Vik Duality 8 string run *CLOSED RUN*

[prlgmnr]

Yea, like about every 8 months for the past 10 years I write Ola to be like, "hey, any progress on getting this wrapped up?", he says, "Oh, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I have a new idea, what if <we don't make your guitar>?" and I say, "Well, <you not making my guitar> isn't exactly what I was hoping for. Would it at least be possible to <make my guitar>?", and then it repeats.

 

[Alberto7]

Ok that one had me giggling hard

 

[drmosh]

As I continue waiting for my made-to-measure boden order from like 2014...

I gave up on mine. Quoted some insane shit after waiting for years

 

[M3CHK1LLA]

I gave up on mine. Quoted some insane shit after waiting for years

you lose any money on it?

 

[Hollowway]

Seems ridiculous that a company as successful as strandberg has this years-long backlog of customs that have not been done. They certainly have the funds to either complete the projects or refund the deposits. Do we need a strandberg thread? Or call KDH?

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Seems ridiculous that a company as successful as strandberg has this years-long backlog of customs that have not been done. They certainly have the funds to either complete the projects or refund the deposits. Do we need a strandberg thread? Or call KDH?

The problem is that they probably can't find an OEM builder that will make what would be unique one-offs in the relative price range this long out with such specific specs.

Ola is a great marketer, but he's absolutely shit at getting guitars made. It's why he couldn't hack it when he tried himself, why his own shops failed, and why he went through a bunch of different builders. Good ideas, but execution is just as important.

See: Darren/Decibel

 

[StevenC]

Seems ridiculous that a company as successful as strandberg has this years-long backlog of customs that have not been done. They certainly have the funds to either complete the projects or refund the deposits. Do we need a strandberg thread? Or call KDH?

At least with Ola he never took deposits from anyone before their guitars got to an actual start of the process stage. That's not to say he doesn't have some people's money, or bits of wood they'd sent to him etc, but I can't imagine that list of people is more than maybe 5 or 10. The rest of the waitlist was, supposedly, preserved in case any made to measure style product ever returned as an option.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

At least with Ola he never took deposits from anyone before their guitars got to an actual start of the process stage. That's not to say he doesn't have some people's money, or bits of wood they'd sent to him etc, but I can't imagine that list of people is more than maybe 5 or 10. The rest of the waitlist was, supposedly, preserved in case any made to measure style product ever returned as an option.

Not Ola directly, but there were definitely some delivery pains on paid-for goods when they were using both Washburn and S7G.

To his credit, I think Ola has done decently by folks who had problems with builders he's worked with. About as good as you see in this industry.

That said, given the success of the Strandberg brand, he shouldn't have to hold onto a penny of anyone's build or materials. Or waste people's time for that matter.

 

[StevenC]

Not Ola directly, but there were definitely some delivery pains on paid-for goods when they were using both Washburn and S7G.

To his credit, I think Ola has done decently by folks who had problems with builders he's worked with. About as good as you see in this industry.

That said, given the success of the Strandberg brand, he shouldn't have to hold onto a penny of anyone's build or materials. Or waste people's time for that matter.

Oh yeah totally. I just meant the m2m queue, which never ton deposits to get a spot on the list like, say, Daemoness.

That was one positive of the Decibel thing as well. Only taking money for "in progress" guitars.

 

[Sermo Lupi]

Basically about who can build it. Each builder has their own constraints on options. Now it's looking like neck thru is impossible. It is maybe possible to have it build in Japan, but now he's suggesting maybe it be one of the Boden Futur runs so that it gets TT frets. But I don't know who's building that... I know Sugi can stain figured wood though. But no trem or TT if it's Sugi, unless it's a 6 string. etc etc

Somehow I'd thought Ola built the 70-odd M2M builds to date. Is him farming them out a recent thing, since the production halt in 2018 at least, or has it been this way for a while?

I don't doubt there's more capable luthiers than Ola to appoint the build, I just thought the hefty pricetag of M2M was to employ Ola's design expertise for a one-off project. If it's devolved to him barely answering emails in a half-assed attempt to liaise on what third-party luthier you should choose, how is that any different from picking a luthier yourself and simply requesting plans from Ola, who advertises the design as open-access? Why is Ola asking ~$10k for this service?

