so everyone can give me their energy to get a b2

 

[Yul Brynner]

It is odd the guy countersunk the cover but not the screws.

With those screws you would need the plate to be thicker than the depth of the screw heads otherwise you just drill a hole through the plate and the screw head no longer holds it in place. Basically the wrong type of screws were used. They do make Allen head screws with angled heads like other screws though.

 

[narad]

It is odd the guy countersunk the cover but not the screws.

Not sure you can countersink a giant metal rectangle.

 

[bracky]

I guess I inferred in my statement that he would be using countersunk screws. It’s pure laziness when there is an exposed screw head on the back plate.