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Just watched a 3 part Martin tour put out by Martin about 5 months ago. I've toured the factory dozens of times since the late 80's, and the transformation of their processes during that time has been amazing. It always fascinated me to see the changes in workflow/production methods from one year to the next. I think that automating most of their processes over time has undoubtedly been key to their ability to stay in business and thrive. But it's still kind of sad to me. Now their crafts people are referred to as "operators" for the most part, and that's probably an accurate term. It is now pretty much like watching any other company's factory tour, where Martin's used to be a little more special, being a kind of hybrid between old school and new school methods. They've always been factory guitars, but somehow now the high precision consistency of their guitars (at a very high level still for the most part) has taken away some of the karma for me anyway. The automation has undoubtedly improved production quality and efficiency. And I applaud them for not only still being around and building high quality production guitars, but for continuing to employ local folks.

I worked in high tech my whole career going back into the mainframe days. I built instruments as the antidote to my daily grind as much as for any other reason. I use CNC in my shop and have for many years, but still prefer to do almost everything by hand. But I'm getting up in years and find myself longing for the good old days! There's no escaping automation when you're in a mass production situation, and that's fine. Martin used to seem like sort of a hybrid between mass production and hand work, but not any more.

Curmudgeon Dave

Wow. A fellow builder sent me a couple hundred photos from a tour he took ten years ago. Lots of changes, more machines, fewer people, "utilizing technology," as the tour guide said about a hundred times. Interesting melding of guitar building and manufacturing process engineering. I agree, production quality and efficiency are improved with good manufacturing techniques, but I wonder if guitars built this way today will have the mojo we see now in the good old good ones.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

So I'll be the one to point out that sure times change and so do methods and even tooling. The OLF is also an example of this with many here now employing CNC, lasers, exotic materials, finishes and CAD.

All these things still have "users" and "operators" and just like with a PLEK which is nothing more than a CNC fretwork machine the results are only as good as the operator and the real benefit is greater production output through an iterative process.

I'm a life long tech guy too degrees in Computer Science and business. In school my RPG II card deck went to the mainframe at night for batch processing while my Fortran 77 ran in real time on the DEC mini. My Timex Sinclair was followed by an Apple IIC and then one of the IBM PCs that came next. Then the XT, AT and the rest is history. I became an enterprise software guy and that's when I took up guitar building building my first in my Residence Inn suite in Sunnyvale, California where I was a GE representative to what Jack Welch, my boss called that new fangled vaporware economy with valuations 32 times earnings that will never amount to anything. That was when we were the biggest company and manufacturer in human history. Now those new fangled vaporware companies make where I used to work look like small ball and insignificant at times.

But here's the bottom line. I see Martins in need of a little love every day. Sometimes I think to myself that some here may not be aware that there are shops who may take in dozens instruments a week for repairs but there are and we are one of them. We see what Martin produced last week and we see what they produced in 1935 commonly.

My impression as someone who has hands on with these wonderful instruments is that if anything quality today is just as good as it was in the 70's, 50's, 40's, 30's and even the 1867 that we restored.

What's different though is that Martin like all good companies grew up and expanded to be a company that is a sincere pleasure to work with and be the eyes and ears of as they told us they wished us to be in the field. We are very well supported and that is because both Martin and our repair shop will always put the customer first.

I've seen Martin cover a neck reset on a 70's D-28 with the only evidence of ownership being a toothless, smiling kid holding a Martin D-28.

As someone who knows a bit about the business world Martin's commitment to error on the side of customer satisfaction is rather extraordinary these days and very welcome too. We used to do warranty repair work for another company that we dropped because they wanted us to "squirt glue under the wings and smash them down" and call it good.... We do don't that, it's our name on the work, we remove bridges properly, clean and expand at times surfaces, use superior glues such as HHG and make repairs that exceed or match the original standard of work.

So with all this said I'm speaking in defense of Martin not that I need to. Tech has to be employed, no one really has any choice at a certain level of business development. Tech need not reduce quality and in fact likely improves it.

A guitar maker is more than the box they produce. It's their face to the world, how they treat us, the customers. Distribution channels and who they choose to partner with to represent them in this world.

That toothless kid is an old man now who is retired and plays hie beloved D-28 every day. Let's see.... what's in my home that I've had 50 years and still receive value out of today? Nothing.....

It's not easy being that standard of an industry that all others are judged against. But Martin pulls it off with terrific people, a multi-century commitment to quality and these days new products that are what people are asking for as well as faithful continuance of the traditional guitars that got Martin to where they are today.

What do the artists think of Martin? In these parts with a rich tradition of live music we rarely see anyone play anything else with vintage Gibson being common too. Vintage Gibsons were made here in Michigan as well.

I have a CEO-7 that I ordered as my retirement guitar. Can't wait to get it. When I started building guitars 20 years ago I gave away all my Martins to force myself to play my own creations I thought I would become a better builder if I had to suffer through what I needed to learn.

It's time to own a Martin again and I'm looking forward to it too.