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Somehow I'd thought Ola built the 70-odd M2M builds to date. Is him farming them out a recent thing, since the production halt in 2018 at least, or has it been this way for a while?

I don't doubt there's more capable luthiers than Ola to appoint the build, I just thought the hefty pricetag of M2M was to employ Ola's design expertise for a one-off project. If it's devolved to him barely answering emails in a half-assed attempt to liaise on what third-party luthier you should choose, how is that any different from picking a luthier yourself and simply requesting plans from Ola, who advertises the design as open-access? Why is Ola asking ~$10k for this service?

They stopped with the "open license" thing years ago.

 

[narad]

Somehow I'd thought Ola built the 70-odd M2M builds to date. Is him farming them out a recent thing, since the production halt in 2018 at least, or has it been this way for a while?

I don't doubt there's more capable luthiers than Ola to appoint the build, I just thought the hefty pricetag of M2M was to employ Ola's design expertise for a one-off project. If it's devolved to him barely answering emails in a half-assed attempt to liaise on what third-party luthier you should choose, how is that any different from picking a luthier yourself and simply requesting plans from Ola, who advertises the design as open-access? Why is Ola asking ~$10k for this service?

Bit of misconceptions here. There's almost 100 M2Ms -- mine was due to be #100. The last batch before production ended was a few guitars up in that range that included mine. There aren't any more orders, this is just a dangling leftover thing from that era. The problem with this order is that I sourced my own wood, and sent a giant 5A redwood billet, enough for probably 4 tops, from the mill in Washington to Sweden at great cost. So at that time a "here's your deposit back" wasn't very helpful. It'd be better to finish the guitar. But the Swedish custom shop guys seem to have had a falling out with him while my guitar was there half finished. Then there were some other shops, or single guys from that shop. Now it's looking like the TT shop is going to do the new ones. The price was never $10k, not sure where you pulled that number from, and you probably never wanted Ola to be the guy building your guitar, as they seemed a bit rough compared to what came later.

 

[StevenC]

Somehow I'd thought Ola built the 70-odd M2M builds to date. Is him farming them out a recent thing, since the production halt in 2018 at least, or has it been this way for a while?

I don't doubt there's more capable luthiers than Ola to appoint the build, I just thought the hefty pricetag of M2M was to employ Ola's design expertise for a one-off project. If it's devolved to him barely answering emails in a half-assed attempt to liaise on what third-party luthier you should choose, how is that any different from picking a luthier yourself and simply requesting plans from Ola, who advertises the design as open-access? Why is Ola asking ~$10k for this service?

There's a few eras of M2M Strandberg.

The early ones were all built by Ola in his home/garage/workshop. This ran through at least the start of the Washburn operation. This ended some time from 2014 to 2016, and I know he was definitely investigating a Swedish shop to take over M2M at least in 2014. My hunch is that the move was done gradually between 2014 and 2015.

Some time leading up to Washburn's closure, M2M production was officially outsourced to a shop in Sweden (I used to know their name) as a trial to see if they could replace Washburn's output. The Washburn shop eventually came to offer beyond runs of standard specs and had a variety of finish, pickup and one or two scale length options iirc.

Following the closure of Washburn USA, production of those lines moved to Sweden where the M2Ms were being built. This was now branded as "Strandberg Custom Shop", a tier below M2M, with a wide range of options eventually including neck through and wood selection. The idea being to take as many names out of the M2M list as possible, with the only specs left M2M only being baritone hybrid, custom scale lengths, non standard pickup routing, very exotic wood, and not much else.

By this point Ola was doing management and R&D.

As narad said, this all ended with the last batch around #100. It's impossible to say how many or even which guitars were actually built by Ola, except for obvious early ones and prototypes. There is also no definitive answer as to how many M2M guitars were made, started or finished. At no point were guitars made or numbered strictly sequentially with really any rhyme or reason. For example, narad ordered his #60 before my #44 and was a batch ahead of me but was finished after mine. Also there is a #102 and #103 definitely finished and delivered, but I also know that #18 was never built (it wasn't a broken promise or anything, the spec was never finalised between Ola and the client but the number was being kept for them).

