Vik Guitars Discussion

[Watty]

No disrespect but I have to say says the guy with the Robbins Duality rip offs who has all the reason in the world to try and make Vik look bad

What does his owning "copies" have to do with his relaying of what he saw? I'm not saying he's right (though it sounds to be confirmed above) and I'm not saying he's wrong...the same courtesy should be offered on your part. Note that the same could be said of you, namely:

"Says the guy who owns two Viks who has all the reason in the world to make him look good despite any evidence to the contrary."

Long story short, if Vik made a shoddy neck joint that people saw at NAMM, then Vik made Vik look bad.

 

[leonardo7]

True. I'm just surprised cause I missed it.

 

[TIBrent]

What does his owning "copies" have to do with his relaying of what he saw? I'm not saying he's right (though it sounds to be confirmed above) and I'm not saying he's wrong...the same courtesy should be offered on your part. Note that the same could be said of you, namely:

Because it a negatively biased statement & an untrue one at that. I played both those Viks at the booth, there were no huge issues what-so-ever! Dime sized, my ass! That is just untrue & truly unjustified.

"Says the guy who owns two Viks who has all the reason in the world to make him look good despite any evidence to the contrary."

So then it is a stalemate then right? Because the guy who wishes he could own one & is in bad with the company down plays it & the one who owns one & is in good with the company plays it up.

 

[leonardo7]

Just in case anyone missed it. ViK Guitars are the absolute BEST guitars Ive ever played and probably the best out there. They are absolutely AMAZING guitars. Get it straight!

 

[Watty]

Because it a negatively biased statement & an untrue one at that. I played both those Viks at the booth, there were no huge issues what-so-ever! Dime sized, my ass! That is just untrue & truly unjustified.

So then it is a stalemate then right? Because the guy who wishes he could own one & it is in bad with the company down plays it & the one who owns one & is in good with the company plays it up.

I agree, it's a stalemate with regards to opinions that are biased on both sides (though I would argue more on one than the other). What's at play is the fact that a gap existing is not affected in any way, shape, or form by biases.

According to two accounts, there was a gap in the neck pocket, whether dime sized or no.

 

[arkohors]

No disrespect but I have to say says the guy with the Robbins Duality rip offs who has all the reason in the world to try and make Vik look bad

Yeah ok, just because I own Vik copy doesn't mean that i'm going to bash on Vik's guitar out of sheer spite.

I did own a Vik at one point, A caprice which i thought was a really nice guitar....but i guess owning a copy automatically means that I've got an agenda against the original designer/builder.


To be clear, the guitars that Vik brought played really well. However, for being told the duality 6 string starts at $5000 and the 7string being a $7000 guitar, there were inexcusable flaws. I could buy 2 really nice, flawless guitars from another builder and still have a lot of cash left when you consider those prices.

Heck, Strandberg #33 that was at NAMM had flaws too (the epoxy on the burl left a lot to be desired). The Washburn production models of those were practically flawless though. With that said though, I guess if i go out and buy a strandberg copy, then I will be lying about that too

I try to provide objective thoughts. If i see something, I'll write about it in an unbiased manner (except for NGD's....barely anyone writes those without bias haha)

 

[thrsher]

All I know is. People have all said the same thing about the same guitar, no one had anything negative to say about the nolly 6

 

[TIBrent]

According to two accounts, there was a gap in the neck pocket, whether dime sized or no.

Word, alright Watty I can get down with that. My take is, the gap was not big in the slightest in fact hardly noticeable to me, & I was looking at these things pretty thoroughly. What I think the case was here was that Vik needed to get the guitar done in too short of an amount of time, so he didn't get to do his typical QG process, but despite all that, still one of the nicest guitars at the entire show.

 

[Hollowway]

Here's what I've gathered from the Vik issues - you're either rabidly in favor of Vik, and think they're the best guitars out there, or you just think they're great guitars, just like a lot of other guitars.
I've also learned the same thing about Blackmachines.
I think the take home message is that when you spend $5000-$10,000 there's a part of your brain that needs to believe these guitars play better and are better than any other guitar out there. Otherwise you'd have spent all that money for nothing.
Bottom line for me is that there is just no way that all these super expensive guitars can be better than each other. In other words, it's impossible that a Vik is better than a Blackmachine and a Blackmachine is better than a Vik. I don't know, when I hear someone gushing to the point of being a sycophant I tend to tune them out.

