Just called Guild regarding the GAD Chinese factory...

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adorshki

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southernGuild said:
adorshki said:
You're right though, I'm also starting not to care anymore, except to confirm first hand whether or not the Employee Incentive Office really existed...
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:shock: You would actually doubt a first hand factory tour report, complete with a revealing photo, from our own esteemed Yoko!? :lol: Oh NO.
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Well at least we can rest a bit easier as he seems to have recovered fully from that nasty bout of realism he was having recently.
It really hit him hard.
Good to have ya back alive and well, Yoko!! :D
 
southernGuild

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As Yoko said:
"I've toured the chinese factory....everything seemed in order, good working conditions, happy, enthused workers, i saw only guilds being assembled. As i was leaving, a door marked "employee incentive office" cracked open...."


:lol: Al, Fellow Guilders.....I'm thinkin' Perhaps Yoko got lost in #9 Dream.....

"So long ago
Was it in a dream, was it just a dream?
I know, yes I know
Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me.....
Took a walk down the street ( to the Grand Reward Guitar Factory)
Thru the heat whispered trees
I thought I could hear ...hear, hear, hear.( and smell cigarette smoke too)
Somebody call out my name as it started to rain....( 'Yoooooooko'...)
Two spirits dancing so strange ( In the employee incentive office, no doubt)
Ah! b'wakawa pouss?, pouss?" :shock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGFvlnCq-ts

Link added. :wink: ....With YOKO content.


"More I cannot say..." :lol: "What more canI say?"
 
SFIV1967

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adorshki said:
I was thinking about you when I made my last post: "If anybody here has the investigative chops to figure out "where" in China as well as "when", it would be Ralf...and if he can't find it, it can't be found.... :)
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Oh no, I wish I would be able to. I am in China around twice a year but never visited a Guitar factory there.
I have no idea what name or where the factory is that makes the GAD models. I am surprised it's such a secret.
And it is possible the location changed over the years.
I have been to some instruments shops in Beijing, but those had more traditional instruments there. Really nice, I wish I would have enough empty walls to buy them and display them at home. Here's one such example.
The biggest one was $176 (RMB1080). The round middle one was $210 (RMB1285). Mind they were very good quality work and the shop was in general a higher end shop.
The interesting thing is that the "Dunhuang" brand who makes them, is a good Chinese brand, but even in China is many times copied, so webpages warn of copies of those Chinese instruments! http://www.musicoftheorient.com/Authentic_Dunhuang.aspx

The left one is a Liuqin. A sound example is here.
The middle one a Ruan. A sound example is here.
The right one is a Pipa. A sound example is here.

The long one with 3 strings and the snake skin is a Sanxian. Can't import that one into Europe with the snake skin... A sound example is here.

Remember, the Chinese make instruments like those since a long long time ago...
A bit longer history of instrument making there than any of the known US guitar brands have...

ibqthC4ns3huYP.jpg


Ralf
 
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southernGuild

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SFIV1967 said:
All in all, remember that the Chinese make instruments like those since a long long time ago...A bit longer history of instrument making there than any of the known Guitar brands have..
Ralf
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Exactly right Ralf......A Long history of artistry and craftsmenship. They have been making instruments longer than some nations have been nations. :shock:
Those instruments look really cool, and would be fun to try out. I've seen some of them played on Youtube, and they make a magic sound......Seemed to be in some sort of open tuneing as the create an emotive sound uniquely their own. If I visited there, I'd have a hard time not wanting to take one home. They're beautiful.
I had often wonderedif there was a villiage, or town, that has specialised in instrument building from way back......nothing like the Grand Reward Factory of course, but 'old school' traditional instrument building, like perhaps where the original versions of those pictured were made. Probably not even 'a building' but a series of smaller buildings, each specialising in one aspect of construction.
Very interesting.
 
