StevenC
Needs a hobby
How thick is that guitar? In one of the pics it looks Les Paul sized or bigger,
NGD Rusti Guitars Lotus #1 headless
- Thread starter DirtyPuma
- Start date
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NoodleFace
Delicious Noodles
Agree with the last part. The more hands that touch it, the more chance something will happen
jephjacques
BUTTS LOL
Yeah I'd never agree to let some other dingdong "demo" my custom-ordered guitar before I could get my hands on it.
Can't talk for any other Rusti Guitars, but since his output is not 100 guitars per year, this one guitar is enough risk for me to never order again and also not recommending to order. As mentioned before, I was not taken seriously by the builder and all responsibility brushed off. The paradox is actually not a very complicated build so room for error here is much smaller. But when making the commitment to build something any builder should be sure that they can pull this off correctly.
I even put more than another 500 € into the guitar after I got it, trying to fix the issues, but there was so much and most of it was not an easy fix. The sound issues and the trem routing / mounting were just horrible. And I was actually quite cooperative and gave my OK to sell off this guitar at financial loss. Anyway, I don't care so much for the money, but only seeing people gushing over these shiny instagram pics makes you reconsider why you did not post any review online. I wished I had such detailed reviews before buying a Rusti.
When I was made fun of via WhatsApp by the builder a line was crossed for me and I wanted to get rid of this thing as fast as possible. No person with a serious business should treat any customer who just paid you quite some money for a guitar that way (and waited two years to have it finished without ever getting pushy).
The guitar was quite thick. I have no measurements at hand but the trem with the flush back-cover made it very thick. That is also what caused the hefty weight for this build. Since I demanded a lightweight build (I even provided estimate numbers, for a builder it should be easy to calculate with the woods and parts at hand), I should have been told that the thickness of the body is not going to allow this.
That is true and I admit that I was overly cooperative with this builder. As mentioned before I even paid 200 € on top, for actually nothing. Just to let him know that I value his work on the guitar. However, this was before I received the guitar (it took a month for shipment, because it had to go to that other guy demo'ing it). And that after the 2-year waiting time. Funny, isn't it?
But in the end, the issues I spotted on the guitar were clearly not the fault of the demo guy, so he is not responsible at all. I gave my OK to have it demo'ed, so I was the fool and to blame here. Rusti Guitars wanted to have it demo'ed and I did not find a reason to deny this back then.
Alessandro Zilio
SS.org Regular
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2022
- Messages
- 4
- Reaction score
- 8
Hey, Alessandro Zilio 'Demo guy' here, just to give you my point of view.I was aware of your negative experience with that instrument and i was definitely sad to hear that, to clarify i am not affiliated to Rusti or Claudio, the man behind the brand aside from the couple of times he sent over his guitars to shoot some videos.
I received yours and a paradox that time, both needed to be shipped again to their owners, so what i did was i kept the guitars for a bunch of days and shot two short videos mainly to show the instruments. In the limited time i had i just did my thing and shipped them back, i had not much time to inspect it rather that plugging it in and record audio/video so i don't recall noticing stuff that alarmed me, otherwise i would have told him and get that fixed.
In saying that i'm not doubting the issues you had, he actually told me a while ago that it was some faulty electronic component that caused it sounding not very rich as you described, but for a more detailed explanation you should talk to him about the matter.
The point i wanted to make is that, although i get your frustration for the whole experience, and sharing it is very much a right of yours, i just hope this does not get any hate to Rusti since it's easy for things to escalate quickly on the internet, he does what he does for passion working hard and with this being the first time he encountered this many issues with a customer he maybe didn't really know how to handle the situation.
Then, we're humans, mistakes happen all the time and we should own up to them, but i can assure you he's a super kind and genuine guy, so once again i'm sad to see about this situation and i hope you'll be able to move on from this with no hard feelings.
Lastly, @jephjacques it's a bit inappropriate to refer to me as a dingdong lol since i don't think a luthier would ever be such a fool to trust some random guy to ship his instruments to, and of course you don't even know me ahah but that's fine.
