Invictus Guitars Revealed to be Idiots

[Zado]

ugh i forgot to put this in the article. the guitar case even had cum stains on it.

those liking this message are indeed twisted pervs.


Dunno if someone already said,but someone should write a topic about luthiers that should be avoided...the number is growing.

DeVries...Moog...invictus,,,halo...and probably many others i don't remember or i'm not aware of

 

[AwDeOh]

those liking this message are indeed twisted pervs.


Dunno if someone already said,but someone should write a topic about luthiers that should be avoided...the number is growing.

DeVries...Moog...invictus...and probably many others i don't remember or i'm not aware of

The gaming forum I'm a part of has a really good thread for reviewing online retailers and rating them 0-5 stars on various things: the same thing for custom builders would be good: Experiences with Online Retailers - GP Forums PC Building, Modding & Overclocking

Also, I'm not the only budding builder here that's interested in getting into it for a living - what about a link/guide thread on how to go from building your own guitars to building for others, the right way? Perhaps someone would be interested in writing a decent guide? Seems like there's some serious talent here that should (IMO) be building for others.

So much experience in this forum dealing with custom companies, both good and bad - both of the above might help cut down on the bullshit that people are going through at the moment.

 

[-Nolly-]

I think someone should do an assessment on which particular customers were unhappy. It seemed to be a trend of the guitars he did for "free" (i.e., as payment for endorsements, web site work, etc) are the ones that turned out the worst. That would seem to agree with the line of argument that the builder bit off more than he could chew. But in terms of the original article, I see the writer was attempting objectivity, but he basically devotes 75% of the article to one bad experience, then presents several good experiences, and dismisses them. I don't think it could really be called unbiased. I'd like to see a thorough examination from someone who liked their end product, regardless of the wait in getting it, and from someone who had a good overall experience, something more substantial than a few words. An objective assessment of the guitars owned by happy customers with pics (maybe they got a really good guitar, maybe they just are ashamed to have spent so much and gotten crap, we don't know). I could have done without the conjecture as to dude's motivation that filled the end. It could well be that he has been honest, not trying to deflect blame, merely trying to explain and apologize.

The judgement wasn't needed, because the fact is that he let a guitar in that bad of shape leave his shop with his brand on it and essentially made a mockery of his brand. My problems with the article aside, there's no getting around that he gave a group of people who actively wanted to support him an inferior product. If the issues were taste issues, such as tone, feel, shape of the neck, angle of the bridge, that's one thing, but this was an objectively shitty guitar. The scale length was off, for shit's sake, rendering it unplayable as delivered. Unless the rest of his instruments are the guitar equivalent of the strad and this is a mere curiosity, he shot himself in the foot.

Every single, and I mean EVERY SINGLE guitar pictured on the now-defunct Invictus Facebook page featured terrible objective flaws. When asked by Gareth several months ago, Misha and I pointed many of them out to him, and I suspect the fear of those being picked apart publicly is one reason why he has deleted or hidden the Facebook page. The guitar in the article is far from the worst of his I've seen.
What baffles me is that there was no improvement from one to the next. Those guitars would just about be acceptable for an unsupervised beginner's first build, and I would expect a beginner to learn from the mistakes and do a much better job second time around, let alone after setting up a guitar company and building numerous guitars for professional musicians. It's not as though it costs more to build a guitar correctly, these guitars just show a fatal lack of attention to detail - either their creator is deluded about their quality of work or simply doesn't care.

 

[BlackMastodon]

Maybe this is why he used instagram filters to show progress shots...

 

[Malkav]

EDIT: I keep reading it. They got their mediocre guitars, and they confirm they are the worst guitars they played with. Now, are those Agiles still mediocre? hah

Yes, yes they are.

And I'm not bashing Agile, I actually convinced three of my friends to buy them and they are really good for the money (ERG options are limited in Cape Town), but they're budget instruments made to deliver value in their price range, much like Cort or Squier etc, and they do succeed, but they're still mediocre.

 

[CharliePark]

Fuck, why don't people learn how to build a decent guitar and THEN start up a business?!

