Solar Guitars by Ola Englund

[Rubbishplayer]

Common how ? 100 people complained ? Given the number of guitars sold, that's probably waaaaaay under the QC tolerance for genral manufacturing. I don't really want to white knight brand X or Y, but I'm growing tired of seeing individual issues labeled as "common" when nobody I know ever encountered them, and I know a few guitar players, including a good chunk of professional ones. That's valid for Solar and Gibson mostly, having got my hands on multiple new models fro each brand, including a few personal purchases.
Remember that Ola being an internet celebrity, the Solar custimer base is likely much more present on forums and such. 100 complaints online is nothing. Believe me, I worked in the video games industry for 15 years, where having millions of complaints after a patch is common. (I worked for Blizzard in France before they closed the french office because they got caught cheating on their taxes)

This has to be the most ill-informed post I've read here.

As @ArtDecade has already pointed out, the games market is way bigger (probably by two orders of magnitude) than the guitar market, and software bugs are easy to fix (assuming the vendor prioritises bugfixes and posts them regularly).

But a cracked fretboard should never occur, even once, on a well-made guitar. Not only is it a catastrophic failure and very tough to fix economically, it is also an indicator of a gross failure to adopt even basic care in the selection of tonewoods (how it is cut both to optimise grain and prevent warpage, kiln drying, seasoning, etc.)

Which means that even if you find a clean one, you can never be sure it won't develop problems later as poor selection cutting and seasoning make themselves apparent through movement of the wood.

This smacks of imcompetence at best; wilful negligence at worst.

 

[Nightside]

I really like the guitar they released this past friday:

View attachment 148491

Seymour Duncan Nazgul, Gotoh GE1996T.

They released some signature guitars before that feature a Gotoh or other pickups than the Duncan Solars but I think this has to be first guitar from the regular series with a Gotoh and a Seymour Duncan pickup.

That is awesome as af. Too bad about that 12th fret inlay though. Those should be optional. I'd prefer a blank fretboard than some ugly symbol taking up a large portion of the fretboard.

 

[nightsprinter]

Gotoh 96 is such a nice trem option. Hope they use them more often. They've been a bitch to acquire new lately.

 

[Nightside]

Gotoh 96 is such a nice trem option. Hope they use them more often. They've been a bitch to acquire new lately.

I heard they've been having QC problems with badly moulded base plates.

 

[nightsprinter]

I heard they've been having QC problems with badly moulded base plates.

Well shit, that sounds like a match made in heaven for Solar then!

 

[Rubbishplayer]

I heard they've been having QC problems with badly moulded base plates.

Is that a callback to the Floyd Rose tremolo post?

 

[Nightside]

Is that a callback to the Floyd Rose tremolo post?

Yeah there's a thread about it here somewhere. Someone got a brand new 1996 with the edges of the base plate all jagged as af.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

This has to be the most ill-informed post I've read here.

As @ArtDecade has already pointed out, the games market is way bigger (probably by two orders of magnitude) than the guitar market, and software bugs are easy to fix (assuming the vendor prioritises bugfixes and posts them regularly).

But a cracked fretboard should never occur, even once, on a well-made guitar. Not only is it a catastrophic failure and very tough to fix economically, it is also an indicator of a gross failure to adopt even basic care in the selection of tonewoods (how it is cut both to optimise grain and prevent warpage, kiln drying, seasoning, etc.)

Which means that even if you find a clean one, you can never be sure it won't develop problems later as poor selection cutting and seasoning make themselves apparent through movement of the wood.

This smacks of imcompetence at best; wilful negligence at worst.

These are built at the same factories just about everything else is built in these days. The big OEMs who basically invented modern instrument manufacturing.

So I don't think the issue is of incompetence and more of just plain "send and see" where you do limited QA/QC to save money and hope the buyer just sticks with it or doesn't mind a small refund to make up for the issues.

The facility in Spain is little more than a warehouse and processing center, and I haven't heard anything negative about the French made stuff as far as build goes.