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SFIV1967 said:
adorshki said:
I was thinking about you when I made my last post: "If anybody here has the investigative chops to figure out "where" in China as well as "when", it would be Ralf...and if he can't find it, it can't be found.... :)
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Oh no, I wish I would be able to. I am in China around twice a year but never visited a Guitar factory there.
I have no idea what name or where the factory is that makes the GAD models. I am surprised it's such a secret.
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Wow, I didn't realize you actually get "in country", I was thinking of your usual amazing internet research. :eek:
SFIV1967 said:
The left and right one is a Pipa. If you are interested how they sound listen here.
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Ok, I can't resist asking, what kind of strings sound best on a Pipa? :lol:
SFIV1967 said:
All in all, remember that the Chinese make instruments like those since a long long time ago...A bit longer history of instrument making there than any of the known Guitar brands have...
Ralf
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Yes that point is often left out of discussions about Chinese-made instruments. :wink:
 
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adorshki

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southernGuild said:
nothing like the Grand Reward Factory of course, but 'old school' traditional instrument building, like perhaps where the original versions of those pictured were made. Probably not even 'a building' but a series of smaller buildings, each specialising in one aspect of construction.
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Analogously, I get that impression that the Grand Reward Factory is in fact a complex itself.
Could explain how what was once assembled in "shared space" now gets its own building, if that's what actually happened.
Still kind of curious about that special employee incentive program....hey wait a minute..."Grand Reward"....you don't think?....nahhhhh....it couldn't be.... :shock:
 
SFIV1967

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adorshki said:
I get that impression that the Grand Reward Factory is in fact a complex itself.
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Again, no confirmation that current GAD models are made there, it was only mentioned that in the past "some" of the GAD models were made there. But let me give you some info on Grand Reward that I collected from various sources:
Grand Reward Education & Entertainment (GREE) was established in October 1995. GREE serves more than ten OEM customers, as well as promoting its own brand name: Farida.
The GREE factory is located in Hui Yang city, Guang Dong province, in southern China (roughly 200 km west of Guangzhou, 100 kilometers north of Hong Kong). GREE owns a 130,000 sq. ft. multi-storey facility, on 120,000 sq. feet of land. 800 employees, including 680 highly skilled production staff, handcraft 13,000 instruments monthly, more than 150,000 per year. These are exported around the world—60% of production output goes to the USA, and another 20% is exported to Japan. On average, GREE creates more than 150 models a year. For those that want to visit them (and I am not sure you would be able to, unless you work for one of their ODMs) here is the address: Grand Reward Education & Entertainment, Peng Ling Industrial District, 52 Ju-Yuan Rd., Qiu Chang Town, Hui Yang City, Huizhou, 516221, Guang Dong, China
Now just to show you that there are "a million" guitar makers in China that could potentially make the GAD models, here is a list of Guitar makers in China as of 2010: http://www.qwenkay.com/guitar_manufacturers_china
Ralf
 
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tjmangum

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SFIV1967 said:
Now just to show you that there are "a million" guitar makers in China that could potentially make the GAD models, here is a list of Guitar makers in China as of 2010: http://www.qwenkay.com/guitar_manufacturers_china
Have fun finding out who of those hundreds or even thousands of musical instrument companies makes the GADs as Guild/Fender OEM!
Ralf
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Thought I might find Eastman on the list, but didn't. Seems there was talk at one time that Gibson Masterbilt and GAD Guilds were made at the same place. And when Eastman first emerged, some forums questioned whether they didn't come from the same place too, since the quality was so good.
 
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I recently bought a Guild GAD-JF30BLD and I cannot complain. It was secondhand, well looked after and plays wonderfully (since I had my guitar tech lower the string height and make some slight alterations to intonation).
One of the best acoustics I have ever had.
Love it.
 
SFIV1967

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tjmangum said:
Thought I might find Eastman on the list, but didn't.
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Mind that list is a list of Chinese instrument companies with their Chinese names who exhibited at a show in China in 2010. You won't find brandnames of instruments on that list (like Eastman).
Ralf
 
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Harrysong said:
I recently bought a Guild GAD-JF30BLD and I cannot complain. It was secondhand, well looked after and plays wonderfully (since I had my guitar tech lower the string height and make some slight alterations to intonation).
One of the best acoustics I have ever had.
Love it.
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I see a new member. :D Hello Harry! When I saw your avatar I said to myself "By golly that looks like one of George's guitars..." when I saw your tag line I had to laugh out loud!!
One never thinks of those kind of sentiments coming from our boy George! :lol:
If you haven't seen some of the older threads, he gets a LOT of respect 'round here. :wink:
 
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