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What's everyone's hour charge to install a Baggs Anthem? Thanks!

Pat

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Pat

Buy it here and I'll typically do a basic install for free. Otherwise it's $50 and includes a basic set up. Strings are optional and extra.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

So Brian, you’re still basically doing it for free, right?
Your doing a setup which would be about $50 and installing a pickup which requires drilling/reaming the endpin hole to accept a strap jack and drilling a hole in the bridge to install the pickup element through, mounting thecontrols and the bridge plate mic. I figure the adjustment of the saddle height as part of the setup

I usually figure one hour of labor for most pickup installs. Ream the hole, install the transducer (whatever kind), mount the electronics and battery, shave the saddle by the thickness of the transducer if required. I don't include a setup unless that has been discussed - I ask if the action is acceptable and if so thats where I put the saddle height. A setup (relief, nut and 12th action, intonation) would be separate.

This can go completely wrong - I recently had a very nice hand build guitar for a Fishman p/u - turned out there was a sound hole brace in the way of the electronics, the end block was too thick for the jack and the bottom of the saddle slot was not routed flat. I still charged one hour.

A too thick endblock has been the biggest problem that I nave encountered (a few times). Required spotfacing a recess into the insidr face of the end-block to recieve the jack. If the preamp is attached to the jack and is to large torecess into the block, I have wired a separate jack to the preamp and mounted the electronics to the inside back of the guitar with velcro.

That's a hard deal to beat!

Pat

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Pat

So..A basic acoustic set up here is $35 + strings. So I am making an extra $15 that way. I make more selling them a baggs system as I am a dealer.

The free with purchase basic install includes no set up work. Simply loose the strings Drill out the endpin and a hole for UST and install. Mark and cut the saddle bottom the height of the UST and put the strings back. I can do a Lyric or I beam in 15 minutes or less if the instrument has no issues. An Anthem is a bit more work but is a higher priced system.... and I push the buy it here thing.

Now granted I do have all the tools and bits at the ready for this job as a dedicated set that never leaves my front bench.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

I am a dealer for LRBaggs, Schatten and Seymour Duncan — generally i price them at minimum advertised price. If I sell an acoustic PUP, the install is $30. If you supply your own, it’s $60. I honestly can’t remember ever installing a PUP where I didn’t also do a service (I offer two levels, depending on the instrument, your strings or mine). (Prices in CAD)


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But after further thought, I realize I’ve indeed done a few PUP installs without a setup, but it’s very rare.



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Anthem install that requires drilling: 75$

Anthem install that requires no drilling: 40$

Anthem install that requires removal of K+K pickup: 550$ (not really, I just really hate the d*mn things lol)

Occasionally I get the odd guitar that the Anthem brain unit simply won't fit around the braces in the area. Usually they're just too tall so I make little "standoffs" that hide glue in place and can easily be removed if someone wanted to later on down the road.

Why do you hate the K & K pickups? I really like the way they sound. Granted most of my experience with them was stacking one up against an old expression system that packed it in on a Taylor I owned.

I'm guessing but I suspect that Dan hates removing a K&K not the pups themselves. I hate removing them too it's very difficult to do without harming the elements. K&K's do sound great.

We don't publish our price list but we are higher than anyone here and then some. We do some additional things on the install such as use our saddle mill to truly flatten the saddle slot. We also drill angled holes (X-brace location permitting....) to tuck the dead UST element tip out of the way and to not have a 90 degree angle where the UST passes through the bridge plate, top and bridge.

We also don't drill a 1/2" hole and that's bad news and will be responsible for loose jacks from that point forward. I'm home at the moment and forgetting what the hole size we do drill for the jack but's it's not drilled but reamed with the SM end jack reamer to the flat spot specifically designed for a tight fit with jacks. The finish is chamfered around the hole too.

BTW the saddle slot and saddle are precision flattened to avoid balance issues when one area of the UST may not have the same saddle contact, we correct this permitting our installs to not have to have a preamp.

We also discount our set-up since we have the strings off or slacked and use pup installs as a stalking horse for spotting guitars that could benefit, the human too.... from a set-up.

We have two prices for a pup install one higher than all of you and one other one higher than that one for the Anthem specifically. Why higher for an Anthem, there are two elements to be concerned with a mic and a UST. It's a nit I know but it's also value.... and when you or we provide value we are entitled to be compensated for it.