 

[absolutorigin]

Here's what I've gathered from the Vik issues - you're either rabidly in favor of Vik, and think they're the best guitars out there, or you just think they're great guitars, just like a lot of other guitars.
I've also learned the same thing about Blackmachines.
I think the take home message is that when you spend $5000-$10,000 there's a part of your brain that needs to believe these guitars play better and are better than any other guitar out there. Otherwise you'd have spent all that money for nothing.
Bottom line for me is that there is just no way that all these super expensive guitars can be better than each other. In other words, it's impossible that a Vik is better than a Blackmachine and a Blackmachine is better than a Vik. I don't know, when I hear someone gushing to the point of being a sycophant I tend to tune them out.

Despite the neck joint issues with the Redwood Duality, it was an excellent playing guitar. Same goes for the Nolly model. But to call them the Holy-Grail of guitars is a bit silly. Don't get me wrong, they are definitely the real deal and worth getting, but everyone has different tastes. For how awesome the Duality is there are many more people declaring the best guitars of all time are still the vintage Gibson and Fenders.

Sure, I may have brands I favor more than others, but there's always a model that I like with almost all brands. When a certain level of guitar craftsmanship is reached, it's a great guitar regardless of brand. The guitars at this level are all pretty similar to each other. It's just a matter of personal preference at this point.

 

[Hollowway]

When a certain level of guitar craftsmanship is reached, it's a great guitar regardless of brand. The guitars at this level are all pretty similar to each other. It's just a matter of personal preference at this point.

Yeah, that's what I think, too. Same as with cars, computers, etc. I understand that people get passionate about a brand, but it can get carried away when subjective opinion starts sounding like objective review.

 

[narad]

Sure, I may have brands I favor more than others, but there's always a model that I like with almost all brands. When a certain level of guitar craftsmanship is reached, it's a great guitar regardless of brand. The guitars at this level are all pretty similar to each other. It's just a matter of personal taste at this point.

And when Vik burst on the scene -- the sso scene that is -- I thought the price-to-quality ratio was astounding. $3.5k for a handmade guitar with a rosewood neck, burl maple top, custom wound pickups, real flame maple binding, binding on top of binding on top of binding? The guy responds at length the next day to my inquiries with super useful advice? And its design is original and likable? Posts near-daily progress updates on the forum? 8 month turn-around? Sign me up.

Fast forward a few years. No updates. Little communication. Forum's abandoned. 2-3 year delivery after clearing the waitlist? The price is supposed to be $5k base now? Someone said that koa 7 was a $7k instrument? I don't know where those prices came from, but I hope they're not accurate. At one point Vik was a checklist of everything I'd look for in ordering a custom guitar. At this point, at that price range, there's tough competition from Nik Huber, Frank Hartung, Ken Lawrence and you'll get accurate (and shorter) delivery dates, no excuses, and none of this purported gappy neck joint for a similar or cheaper price.

I mean, I hope Vik pulls it together, I really do - started out so phenomenally. Perhaps worse than just seeing things take such a bad turn is also not understanding why.

 

[narad]

Guess I got a bit off track, just to say that I agree it's a matter of personal taste, and that by raising his prices so much he's put himself in the rung of other builders who have a long established reputation for building flawless instruments. What's the ViK USA motto? "Experience the Perfection" or something like that? There's a lot of brands that can deliver perfection at $5-7k, not to mention that a glue-y neck joint is not it!

 

[Necris]

The ViK motto for NAMM seems to have been "Experience a customers guitar before he does."

 

[JayT]

Guess I got a bit off track, just to say that I agree it's a matter of personal taste, and that by raising his prices so much he's put himself in the rung of other builders who have a long established reputation for building flawless instruments. What's the ViK USA motto? "Experience the Perfection" or something like that? There's a lot of brands that can deliver perfection at $5-7k, not to mention that a glue-y neck joint is not it!

That's a very good thought... this whole pricing thing... some of these German luthiers make great instruments and they price them highly because they live in Germany. Years ago I was looking at their offer as well, and decided that Vik was simply priced much better. Now the price advantage Vik has over these luthiers is gone. Which means everything will be judged based only on what you see. He puts himself in pricing range of, let's say Teuffel guitars. Their guitars are not everyone's favorite, obviously, it's a matter of personal taste. But the innovation factor of the brand is way above Vik's. Everything on that guitar (apart from bridges, I believe) is custom made, completely original. The way I see it Vik took classic design/materials/woods and made a really really superb guitar out of it. Additionally, with price increase I don't think he has much room for mistakes when it comes to build quality or customer relations.

