Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

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IanBallard

IanBallard

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PLEASE as a preface to this thread: I don't care about people's perception of Ed Roman's personality, business model or practice or his history. This isn't a thread to flame the guy or his company, since there's obviously been plenty of that to suffice whatever is deserved.

So, has anybody gotten a chance to play these guitars? Some of them look bloody gawdawful and others look absolutely gorgeous. They use Duncan pickups and seemingly good materials. What's the deal with these things?
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

Yeah actually. Years ago, my guitar teacher brought one in. Some Mockingbird copy. I rather dug it. Excellent player. That's about where my usefulness, in this thread, ends.

BUT speaking of the man... His personal FB page was shutdown earlier today because he flat out posted nude pics of chicks from, what looks like, the early 80's. looooooool

Carry on.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

TheLivingDead said:
Yeah actually. Years ago, my guitar teacher brought one in. Some Mockingbird copy. I rather dug it. Excellent player. That's about where my usefulness, in this thread, ends.

BUT speaking of the man... His personal FB page was shutdown earlier today because he flat out posted nude pics of chicks from, what looks like, the early 80's. looooooool

Carry on.
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That's probably the last time he saw a real, naked chick... OK I just went against the "rules" of my own thread. ;)

Anyway, some of the design elements seem to match those that I would prefer, such as extra-deep set neck tenons with the pickups mounted ON the neck wood directly, ebony boards and AAA+ tops. They seem to be a pretty deal for the money, especially his Pearlcaster guitars.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

I've played two. One was a Bud logo with one pick up it was crap although as it sat behind a bar and was handed round at jams I guess that had some of it. I also tried one of his tele style guitars. It wasn't bad BUT it wasn't good. It wasn't worth the money (which has doubled since) and IMO you could do better with Warmouth.

As for the man, he was friends with EVH when EVH was drunk all the time. Eddy doesn't like him now.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

I have herd that he cut corners all the time and was pretty much a dick about getting something fixed if you brought it back. I would love to play one, but i don't think il ever buy one. I understand he doesn't have a showroom any more that he sold it, But if thats true i don't know. honestly he made some of the coolest guitars IMHO
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

IanBallard said:
That's probably the last time he saw a real, naked chick... OK I just went against the "rules" of my own thread. ;)

Anyway, some of the design elements seem to match those that I would prefer, such as extra-deep set neck tenons with the pickups mounted ON the neck wood directly, ebony boards and AAA+ tops. They seem to be a pretty deal for the money, especially his Pearlcaster guitars.
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I called about one of the Pearlcasters once. I think it was the Mutt. I can't remember exactly but I think they wanted like $2500 could have been $3500 for one, it seemed at the time way to high for me, considering. I have one of his Korean Bakers (well I gave it to my kid). It's worth the money I paid for it, $550. It's definitely not worth what he charges though, $1350.

I am with you Ian. I also like some of the features he offers, especially the longer set neck tenons and ebony fingerboards. It's to bad he is the way he is though, if he'd put his prices on his website he wouldn't have to waste his time with emails and phone calls.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

He had a deal with Music Ground a couple of years ago which is how his guitars started to come into London. I'd not really heard of him, save people talking about him on the telecaster forum . Apparently he messed them around so end of deal. Some of the 'Quicksilver' guitars looked nice till you looked at them closely. They were going for $4k and at the time you could get a better PRS, Nik Huber or Shur for half that . The Fender inspired stuff was solid enough but the price was silly, again better known brands could be cheaper.
I don't know about his EVH and J-Frog knock offs I know Zakk Wylde doesn't use an Ed Roman polka dot V he got his from the guy who made the original in spite of what you might read on Ed's site.
His celebrity guitars site is funny.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

My input to the actual purpose of this thread is nil...

But I actually bumped into Ed and chatted with him at two different music stores up here in MT last month. He supposedly has property up here. I was pretty surprized to see him up here -- especially this time of year.

He was going-on at one point about ESP and how he invented one or more of their models and they stole it/them from him, or something to that effect. I just sort of chuckled to myself and smiled and nodded. I knew about Ed's shinanigans from way back in my PRS Forum days. The guy is a legend... mostly in his own mind though...
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

Red_Label said:
My input to the actual purpose of this thread is nil...