We don't sell pups, we used to but quit because we now refuse to sell anything. We are not a music store and instead have a laser focus on high end repair work. With street pricing on pups today so low anyway there is nothing to be made but mouse nuts on mark-up anyway. So we ask our clients to source their pup wherever they wish and bring it all to us and go from there. It's worked fine for us and most of this year we have been on a waiting list only to take work in we are so busy these days.

Not telling anyone what to do but some of your prices are WAY below the national norms that I keep a pretty close eye on. I'll add not all installations are easy. you may have to counter bore a too thick tail block and correct other issues you spot and just eat it in terms of charging. But it balances out in the end.

Consider raising your prices you will never lose a client over the price of a pup install and our view is that if someone is that sensitive to price and tells us we help them out. If they don't tell us and go somewhere else over price with no eye on quality it's business we would not want anyway.

Hesh, I would remind you that not all our markets are as large and vibrant as yours and the pricing that works in a location like your's, NYC or Nashville would never work in an area like mine or even my former, larger metro area.... Couple that with the large music academy up the road from you with new upscale students every year and I can see how it would work for you. But you can price yourself out of any market....

I view it quite the opposite.... Some of you are gouging for this service. I base all my billing on honest time spent working on an instrument and routine jobs like this should be a known quantity to almost the second. As I said I can do the average Baggs install in 15 minutes. Even if I billed a half hour that would be $30...... So I guess some of you are charging $200/hr?????

Also being absolutely no retail changes your approach as you must make all your money from service. Profits at MAP may be "mouse nuts" but they are profits none the less. And having the CORRECT parts needed for any job that comes in rather than what the customer thought he needed saves me so much wasted time/labor ( PROFIT!) in phone calls and other hassles I would never do thing as you do. I'll take my meager profits on the sale/install and know I have a lifelong customer who will tell and bring all his friends. Word of mouth and foot traffic is the only way to survive in the days of internet commerce if you are brick & mortar.

In the end it's a customer service game and that means you gotta go above and beyond what GC or AMS offer....

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

This statement from LR B and my free install policy actually sell me a few of these every year...

"Please Note: LR Baggs products must be installed by an authorized LR Baggs dealer to qualify for warranty coverage. Warranty support will not be provided for home or hobbyist installations."

Hint... if you do not sell them you are not authorized

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Well Bri my friend we will just have to agree to disagree.

What musical academy do you speak of, we having nothing of the sort in our area.

Less than 4% of our clients are students of any sort so that's not much of our market at all. We have 50,000 students in our area but they are busy making noise on their...... iPad..... and not playing guitar it seems. Our largest market, most Luthier's largest market is the 55 year old and up male who played guitars.

Here's why we won't and don't use time spent as the basis for our billing. We have a proper business location that costs us money, overhead. We carry a couple million dollars of insurance as well and that costs us money.

For me to put pen to paper, stop what I am doing, triage an instrument and deal with the client and perhaps take it in and then on the other end it's stop what I'm doing.... deal with the client again, plug his arse in to an amp, listen to him hear the results and field questions all takes our time and our money. I just bought a new credit card terminal, $600... and this is also overhead as well as processing fees.

Are you aware Bri of the term "opportunity costs?" No problem if you are If not and for everyone else it means that if I have to deal with you I can no longer deal with Bill over there. Or, in short the time and money I spend on one job or task prevents me from realizing the time and money I could make on another job or task.

Then there is cost accounting. If someone sells a pup for $99 and pays for $70 for it there is NOT $29 in profit. With overhead, facility costs, time sourcing, ordering, receiving, checking etc. we decided that we lose money trying to match a street price on highly discounted guitar swag and stuff.

Additionally every quarter I have to pay a bookkeeper to enter our transactions and annually I have to pay them to account for everything. There is also the sales tax. Mouse nuts again but we have to file quarterly income tax returns with the freaking state and an annual sales tax return as well.

If one, not you Bri but generically speaking if one is truly honest about their REAL costs be they direct, indirect, or opportunity costs that $99 pup in our case would lose us some money and make us nothing. Your mileage may be the same and likely is if someone pays the level of overhead that brick and mortar businesses have to pay.