I guess he won't be able to screw a lot with Vik USA, though. I assume other people will be doing what he has been doing it wrongly last couple of years.

Edit: Vik just posted an update on his FB:

Aside from that we got quite a few absolutely mind blowing artists that we will sign up in the nearest time and warmly welcome to ViK Guitars family!

Oh well... the dream of him actually working on paying customers' builds after NAMM (instead of building for people who want free guitars quickly) was nice while it lasted. But it's morning, time to wake up...

 

[HighGain510]

Yeah NAMM pieces do tend to have flaws on more occasion than general customs. Ive noticed that with all companies actually. Most NAMM pieces are flawless though and really do show off a companies talent, but its true that once in a while they are rush assembled in the end. Also, customers some times ruin a piece on display and then it gets blamed as a rush job.

Both of those comments ("it was rushed due to NAMM" and "customers sometimes ruin a piece on display and it's blamed as a rush job") are total cop-outs, dude. It's not like ViK has been churning out customer builds, and honestly it's only TWO guitars that he had on display that were his since one was built by the USA folks, so you're telling me in the last few MONTHS it was a struggle for him to get two guitars together without flaws like a gap in the neck pocket for a show as big as NAMM? One would think if he has the money and time to go to NAMM and he's trying to demonstrate the best they can do (which is usually the case with NAMM, they're not putting B-stocks on display, I've been to enough NAMM shows to see how it goes down, it's an exaggeration to say that a TON of them have flaws as that's not really true in my experience), he would have at least taken the time to do a less sloppy job on the neck pocket.

I also highly doubt it was a customer coming by and lifting the neck up a few millimeters to spite ViK or jack up the guitar, so that second "excuse" is just reaching.

No amount of excuses changes the fact that he hasn't been building customer orders and out of the two guitars he brought with him to NAMM, one of them had issues. You can claim it's because he was rushed, but again that reverts back to the original question: How was he rushed for time when he clearly hasn't been completing and shipping prior orders? Seems like he should have all the time in the world to make those NAMM pieces perfect...

 

[HighGain510]

Oh well... the dream of him actually working on paying customers' builds after NAMM (instead of building for people who want free guitars quickly) was nice while it lasted. But it's morning, time to wake up...

I've seen how that works with other custom shops.... not good, indeed.

 

[Jonathan20022]

Oh well... the dream of him actually working on paying customers' builds after NAMM (instead of building for people who want free guitars quickly) was nice while it lasted. But it's morning, time to wake up...

This could go either way, remember Keith Merrow's Lotus? That took goddamn forever, if he screws a high profile artist with a ridiculous wait time or a shoddy build, he's done. Conversely, he could just keep doing what he's doing as of right now. Musikmesse is right around the corner isn't it? He should price his stuff in this range if this is the service he's providing.

 

[Animus]

It sounds like he should really hire some help over in Belarus. With the cost of living over there he could probably hire several craftsmen with what he charges for guitars now, who could do all the easy work on the guitars with his supervision and he can concentrate on the more important things.

I still wonder who the US luthier is in California. Jackson/Fender maybe?

 

[Workhorse]

I mean, I hope Vik pulls it together, I really do - started out so phenomenally. Perhaps worse than just seeing things take such a bad turn is also not understanding why.

I think its not hard to understand why, for where he lives - he is making a ton of money. Also include the fact that, as much we may deny it, many luthiers are not businessmen and infact, some even lack the basic nuances of it.

Vik is exceptionally good at what he does, and his behavior suggests that he thinks his talent might be enough for him to do well - he also seems to have taken a lot on the plate, taking multiple orders and demanding complete payment months before the guitar is completed - this shows he's been really planning a bigger project, especially if they're going to be producing dozens of guitars each year.

The one unforgivable thing which he might have learned from is that just because there is a demand for your stuff, doesn't mean you should be a complete asshole and non-communicative. Whether or not he learned from this mistake remains to be also.

Finally, ss.org is a great resource - a good friend of mine was literally on the verge of ordering a savior/duality. Good thing i pointed him to this forum and saved him like 6k hahhaha.

Also, regardless of the demand for his guitars - most people could not afford a $5k build - don't let the facebook posts fool you.