What exactly IS NAMM anyway?

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Phil Maneri

Soon the Walmart mentality will overrun most commerce and China will own our asses. We'll be standing here holding the bag wondering "wa happened?"

If anybody has any ideas about how to change this progression I'm all ears.

Phil, the Walmart/China thing is already here! I have seen Guitars and Strings at our local Walmart for the last few years. Making in China now is no different than it was making in Japan, Korea or Taiwan when they started making Guitars. Little by little the quality went up but cheap stuff was always available depending on what you order them to make.

Now a kid goes and buys by price and gets junk no matter where he shops. NAMM cares ZIP about quality and cares ZIP about our products. NAMM is like a PIMP for anyone that can pay their way in the door and that's a fact by their own actions. There is more junk at NAMM than you can shake a stick at. I would be there waiting for someone to come by the booth and try to figure out what we are doing for a living amongst all the garbage around us. Sure there are a lot of good products at all price points but not enough to fill 5 football fields worth of exhibit booth space!

So, if you go to NAMM be prepared to walk miles on a hard cement floor covered by thin carpet and wear ear plugs if you care about your ears. Also, I have never returned from a Show and NOT been sick for a week or two after if not getting sick before or during from the travel, prep and booth set-up.

I was once told by some old timers that NAMM was formed for the benefit of its members. I just don't see that and I have been going for 28 years up until this year, quitting time as far as NAMM goes! The NAMM org. is a business. A huge business milking the small guy. That's how I see it.

[David Powell]

Well, I can honestly say that I have not been in a Walmart in over ten years, probably more than 15 years. But I have seen children's toy guitars at Home Depot. Big Box margeting is so annoying when one is trying to find quality and service.

I've been doing some research on the web on custom EBG builders. I was really surprised at how many are out there. It would seem that the emergence of the internet has made getting a toe into the business easier. I know not all of these guys are accomplished builders, and if you took a poll on how many actually make a living doing it, probably it wouldn't be that many.

It was a lot different back when you started out Ken. I remember seeing some full page magazine adds in Guitar Player (I don't think Bass Player existed) and I know it must have been a real battle getting the word out about your instruments then. These days with the internet, NAMM is less relevant. Here in Atlanta we finally have Jim Rubio's Bass Gallery, and he is keen to keep an eye out for emerging talent and generally has a good number of basses by recognized individual makers including you. So Atlanta is lucky in that Jim is our "NAMM".

I really don't blame you for skipping NAMM. I do think smaller trade shows would be interesting that would feature authentic individual custom maker's instruments. That would be a pleasure. I would hate to be Jim Rubio and have to go through what you describe just to see the latest Ken Smiths, Jens Ritters, Eshenbaughs, etc. It might be interesting to see what some of these other makers think of NAMM. The American market is so important that most of them feel obliged to participate, but I can't help but thinking that many of them would feel the same as you do and would prefer a trade show that showcased the custom made basses.

There are some makers that are so disenchanted with the dealership/distributor situation that they only deal directly with customers. That is, to me, not the best situation for either the maker or the customer. At some point it is necessary for a customer to be able to compare. But if you go to GC to compare, you are comparing one company's Asian mass production method to another's. Not really much to compare. There was a time when the American factory made bass was not so different from the way your basses are made. True, there was not always a strong central figure or "founder" always there matching the wood and doing the final set-up and inspection, but in the days when Roger Rossmeisl worked for Rickenbacker, you had a sense that those instruments were being built to a higher standard. More than the Asian manufacture, it is the corporatizing of everything that has resulted in the current situation. If you aren't going to NAMM, that says a lot about what is there.

[Ken Smith]

from David Powell: There was a time when the American factory made bass was not so different from the way your basses are made.

When was that David? Please, when you get a chance study our Factory Tour pages which give only hints of how hand-made and hands-on we actually are from the raw lumber to the finished product.

I don't think any Factory Basses were ever made in this fashion regardless of how good some think the 'old ones' were. We are actually more like old school Violin makers but making solid Body Electric Basses employing some of the transferable techniques used in the centuries past.

[David Powell]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

When was that David? Please, when you get a chance study our Factory Tour pages which give only hints of how hand-made and hands-on we actually are from the raw lumber to the finished product.

I don't think any Factory Basses were ever made in this fashion regardless of how good some think the 'old ones' were. We are actually more like old school Violin makers but making solid Body Electric Basses employing some of the transferable techniques used in the centuries past.

I didn't mean to imply that the level of care was as great as what you give, just that there was more individual attention given than the current state of affairs. I guess the time I was talking about was "in the days when Roger Rossmeisl worked for Rickenbacker ...." that was in the sixties. Before that he worked for Gibson, after Rickenbacker he worked briefly for Leo Fender. Probably he should have never worked for anyone but himself or his father Wenzel who founded Roger guitars in Germany. In that time, no, there was no company in America that did it how you do it. But we are talking about extreme attention to detail when we talk about your methods and philosophies and I have taken the "tour". But there was a time when at the factories of Rickenbacker, Gibson, and even to an extent Fender, that individual makers ideas and building philosophies were more important than corporate bottom lines. For instance at Rickenbacker, Rossmeisl did the set-ups and dressed frets as well. He wasn't just at the drawing table. Of the surviving legacy American companies, Rickenbacker is definitely not Ken Smith. But in my opinion, there is still more care there than in many others, possibly because the business is still family owned. I can see it and hear it in those instruments.

But more importantly, what would you think of a true custom bass guitar maker's trade show? Perhaps a more intimate thing than NAMM where a small shop like Jim's could visit instead of wading through all the ___ at NAMM.

[Tim Bishop]

I thought NAMM was an acronym for National Association of Making Money! LOL..... : )

[Richard Prowse]

Originally Posted by Tim Bishop

I thought NAMM was an acronym for National Association of Making Money! LOL..... : )

Hello Tim and welcome!

[John Sprague]

Hey Ken, I'll ring in on this one with one small tidbit:
On Sunday, they made everybody show photo ID to match the badges, which cut down on alot of the riff-raff. Sunday was all business, that insanity of trying to tie up the loose ends amidst a flood of people thinking they were gonna buy a cheap instrument or get a star's autograph was thankfully gone.

I think the days of getting dealers to make appointments was gone before my time, I've never had any success with it. I've even walked the floor hunting down specific dealers that I wanted to meet. Two of my top ten I met that way lol. That's alot of money to put into that show to think "well, maybe". I don't blame you for bailing.