Cheers guys
Hello Alessandro, thanks for your feedback. As I pointed out before the issues I faced should be in no way related to your demo of the guitar. I think you made a good job advertising that guitar, but back then when I re-checked your video on the Lotus the lack of harmonic content was also obvious in the sound of the guitar there. But then again, I think a setup as I did with the spectrum analysis done is much more representative than a "high-gloss produced video".
I can understand that sometimes things go wrong with builds. But in these cases the manufacturer must acknowledge this and correct the faults. That is also what European law states for contracts of services. In my case I was made fun of by the manufacturer via WhatsApp (if anyone is interested, I can share the screenshots via PM) and told that it is a "man-made guitar".
And I agree, it is (apart from CNC and all other things which carve out the basis of these guitars). But I disagree that this is an excuse for putting out such a guitar and then telling the customer that all is OK and that he might have a 2nd look at the guitar, but I have to pay shipment there and back. This is against European law. This is worst customer service. This is why I just took the "easy option" to have the guitar sold at a loss. I could have taken this to court, but it would have cost me time and I did not want to put even more time into an instrument for which I already had to wait two years. 60 % of the price was paid upfront.
And seeing in how the builder did not understand the tremolo, which even I understood after a quick check of the manual, makes me question the "expert knowledge" this guitar builder has. In the end I pay for this knowledge and execution, that is why I chose this builder over another. I was wrong in my choice this time.
And to summarize: what is OK in "someone getting away with making money by making others lose theirs"? Pretty shady business concept. BTW, just as another example: As far as I can see I was also blocked on IG by this "professional vendor of guitars". There was not even a form of apology from the builder's side at any time.
Rusti
Well-Known Member
Hey everyone!
I already spoke a long time to my [was] customer so this message is for everyone else. I think you deserve to hear both sides of what went on.
First of all, the Lotus#1 was a prototype for a few reasons:
1) New body shape.
2) First time I’ve mounted Sophia tremolo (which is nothing like any other tremolo out there) on customer’s request.
3) First time i did that type of engraved inlay.
4) First time I did the blue fade over a top.
This is to say that the second Lotus clearly had some improvements, but the prototype was great, and it left here with a great setup, as usual.
I think the detailed pics I always post on my social pages show how much I care about doing my very best on every single guitar, and I the Lotus#1 is no exception.
Customer initially started complaining about some very basic issue like the string action, so I’ve tried to help him via WhatsApp telling him how to set it. The more he was setting it up, the more issues where popping out, to the point I didn’t know what was going on with the neck anymore and i told him to please send it back for a full check-up.
- What that means is: If the issues were on my side, I’ll refund the shipment and I ship it back. If the issues were caused by the customer, he pays for the shipments. In both cases i’m fixing\setting-up the guitar for free, because I care about my customers and my guitars.-
He refused and took the guitar to a tech, disassembled the bridge a few times, switched pickups and apparently had some frets pressed down or leveled.
- A quick note about fretting. This is a process I go through very carefully (I bet you can tell by looking at my feeds), I know how I do my work and I’m sure there was not need for leveling or pressing. In the last 5 years or so, not a single time a customer told me he needed to level or press down the frets, so I’m pretty sure there was not such a need on a brand new guitar.-
After this many modifies were made to the guitar, the warranty was nullified. This is what happens when you modify any product covered by warranty.
I could have dropped any responsibility and end the story right there, but not a single time I mentioned the nullified warranty. Instead i offered to pay for the shipment back to me and fix it for free.
Finally got the guitar back.
After a quick check-up, the result was:
1) The potentiometer was very faulty, it was actually cutting out all the frequencies, it took literally 5 minutes to my tech to recognize the issue and fix it. I mount MEC parts, and i honestly believe they're the best i can offer, but a faulty one can happen i guess. Once the pot was replaced the guitar came back to singing.
2) The truss rod needed a setup.
3) I added a new step-slot to the back cavity where the pins could touch the wall simultaneously and parallel to the bridge, making the use of the Global Tuner possible. It was not noticeable after the work was done and the bridge was mounted on.
4) Once the guitar was properly set-up, the bridge’s range of motion was as designed. The contact pins on the Sophia allow for a safe and soft return to the zero\balance point but they also limit the range of motion a little when pulling up the armbar. Once the guitar was properly set-up, the pins were hitting their limit before bridge baseplate would touch the body of the guitar. As designed. On the next Lotus’es I made a deeper cavity though, so that if a customer decide to remove the pins, he would also have the range of motion of a regular Floyd-like tremolo.