My guitar is from Spring 2014 and I believe it to be either a late Ola build or transition period build. I don't think it was fully outsourced.

 

[Sermo Lupi]

Bit of misconceptions here. There's almost 100 M2Ms -- mine was due to be #100. The last batch before production ended was a few guitars up in that range that included mine. There aren't any more orders, this is just a dangling leftover thing from that era. The problem with this order is that I sourced my own wood, and sent a giant 5A redwood billet, enough for probably 4 tops, from the mill in Washington to Sweden at great cost. So at that time a "here's your deposit back" wasn't very helpful. It'd be better to finish the guitar. But the Swedish custom shop guys seem to have had a falling out with him while my guitar was there half finished. Then there were some other shops, or single guys from that shop. Now it's looking like the TT shop is going to do the new ones. The price was never $10k, not sure where you pulled that number from, and you probably never wanted Ola to be the guy building your guitar, as they seemed a bit rough compared to what came later.

Ah, interesting. I hadn't realised they'd built that many. As for the $10k, I may be misremembering, but I could've sworn I saw an NGD on here where someone said they paid over $8k for the M2M service. There's been a few that have sold on the used market for over $10k, but I suppose that isn't necessarily indicative of the price Ola charged.

They stopped with the "open license" thing years ago.

Oh, really? Ola was so keen on that aspect back in the day. Stop me if I'm opening a huge can of worms, but do you know why there was a change in philosophy?

 

[StevenC]

Ah, interesting. I hadn't realised they'd built that many. As for the $10k, I may be misremembering, but I could've sworn I saw an NGD on here where someone said they paid over $8k for the M2M service. There's been a few that have sold on the used market for over $10k, but I suppose that isn't necessarily indicative of the price Ola charged.



Oh, really? Ola was so keen on that aspect back in the day. Stop me if I'm opening a huge can of worms, but do you know why there was a change in philosophy?

My M2M was about 4000gbp at the time, though prices did go up a fair bit after that.

The original stated goal of the open licensing was so that people could access the designs. It was maintained open for several years until the OS line came out, ostensibly an accessible option for most people, and Strandberg became an actual business that was only viable if they controlled their IP.

 

[drmosh]

you lose any money on it?

Nope, it was all quite a silent understanding

 

[Hollowway]

There was also the issue with a lot of the Egan builds not being very good quality. Those were licensed, and a number of people from here bought them. At the time, I believed his builds were super solid, but people were complaining about the quality of the strandbergs. I figured that played into Ola wanting to limit potential damage to the brand. (Not that the overseas ones have had their issues, but at least he can administer customer service at that point.)

 

[drmosh]

Ah, interesting. I hadn't realised they'd built that many. As for the $10k, I may be misremembering, but I could've sworn I saw an NGD on here where someone said they paid over $8k for the M2M service. There's been a few that have sold on the used market for over $10k, but I suppose that isn't necessarily indicative of the price Ola charged.



Oh, really? Ola was so keen on that aspect back in the day. Stop me if I'm opening a huge can of worms, but do you know why there was a change in philosophy?

I'm pretty sure I was quoted about 4k after 2-3 years wait

 

[narad]

Ah, interesting. I hadn't realised they'd built that many. As for the $10k, I may be misremembering, but I could've sworn I saw an NGD on here where someone said they paid over $8k for the M2M service.

I totally believe someone at some point, likely in a for sale listing, quoted having paid some exorbitantly high amount for it. But you have to put on your cynical glasses and just look at the facts -- I'm sure some wayback machine stuff could get some old price list estimates. I was maybe around $5k for mine. I only really recall I lost hundreds of dollars transferring money from USD to krona at the time, in the days before transfer wise.

 

[SVMMONYR]

Or call KDH?

I actually contacted KDH about Vik over a year ago. Got a response from him today. Can't wait to see this sucker getting a taste of his own medicine...