Endorsements that make you trust/want a product less.

I pay zero attention to enwhoresments

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Having had some, I look at endorsements a little differently. I don't view endorsement deals as a marketing ploy, but rather a partnership between artist and company. I remember talking with another bassist about this on the road. He endorsed Music Man basses and I Spector. We both played what we liked, and that was that. It's rare that these deals ever involve handouts and free stuff. Most of us believe in the stuff and made a partnership.

Really, why would anyone buy gear based on someone else's preferences? Unless you're the ultimate fan boy of someone and want to look like them, you should seek your own stuff. That's the problem I have with build to order companies like Kiesel (Carvin), is that someone built THEIR dream guitar, and it's not mine. In the end, find your own style.

...or buy a Razorback and play Pantera songs through your Dime full stack. Whatever.
 
Not really, I guess I used to growing up. These days I tend to check out gear that I like that someone is using who is NOT endorsed. That's when you know they truly like it instead of getting a paycheck.
 
Anybody that does demos of amps with shitty, grainy, harsh sounding IR's.

And that fuckhead on Tone Wars. He dimes the gain on everything and boosts the hell out of it to the point that it sounds like hot garbage. He has no business doing demos.

You didn’t like this one? I thought he did a pretty good job with it!

 
And that fuckhead on Tone Wars. He dimes the gain on everything and boosts the hell out of it to the point that it sounds like hot garbage. He has no business doing demos.
At least you know it'll sound better in your hands than his, contrary to many other demo guys who make everything sound great.
 
Marty Friedman is my favorite guitar player of all time. All time. Has never played a bad note in his life as far as I’m concerned.

Anytime he endorses something I start laughing because I’ve literally heard him say “I don’t care about gear, my tech or the studio guy will make it sound good…I just want to play”…lol

Love him but watching him endorse stuff is hilarious.

Beyond that…when a new product is released and the wave of YT zombie reviewers start popping their vids out, I just start hitting ignore channel like a maniac!
Perceptions and likes change.

Entirely possible he found something that changed his early emotion.
 
An endorsement means nothing to me. If I want it, I'll buy it even if it was endorsed by someone I despise. But I won't just buy something even if i like them(cough...mxr dime distortion). I will buy almost anything Gary Holt digs...but he's never let me down.
 
EVH is great and to me that means great quality even regular people could afford for what you get.



I mean there are things EVH could have signed off on like offering cheaper parts and materials for the stuff under his name but IMO for the money your really getting the best you can from the parts, build and even the case. Or he could have just jacked up the price way more just for having the name EVH on gear. Dude didn't just want to put his name on something and sell it IMO.


A lot of things to make EVH guitars could be made to cut corners and yeah it's not boutique, but for the money you get a pretty great quality product that offers good gear for players that isn't expensive as hell.


I don't think Eddies objective was to just make stuff for the money and he really wanted to offer quality that regular people could afford so they could have access to good gear too.
 
For example the upper tier EVH guitars could just have regular necks but they come with quartersawn necks for not a whole lot more money if at all.


Overall all the ones I have played have been pretty light and offer thin paint like on Charvels too, great pups and hardware. For some a more comfortable neck compared to a Jackson or Charvel too.


EVH could have said hey let's use a polyester gig bag and charge the same but nope you get a TSA SKB/EVH case that's practically an SKB-66 Pro made for the EVH line and even better than the regular SKB 66 for example for less money than either the 66-Pro or the regular 66.


Used to work at SKB too back in the day and we had a guitar of his, a Wolfgang Special signed with an SKB/EVH case hanging off the sales floor wall with a picture of him too. And when you look at the cases they don't cost more than an SKB66 Pro or the regular SKB-66 and cost less but it's practically the same case. So they are kind of loosing money on just making sure to offer a better case for customers too.



Little things like that IMO makes EVH endorsements or products stand out to not cut corners, offer great quality, a great price even if it meant not making as much money as he could for example with the cases. At this point they could offer cheap Mono cases or gigbags given trends and charge as much or more but that stuff didn't cut it for Eddie and he wanted to offer quality at a good price to people. If it wasn't good enough for him, it wasnt affordable for most regular people, he wasn't going to put his name on it and he wasn't going to sell it.
 
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I've been playing PRS Guitars since 1994 DESPITE 99% of their endorsers.

I was gonna bring this up too. Especially now that they have non-poly guitars, I would totally rock a PRS even though I despise every single one of their endorsers besides Mikael Akerfelt, who is a badass and beyond reproach. His PRS SE (!) signature is really nice for an import. I'd probably just get a black singlecut of some flavor (s2 or whatever) and call it good.

Honestly he's an example of someone who I trust with their endorsements; the Laney and Synergy stuff he used sounds great and isn't stupid expensive.

He gives me EVH vibes.

But PRS has the cringiest, most lame endorsers imaginable. To the point where sometimes I think they are actively hurting their business model.
 
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