5) The body finishing was scratched during the shipping back to me. I refinished it, for free.
I asked him if he wanted the fixed guitar back, but he preferred to sell it, so a new customer that a few days back was at my shop testing a newer Lotus decided to buy it, and he’s now happy with the #1.
One last note: If you order a walnut body you don’t get a light-weight guitar. I’ve added some weight relief to it, but I agree it wasn’t as light as I hoped for. That’s why it’s called prototype. Still very well balanced. The new Lotus are a bit thinner, with bigger weight-relief chambers, and a bigger belly cut.
This is my side of the story, if you wish to tell\ask me anything please contact me via FB, IG or WA.
Have a great day everyone.
I already spoke a long time to my [was] customer so this message is for everyone else. I think you deserve to hear both sides of what went on.
First of all, the Lotus#1 was a prototype for a few reasons:
1) New body shape.
2) First time I’ve mounted Sophia tremolo (which is nothing like any other tremolo out there) on customer’s request.
3) First time i did that type of engraved inlay.
4) First time I did the blue fade over a top.
This is to say that the second Lotus clearly had some improvements, but the prototype was great, and it left here with a great setup, as usual.
I think the detailed pics I always post on my social pages show how much I care about doing my very best on every single guitar, and I the Lotus#1 is no exception.
Customer initially started complaining about some very basic issue like the string action, so I’ve tried to help him via WhatsApp telling him how to set it. The more he was setting it up, the more issues where popping out, to the point I didn’t know what was going on with the neck anymore and i told him to please send it back for a full check-up.
- What that means is: If the issues were on my side, I’ll refund the shipment and I ship it back. If the issues were caused by the customer, he pays for the shipments. In both cases i’m fixing\setting-up the guitar for free, because I care about my customers and my guitars.-
He refused and took the guitar to a tech, disassembled the bridge a few times, switched pickups and apparently had some frets pressed down or leveled.
- A quick note about fretting. This is a process I go through very carefully (I bet you can tell by looking at my feeds), I know how I do my work and I’m sure there was not need for leveling or pressing. In the last 5 years or so, not a single time a customer told me he needed to level or press down the frets, so I’m pretty sure there was not such a need on a brand new guitar.-
After this many modifies were made to the guitar, the warranty was nullified. This is what happens when you modify any product covered by warranty.
I could have dropped any responsibility and end the story right there, but not a single time I mentioned the nullified warranty. Instead i offered to pay for the shipment back to me and fix it for free.
Finally got the guitar back.
After a quick check-up, the result was:
1) The potentiometer was very faulty, it was actually cutting out all the frequencies, it took literally 5 minutes to my tech to recognize the issue and fix it. I mount MEC parts, and i honestly believe they're the best i can offer, but a faulty one can happen i guess. Once the pot was replaced the guitar came back to singing.
2) The truss rod needed a setup.
3) I added a new step-slot to the back cavity where the pins could touch the wall simultaneously and parallel to the bridge, making the use of the Global Tuner possible. It was not noticeable after the work was done and the bridge was mounted on.
4) Once the guitar was properly set-up, the bridge’s range of motion was as designed. The contact pins on the Sophia allow for a safe and soft return to the zero\balance point but they also limit the range of motion a little when pulling up the armbar. Once the guitar was properly set-up, the pins were hitting their limit before bridge baseplate would touch the body of the guitar. As designed. On the next Lotus’es I made a deeper cavity though, so that if a customer decide to remove the pins, he would also have the range of motion of a regular Floyd-like tremolo.
5) The body finishing was scratched during the shipping back to me. I refinished it, for free.
I asked him if he wanted the fixed guitar back, but he preferred to sell it, so a new customer that a few days back was at my shop testing a newer Lotus decided to buy it, and he’s now happy with the #1.
One last note: If you order a walnut body you don’t get a light-weight guitar. I’ve added some weight relief to it, but I agree it wasn’t as light as I hoped for. That’s why it’s called prototype. Still very well balanced. The new Lotus are a bit thinner, with bigger weight-relief chambers, and a bigger belly cut.
