Do you think there are drawbacks to having your own signature line of gear?

[VBCheeseGrater]

All i could see is if the company's QC is crap, and there are guitars with your name on it all over with tons of issues. It's not like you are stuck playing that guitar in most cases, but ideally you should love it anyway.

Otherwise, sounds like a dream come true - as you mentioned, no need to list the positives.

 

[bhakan]

I think there's less downsides to signature gear than guitars. In the studio you can pretty much use whatever you want, because it isn't visible and it's accepted to use lots of different things for textures. Live on the other hand you would be expected to use your signature gear. While I would want to bring a couple guitars that do different things, there's no way I'd want to lug around more than one amp, so as long as your signature amp is reliable and sounds the way you want it to (which I'd hope it does since it's your signature) there would be no downside.

 

[Steinmetzify]

All i could see is if the company's QC is crap, and there are guitars with your name on it all over with tons of issues. It's not like you are stuck playing that guitar in most cases, but ideally you should love it anyway.

That....I've seen sig guitars from guys I really admire that were/are total crap....some of the lower end Washburn Dimes, and almost all of the Dean Dime sigs were just horrendous as far as QC went....I remember reading an article that talked about him crying/feeling terrible about the quality of stuff that was coming out with his name on it a while back.


I know it's not profitable for companies to only do high end guitars, but I'd insist on it...I'd pretty much only want them to sell the exact same guitars I'd design and play if they were going to be putting my name on it, and I'd have it in my contract that they couldn't produce lower end models...the QC just isn't there. Likewise they couldn't just make a wah pedal and slap my name on it just to get products out there.....giving up your fundamental integrity as a person/artist/guitarist isn't worth free merch, ever.

 

[Robby the Robot]

The biggest drawback for me personally is that I like a lot of different shaped guitars. So unless a guitar company that offers a singlecut shape, Explorer Shape, and a V shape that's not Gibson I'm in big trouble.

My taste in guitars change so a signature instrument for me would give of be redundant.

 

[JeffHenneman]

That....I've seen sig guitars from guys I really admire that were/are total crap....some of the lower end Washburn Dimes, and almost all of the Dean Dime sigs were just horrendous as far as QC went....I remember reading an article that talked about him crying/feeling terrible about the quality of stuff that was coming out with his name on it a while back.


I know it's not profitable for companies to only do high end guitars, but I'd insist on it...I'd pretty much only want them to sell the exact same guitars I'd design and play if they were going to be putting my name on it, and I'd have it in my contract that they couldn't produce lower end models...the QC just isn't there. Likewise they couldn't just make a wah pedal and slap my name on it just to get products out there.....giving up your fundamental integrity as a person/artist/guitarist isn't worth free merch, ever.

I remember hearing about esp wanting to put out a ltd version of the iron cross and Hetfield was not happy with the test samples they showed him.
Another example is Dino and ibanez, he always says other companies offer him sigs but he would rather have full access to ibanez lacs. Now that's straight being legit right there.
So I think qc issues are the major drawback.