 

[-Berserker_]

Every single, and I mean EVERY SINGLE guitar pictured on the now-defunct Invictus Facebook page featured terrible objective flaws. When asked by Gareth several months ago, Misha and I pointed many of them out to him, and I suspect the fear of those being picked apart publicly is one reason why he has deleted or hidden the Facebook page. The guitar in the article is far from the worst of his I've seen.
What baffles me is that there was no improvement from one to the next. Those guitars would just about be acceptable for an unsupervised beginner's first build, and I would expect a beginner to learn from the mistakes and do a much better job second time around, let alone after setting up a guitar company and building numerous guitars for professional musicians. It's not as though it costs more to build a guitar correctly, these guitars just show a fatal lack of attention to detail - either their creator is deluded about their quality of work or simply doesn't care.

Yes yes we all get it now, Invictus = Poo, to be honest there isn't really much else to add which hasn't been said already, it's all getting very boring and shitty, the internet trolls managed to destroy the facebook page by hurling hatred on it, their YOUTUBE account is heading in the same direction , Gareth is apparently receiving death threats from all i can assume are angry customers, it doesn't look like there will ever be another Invictus guitar built and the rest of the issues will be cleaned up by solicitors and lawyers if it goes that far, so all in all i would say that this expose' was a definite success, no one will be getting ripped off in the future so.. time to move on right? time to make new records yes? I'm waiting for the next Red Seas Fire and Periphery albums so the way i see it the time you and Monsieur Mansoor are spending on here could be time spent writing all new materials for our aural pleasure (haha see what i did there? all new materials? haha).

 

[MJS]

it's all getting very boring and shitty, the internet trolls managed to destroy the facebook page by hurling hatred on it, their YOUTUBE account is heading in the same direction

Nope. They did it to themselves.

i would say that this expose' was a definite success, no one will be getting ripped off in the future so.. time to move on right?

Yeah... that's not quite how things work in real life.

They can shut down social sites where others can post the truth, run everything from their own censored sites and continue to make sales by giving (or just promising) freebies to those that promote them. If they still have people like the Hacktivist guy pimping their junk, that alone would get them sales.

Then there's also the fact that it's extremely quick & easy to just keep starting over with a new name. He could even keep it going right here on this forum, considering how many people will just throw money at any new name that comes along when they see a price quote that's a fraction of one from Vik/KxK/BRJ/Daemoness/etc...

In any case, it's definitely better when people keep the pressure on losers like this, instead of backing off and making it easier for them to keep ripping people off. The vicious ones that don't back off are usually the ones we can thank for alerts about sneaky things like name changes.

 

[russmuller]

time to move on right? time to make new records yes? I'm waiting for the next Red Seas Fire and Periphery albums so the way i see it the time you and Monsieur Mansoor are spending on here could be time spent writing all new materials for our aural pleasure (haha see what i did there? all new materials? haha).

Really? They put out an album 6 months ago; how fast do you want the next one? lol They each contributed 1 post each to this thread. Seeing as how they're mentioned in the article, I think writing something in here is warranted. I doubt they are spending any energy on this topic beyond that.

 

[russmuller]

Fuck, why don't people learn how to build a decent guitar and THEN start up a business?!

That's MY plan! I'm in business school so I can try to get a grasp of how to avoid fucking up this bad when I start my guitar shop.

 

[-Berserker_]

Nope. They did it to themselves.



Yeah... that's not quite how things work in real life.

They can shut down social sites where others can post the truth, run everything from their own censored sites and continue to make sales by giving (or just promising) freebies to those that promote them. If they still have people like the Hacktivist guy pimping their junk, that alone would get them sales.

Then there's also the fact that it's extremely quick & easy to just keep starting over with a new name. He could even keep it going right here on this forum, considering how many people will just throw money at any new name that comes along when they see a price quote that's a fraction of one from Vik/KxK/BRJ/Daemoness/etc...

In any case, it's definitely better when people keep the pressure on losers like this, instead of backing off and making it easier for them to keep ripping people off. The vicious ones that don't back off are usually the ones we can thank for alerts about sneaky things like name changes.