This is my side of the story, if you wish to tell\ask me anything please contact me via FB, IG or WA.
Have a great day everyone.
Funny how you more or less acknowledge all of the faults I posted here openly. I would say there is nothing more to add.
The fret was actually not level, this was pointed out quickly by the tech, I had string buzzing when fretting the 2nd fret on the A and D strings on day 1. This was a fact and I did not make this up. Once again, you start to "blame the customer" here. The sound level cut off due to the faulty switch, "acc. to you" the potentiometer of the volume knob was broken, the inlay was "not OK" only because you "did not do it before" (?), and the trem was not OK because it "was new" (?).
I am no fan of the blame game, but now that you start (I repeat myself once more, this is how you handled it back then as well and started to blame me and brush things off and make fun of me) this blame game once more, I can only say this:
Given all of this proof I provided, and these are faults on many different levels and many different components / building steps of the guitar, how can there be ANY EXCUSE to ship a guitar off like this? You even mention "this is a thing of 5 min and easily spotted". Well, how was it not spotted?! Why was I ridiculed by you? Why did you NOT BELIEVE these matters? I provided the proof to you the same way as I do here.
Edit: We even tried to solder the pup directly to the output in order to check electronics and issue was not found. So it was definitly NOT a 5 min fix. Also, why does your QC not spot a "5-min fix" on a 5 k guitar?
I state this once more: I lost 1 500 € because I did not want to be betrayed any more / handled badly / wait even longer than the 2 years / lose even more money in the long run and have a 2nd class guitar. No one would have opted differently in my situation. And I was VERY compliant and cooperative. I did not use any swear words or whatsoever. Maybe I should have? Sending the guitar to some workshop in Italy easily costs 300 € with chance of the guitar being damaged, you not acknowledging (again) the faults, saying it is a "man-made guitar" and therefore has its flaws, and in the end not having a good guitar? Who would go for that risk? I was even against selling this guitar, because I felt bad for any person buying this. But then again, you were not even OK with buying the guitar back for 3 500 €. You wanted to stay out of this business and brush off responsibility. This is a SHAME.
I can not see a humble and decent guy as Alessandro said…
Edit 2: Guitar warranty is NOT nullified when changing pups and changing the trem setup (i.e. removing the pins and down-tuner, this is as designed). This is not even about warranty, this is a service contract. You have no clue.
And lastly, you did NOT offer the check-up back then. You made fun of me, told me "this cannot be, I built and checked this, all was OK, no customer before had this, yadayada". Shall I start uploading our conversations in Whatsapp? Is that what you want?
Also, your "detailed pics" are just typical IG pics with lots of photoshop etc. You even mentioned that you photoshop each and every single piece of dust out of these pics YOURSELF. Just to quote what you said. How can anyone trust these images? They are fake.
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Ok here's my two cents on this.
Declaration of interest just so you know: I own two Rusti's. I own Paradox 4, the first one with the insane figured Koa Tops that everyone else asks him for now. (I actually got the specs idea from an earlier Rusti but changed a few things and badgered him to buy that incredible log that the tops have come from since) and Paradox 6, the 7 string variant. In my custom ordering and build process only Chris from Carillion has been as responsive, helpful, and delivered as good customer service. My two builds are incredible, there are a couple of minor tool marks on one, can't think of anything on the other. Build is certainly up there with the very best, like Carillion or Vik. I know, I have multiple of both of those as well. I also chat to him now and again about other stuff, however I do not shill for him, or push his guitars on social media etc. He's been great, I recall one time when my 7 arrived the previous owner had taken the bridge off for transit!! (a hipshot trem!) I had no idea how to set it up and Claudio talked me through the process over facebook for about 2 hours.
That's me and my situation, totally separate to yours.
Your situation in a nutshell, changed to a car anology so it makes more sense:
You bought a new Ferrari, you got it home and discovered some things you thought weren't right with it. You contacted Ferrari who offered to have it shipped back to them and any faults rectified at their expense under warranty etc. Caveat, if there were no faults you would pay for shipping. Ok with a Ferrari it would be a lot, but not a lot in this case. Instead of doing that you took your Ferrari to the local garage and let the local guys who didn't build it, probably knew nothing about some of the parts etc. look at it and not only diagnose but take it apart multiple times and carry out unauthorised repair work. You then asked Ferrari to buy it back at 80% of the cost after the local garage had finished with it.