Regarding our market it is not the most expensive. We just raised our prices and are now on a par with Elderly Instruments our local friends and who we refer our overflow to and they refer to us. They also have a Collins Saddle Mill that they bought from us. Anyway Chicago, most of the west coast, New York all command prices beyond ours.

Not being critical of anyone here I am simply stating facts and giving you folks a rare and accurate view into the actual numbers of a very successful repair only business. I was also trained to run corporations and have business degrees and underwent true costs, business accounting, cost accounting, opportunity costs, marketing and of course and sadly... taxes.

My mentor was also known as Neutron Jack... He once laid off 75,000 people with the stoke of a pen. World's most famous CEO who helped make 80,000 stockholders millionaires.

Jack is famous for saying and I am paraphrasing here be number one or number two in all that you do or do something else.... Jack was my boss.

That's our motto at Ann Arbor Guitars and it's served us very well. If we can't be in the top two selling musical instrument accessories or products we won't do it. As such our focus is laser focused on only.... doing the highest quality repair work available and that's our identity too.

We also march to the saying do one thing well instead of a bunch of things ******......

Please don't take offense with my remarks if you find that you are banging your head on the wall doing things differently. Instead perhaps, just perhaps try to understand that Hesh here is not bragging, he's not being competitive, he's not even being his usual a-hole self. I am offering folks here real life data from a business who's made over a million to date and climbing. BTW this is again all labor, we don't sell anything..... Back in the day I would have killed to have access to some of the stuff I'm now sharing.

Lastly the time spent model also does not take into account value received. With say our saddle mill or our head stock jig widely used in the repair world by others these days we can do difficult things in minutes.... But if you charged for the time spent you would be leaving lots of money on the table for both the value received AND the investment in the special tools and jigs that we invested heavily in to do high quality work.

Regarding what I call Value based pricing when we use the head stock jig that Dave designed, built and shared with the world the work may only take an hour or less. But the value is saving a $3,000 guitar at times from the scrap heap. Our view is that with true cost accounting, considering opportunity costs, considering our prior investment in tooling, research, production, etc we charge far more for this repair than the actual time spent. No one pushes back on our pricing either which tells us that we have always been leaving money on the table......

And really lastly some of us are pretty good. I set up a bass last week in 11 minutes and did what we counted to be 74 adjustments on the instrument and cleaned it too all along the way. We charged the client our set-up price which is WAY higher than what I've read here and the client gave us a five star review. He's thrilled and is not interested in the sausage making because he received the value he had hoped for and is happy to pay for that.

To date and with over 260 five star reviews we have never received anything but five star reviews from clients who we actually did work for. The few bad reviews are from people I who turned away and refused to work for sensing them to be problematic. We never touched the instruments of these turned away people nor did we accept money from them either.

And really lastly in my travels and direct experience here are the two most common things that cause Luthiers to fail:

1). Trying to be all things to all folks. If you are not good at a specific repair turn it away and instead like Jack said concentrate on what you can be number one and number two at.

2). Not understanding true costs of time, labor, stuff, overhead and most importantly.... opportunity costs. While I'm struggling with some POS that I never wanted to take in I could be doing three jobs that are more profitable and I enjoy doing.... as an example.

Thanks

I don't agree. The intent of this Baggs statement is a hedge against some hobbyist with a Craftsman 55 piece socket set hacking up an Anthem installation.

Baggs never intended to force well established businesses with brick and mortar addresses and tens of thousands of clients from providing installation services with full warranty in tact. We have stocked Baggs in the past, received and qualified for dealer pricing and in the end thought it was a bad idea for us to tie up our coin on something that is retail. We are not retail and are you aware just how many small retailers have gone teats up in the world in the last ten years? We are a Baggs dealer but not currently stocking.

Warranties also vary from state to state. For example in Michigan registering a warranty, anyone's warranty is not required regardless of what the manufacturer says.

In the end for us though what was the most important thing even above and beyond profit and costs was this:

It's our mission to remain agnostic to products and instead concentrate on service. Not selling the wares of others was a specific choice for us to once again do one thing exceptionally well instead of a bunch of thing ******.

Our clients, many of them rely on us for honest no BS advice and we can't do that if we have a vested interest in one product over another.