Thats a good point, but we all know his name now and we know what he looks like, if he packed up Invictus and just started under a different name... that would be quite simply retarded given how popular he's been getting over the last few months alone. If it happens again then it's very clear that it is a scheme to rip people off, but I'm also sure it would get shut down very quickly, I'm pretty new here but i cottoned on very quickly that it was a bad idea to get a build from them. I can't remember who it was earlier in the thread but they mentioned something about having a section dedicated to reporting good and bad experiences with companies and some sort of rating system, i think that could be a good idea? If it is done to help the users make the right choice and protect them from scams then it can only be good.

 

[Larrikin666]

I can't remember who it was earlier in the thread but they mentioned something about having a section dedicated to reporting good and bad experiences with companies and some sort of rating system, i think that could be a good idea? If it is done to help the users make the right choice and protect them from scams then it can only be good.

If only there was a "bureau" that helped track if a "business" was "better" or worse. Hmmmm......LOL

 

[-Berserker_]

Really? They put out an album 6 months ago; how fast do you want the next one? lol They each contributed 1 post each to this thread. Seeing as how they're mentioned in the article, I think writing something in here is warranted. I doubt they are spending any energy on this topic beyond that.

I want it ASAP really lol as I'm sure many other fans do too.

The last part of my comment was a light hearted joke bro don't even trip, I just want to hear some more of their music. I thought that would of been obvious given i made a little play on words using one of Bulbs song names.

We cool bro? yeaaahaha course we are, keep it tight and outta sight!

 

[-Berserker_]

If only there was a "bureau" that helped track if a "business" was "better" or worse. Hmmmm......LOL

Please explain what you mean, I'm Italian, we are not very good with foreign sarcasm. ababbeti buppi!

 

[Whammy]

I'm waiting for the next Red Seas Fire and Periphery albums so the way i see it the time you and Monsieur Mansoor are spending on here could be time spent writing all new materials for our aural pleasure (haha see what i did there? all new materials? haha).

Nolly's not in Red Seas Fire anymore

 

[-Berserker_]

Nolly's not in Red Seas Fire anymore

Oh really? thats a shame how come they parted ways?

 

[Berserker]

Please explain what you mean, I'm Italian, we are not very good with foreign sarcasm. ababbeti buppi!

Bloody foreigners come over to this country, steal our jobs, steal our names and don't even try to understand foreign humour

 

[-Berserker_]

Bloody foreigners come over to this country, steal our jobs, steal our names and don't even try to understand foreign humour

aaahahaha that's made my day! hello mate how are you doing? how's your build coming along? we need to go to a local gig at some point i think Sentience have one in March if you're interested?

Yeah sorry about that, but the UK's benefit system is just too good to resist!! (i don't and never have claimed benefits just for the record, i work full time and pay my taxes like a good boy).

Gareth Dickie can tell you that too in case any of you haven't read the comments on the Monolith article. Apparently the company wasn't VAT registered and he was claiming unemployment benefits from the UK government. Not sure how true that is mind you.. it is the interwebz..

 

[leechmasterargentina]

Yes, yes they are.

And I'm not bashing Agile, I actually convinced three of my friends to buy them and they are really good for the money (ERG options are limited in Cape Town), but they're budget instruments made to deliver value in their price range, much like Cort or Squier etc, and they do succeed, but they're still mediocre.

I know they are mass produced budget instruments, but according to what I've seen on the pictures of that article as well as from the issues a luthier had to fix in one of the axes, even a cheap Hyundai guitar would do better than one of those Invictus. That's why I focus on the lightly used "mediocre" term.

Some months ago I bought an Ibanez Premium RG827QMZ, which is supposed to be far better than my Ibanez RG470BK (Korean), but in no way that would lead me to think that RG470 is by any means mediocre given the 14 years of faithful service without any problems.

I know the feeling of improving your status in the music business by getting more known or making money (which leads to getting better gear), but I don't disrespect the gear that, even being budget, has given me so much, still if it was hard to get a good sound out of them.

I know I've written a lot off-topic, but I still wanted to point out that it's not a matter of "Brand". I must admit I'm an Ibanez fan, but if some guy comes with a Cort guitar saying it's the best he had and enjoys, what can I say, when a guitar delivers, it delivers.

 

[F0rte]

inb4 it's actually Mike Sherman.....