^^ Do you see how mad that is? There is no way in hell they would buy it back. You didn't follow the process for these things and wildly went off and did stuff, violating the warranty utterly. You didn't give him a chance to look it over, remedy any work etc. Then you came and complained to the world about it.
I don't know about the conversation over Whatsapp of course, so I can't comment one way or another about that. I can however say that what you've actually done, step by step, isn't correct at all.
If it were me as the builder and you did that I'd simply tell you that you violated the warranty and I was unable to help further, as would happen in literally any business.
Surely to God, anyone knows that if something's not right with something, you send it back to the manufacturer and not get random guys to work on it, THEN try to send it back.
Declaration of interest just so you know: I own two Rusti's. I own Paradox 4, the first one with the insane figured Koa Tops that everyone else asks him for now. (I actually got the specs idea from an earlier Rusti but changed a few things and badgered him to buy that incredible log that the tops have come from since) and Paradox 6, the 7 string variant. In my custom ordering and build process only Chris from Carillion has been as responsive, helpful, and delivered as good customer service. My two builds are incredible, there are a couple of minor tool marks on one, can't think of anything on the other. Build is certainly up there with the very best, like Carillion or Vik. I know, I have multiple of both of those as well. I also chat to him now and again about other stuff, however I do not shill for him, or push his guitars on social media etc. He's been great, I recall one time when my 7 arrived the previous owner had taken the bridge off for transit!! (a hipshot trem!) I had no idea how to set it up and Claudio talked me through the process over facebook for about 2 hours.
That's me and my situation, totally separate to yours.
Your situation in a nutshell, changed to a car anology so it makes more sense:
You bought a new Ferrari, you got it home and discovered some things you thought weren't right with it. You contacted Ferrari who offered to have it shipped back to them and any faults rectified at their expense under warranty etc. Caveat, if there were no faults you would pay for shipping. Ok with a Ferrari it would be a lot, but not a lot in this case. Instead of doing that you took your Ferrari to the local garage and let the local guys who didn't build it, probably knew nothing about some of the parts etc. look at it and not only diagnose but take it apart multiple times and carry out unauthorised repair work. You then asked Ferrari to buy it back at 80% of the cost after the local garage had finished with it.
^^ Do you see how mad that is? There is no way in hell they would buy it back. You didn't follow the process for these things and wildly went off and did stuff, violating the warranty utterly. You didn't give him a chance to look it over, remedy any work etc. Then you came and complained to the world about it.
I don't know about the conversation over Whatsapp of course, so I can't comment one way or another about that. I can however say that what you've actually done, step by step, isn't correct at all.
If it were me as the builder and you did that I'd simply tell you that you violated the warranty and I was unable to help further, as would happen in literally any business.
Surely to God, anyone knows that if something's not right with something, you send it back to the manufacturer and not get random guys to work on it, THEN try to send it back.
I did NOT violate warranty in any way? Are you out of your mind? I was in contact with my lawyer and am well aware of regulations here, so this is NOT TRUE. You are clearly taking Rusti Guitar's side for no obious reasons.
If any Ferrari had THESE faults, they would try their best to come personally and get things right, I can promise you.
This is such a ridiculous straw-man argument…
Claudio / Rusti Guitars was downplaying this stuff and not providing any help / offering of check at their site BEFORE I got into contact with the lawyer and presented him / them with the options at hand: Correcting the issues as per service contract OR reimbursal of the paid money. This is all acc. to law. I even gave him a 3-week time-frame to correct the issues, well aware that there is no way he would be able to meet the timeline ALTHOUGH he should be able as per law.
Also, the tech I mentioned is an official PROFESSIONAL workshop, this is not "some random dude" on the street. I wanted everything to be highly official and professionally checked. The hammering-in-place of one fret is by no means changing anything relevantly of the guitar. This is INDEED a "5-min work". You would send it back only for that? At the end of noticing all these issues I knew this could NEVER be fixed in the fashion it should be. He would have to rework the guitar from scratch (i.e. build a new one).