We likely have more than one Baggs install weekly and we tell our clients to get them where ever they want. We recommend Baggs too.

I have a call into Baggs to make sure that my interpretation of that statement that you posted Brian is valid and not yours. If it comes to pass that Baggs does indeed void warranties if an established shop is not stocking we won't be recommending them anymore, that's BS. I believe that we install slightly over 50 Baggs pups annually and at least that many K&Ks with Fishman being up there too these days.

Just spoke with LR Baggs regarding the statement of non-warranty if not a stocking dealer and I'm correct this is not their intent.

The intent is to shield Baggs from the liability of a hack in his/her basement screwing up a Baggs installation and then dumping on Baggs for replacement.

I've been assured that one does not have to be a stocking dealer or dealer of Baggs at all provided that they are a real, established brick and mortar business with a business address and in the repair business. Businesses such as Ann Arbor Guitars do not void warranties when we install Baggs products even if we do not sell them.

As Hesh stated I don't really hate the pickups I just hate the install method. Anything that superglues to anything in an acoustic is a real pain to get out without destroying the pickup. A sidenote too, I've found that the average k+k install is done with copious amounts of superglue, resulting in lots of goop on the plate to clean up.

I will say this, I've removed easily 3x more k+k minis than I've ever installed. I attribute the popularity to the cost as well as the massive amount of advertising they did on the AGF 8 years ago.



Keep in mind, just because you can do something at x price doesn't mean everyone else has to.

Like Hesh I don't price things out based on hourly. I like to pay my rent on time and partially I price things out to let me do that. I've had a few people over the years think it's silly that I charge what I charge for a neck reset.
I recall one guy in particular who wanted the neck reset on his 66' Hummingbird. At this point in my career I knew exactly what was needed for a high quality neck reset on this guitar and I knew how to price them accordingly.. I informed him of the average cost for a Gibson of that era for me could be between 600-800$ if a refret is needed and/or if there's previous work to undo. He scoffed and informed me that he'd just paid 300$ to have it done the year prior. I didn't get into it with him but I simply told him "you're not paying for my time, you're paying for my ability to get it done right". I also informed him that a neck reset that only lasts a year is not a good reset no matter who did the job, I also advised he get his money back.

I make no apologies for what I charge, because frankly I don't care if someone does it cheaper. Bottom line is if it pays my bills and keeps my family fed then that's what business is for at the end of the day. If I make some friends on the way then that's great, but the goal is to pay rent/groceries first and everything else after.

That would be a 15/32" bore.

Pat

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Pat

Yes, thank You Pat!!! Motor mouth here can't remember things as well as I used to......

Sitting here grinning like an idiot because I'm so happy to read Dan's approach to the market and what we do. I'm in complete agreement with Dan on all points.

Like Dan we don't give much of a ***** what others do either. We just set out long ago to do our thing and make it work for us and our families and where we are today is a result of these efforts. I'll add that both Dave and I like going to work and like the work that we do. That's huge, not everyone can say that.

Because Lutherie is usually a solitary activity we have to wear many hats at times and be pretty sharp with what we do. Our focus is pretty tight on the work and nothing else these days and it serves us and the clients that we do take on very well.

Wanted to add that the day we started around 7.5 years ago with this business longer with our previous two businesses the day we started AAG we took over the third floor of a closing music store. He had tens of thousands of dollars of inventory that no one wanted and this even included some acoustic pups that were out of fashion and favor. Most of that crap is still shoved in the closets of our space and abandoned. It's old, worthless and often debunked retail offerings that are part of the reason why music stores fail, excessive inventory that no one wants.

That was a warning to us and we heeded it. Selling stuff that anyone else can hang out a shingle and sell is the very last thing that we ever wanted to be when we grew up. Instead like Jack used to say we wanted to be in the top two in what our value proposition is and was and that's our repair chops.

There is no reason why your hourly rate can't include all the things you discussed right? That's the way I do it but then this is a side kick for me so if I'm off a bit it's win win for the customer and I still get to eat

My prices are on par with Brian and I am definitely in the rural market.

As for K and K and JJB style pickups, I've removed a few and they don't come out easy. I'll never guarantee that I won't ruin one trying to remove it. But they sound best glued in place so it's a trade off. I think they are pretty good pickup systems though.