Your reply is actually riciduling my initial post and you disregard any of the issues and the proof thereof I provided in the initial post. This is the "blame game" which I mentioned. You seem to play it as well? Not only Rusti Guitars / Claudio?
I wouldn't even want to have such a guitar "for free" seeing these many flaws. And again, I feel bad for the new buyer of that guitar, maybe he knows less about craftmanship in guitars and technical things. He would never even know these issues. But then again, if he is happy with it… I was definitly not and customer service was so bad I can't recall any comparable case.
P.S.: I did not just go and tell the whole world about this. Actually, I first settled this case, then waited a year to sort things out in my head and cool down / get some distance and be more objective, and only THEN wrote my review in order for it to be as objective as possible. I provided proof wherever I could and did try my utterly best to present things how they were for me as a customer of Rusti Guitars, a business led by Claudio Rustignoli.
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Gango79
Well-Known Member
Sorry mate…how could you call it bad customer service? He offered to take back the guitar for free unless you made some changes on the guitar. He paid for return shipping. He refinished again the guitar and changed the pot! This is what I call great customer service.
I had some issue on my first prs refinish from prs Europe. They not refunded me anything. Prs USA suggested to ship it back in the USA but I had to pay the total cost of the repair!
In other words no one is questioning You was not happy with the final result.
but you can't say that Claudio tried not to please you.
He even sold the guitar for you. who else would have done it?
Come on, don't you read my posts? HE DID NOT OFFER TO TAKE BACK THE GUITAR AND CHECK IT.
He told me that I am nuts and there is no flaw in this guitar, he "checked it himself". How could I be happy when a manufacturer does not acknowledge issues when I present clear evidence of it and even got a professional workshop to check these issues so that he cannot use the argument "yeah, you're just a crazy customer" anymore?
Furthermore, why should I send a guitar back to the workshop at my own expense (he only offered this AFTER I got in contact with my lawyer), when European law clearly covers this and HE MUST pay for this? This is by no means good service at all. You must be out of your mind and assume everything Claudio writes here is the truth? He is trying to do "damage control" and coming up with stuff which clearly was not the case back then.
Why else should I start to get the pups changed, switches fixed, etc. at my own cost (well over 500 €) when he would offer to correct these things for free? Something doesn't add up here, do you notice?
BTW he did not sell the guitar, he just advertised it. I was the one selling it, he wanted to have nothing to do with it. He was clearly against taking ANY responsibility. If you really want to go into the details, we can start uploading the mails and WhatsApp messages. I thought anyone in their right mind could tell that something must be seriously wrong when seeing this guitar.
Well, but please, go on and believe the words of the guy who shipped a 5 000 € guitar with that amount of issues to a customer after a build time of 2 years.
Jonathan20022
Engineer
This is pretty simple, the clear contradiction here is that Rusti is saying the following:
And you're saying the above offer was never made, should be very easy to prove from either side if the buyer is that adamant that the offer was never made.
If it was and you refused/got it fixed locally, that's a little different than what is being described. I'd post the conversation if you're both comfortable with that.
And you're saying the above offer was never made, should be very easy to prove from either side if the buyer is that adamant that the offer was never made.
If it was and you refused/got it fixed locally, that's a little different than what is being described. I'd post the conversation if you're both comfortable with that.
I agree with you that good customer service might have helped a lot in this case. But since I was told again and again that these are no "issues" and all is fine, the guitar was checked and there could be no flaw / I must be using the guitar incorrectly, what would you do? Is that good customer service?
I had cases with other manufacturers and they always did their utmost to help me and provide help. They covered any shipping cost and exchanced materials / products as needed. All acc. to law and to make customers happy. Why should I go to these lengths if someone had been there to help with my case? Furthermore, with this number of issues and kind of issues, how would anyone be able to remedy them? Especially, when taking into account that the one working on them would be the one who caused and did not spot them to begin with?
Rusti
Well-Known Member
I'm really not up for sharing personal infos, nor chat logs, nor joining the drama and fighting over a situation i thought was settled (with an agreement) months ago, but for the sake of being transparent, here's what the results for the 'send' word look like on the chat. I blurred out his name.