But I actually bumped into Ed and chatted with him at two different music stores up here in MT last month. He supposedly has property up here. I was pretty surprized to see him up here -- especially this time of year.

He was going-on at one point about ESP and how he invented one or more of their models and they stole it/them from him, or something to that effect. I just sort of chuckled to myself and smiled and nodded. I knew about Ed's shinanigans from way back in my PRS Forum days. The guy is a legend... mostly in his own mind though...
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I love it!

A legend in his own mind!
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

John_L said:
I don't know about his EVH and J-Frog knock offs I know Zakk Wylde doesn't use an Ed Roman polka dot V he got his from the guy who made the original in spite of what you might read on Ed's site.
His celebrity guitars site is funny.
Click to expand...

Actually Karl Sandoval made Randy's original polka dot vee. Zakk Wylde has a few replicas built by GMW guitars

http://www.gmwguitars.com/Zakk.html
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

I've seen a few clips where the hum/buzzing was awful. I've also read a few pissed off accounts of buying a Roman guitar where the wiring looked like a middle school shop class was hired to do it.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

So from what's been said so far:
Not many people on here have owned or played one (or are just willing to admit it)
They're really expensive, even next to companies such as PRS
The workmanship is dubious
The man himself is a bit of a...

Well he must do something right or he wouldn't still be in business.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

IanBallard said:
I've seen a few clips where the hum/buzzing was awful. I've also read a few pissed off accounts of buying a Roman guitar where the wiring looked like a middle school shop class was hired to do it.
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You've seen my work, eh?

This thread just couldn't survive. Ed is that universally reviled.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

Be careful dealing with this clown, he's about as shady as it gets. There was a local guy that got sucked into buying a replacement neck for his Strat off Ed. He figured no big, deal bolting on a new neck and swapping tuners and nut. That's all it really should have been.

When he got the neck, once he got it on, he could not get the strings to come off the frets. So he found me through a friend of a friend and brought it over. I knew right off the bat it was not one of ER's neck. It was a perfect Fender headstock, Ed isn't lic. by Fender to produce one either. So we got to looking a little closer. The heel of the neck was about 3/16" to short and you could tell by the marks that someone had done some sanding. Got to looking at the back of the headstock. It had been sanded as well, but you could still see a very faint marks in it.

I'm pretty sure the neck was a Mighty Mite neck and he just sanded off the logos from the heel and the back of the headstock, and added a little fret polish. He charged this guy $550 for a $70 neck.

Funny enough, we replaced the "ER" neck with a mighty mite neck and a graphtech nut and he loves it. So all in all, he ended up paying over $600 for a Mighty Mite neck.

I wouldn't buy anything from the guy.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

Mighty Mite necks don't have logos on the back of the headstock, unless there are models that do. Mine didn't though. My MM neck fit my Squier perfectly, except I had to raise the action a bit because my Squier's body is a tad thinner than a typical Fender and the stock neck's heel thickness was a tad less. But I digress...

It does sound like the guy is a sociopath. He seems to (at least on his website) have a plethora of celebrities who are faithful to his products and such. Perhaps he treats the Billy Gibbons type folks differently than the average person looking for a boutique, hand-built guitar.

I certainly am NOT going to deal with him or his company, but I was just curious if people actually played his custom guitars.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

Caution: The following comments might be considered "bashing" and, as such, are to be construed solely as the opinions of the spectral remnant of Jessica Elizabeth Sammler and not of Seymour Duncan, the Seymour Duncan Company, the Seymour Duncan Users' Group Forum at large, or of Diet Mountain Dew™.

Most of my hatred related to this entire industry is concentrated and focused on ER. I've never played one of his guitars and hope I never do.
 
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Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

I've been inside his Las Vegas store, (closed now?) and picked up and jammed a few of those "Pagan" style guitars. I liked them just fine, I'd rock em. But a few times I was close to pulling the trigger on actually buying one, the guys here talked me out of it ha ha ha.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

I tried to write a reply to this, but gave up since it's been beat to death.

Ed Roman is nothing more than a businessman/ broker. He never personally built a guitar. He's owned guitar stores and had repairman and lutheirs he had do the work for him or subcontracted out.

Much different than Paul Reed Smith or John Suhr, who started repairing guitars, then building guitars from the ground up by hand, then trained people in their companies to perform the tasks to their standards.

Ed talks alot about "ghost builders", and that's what he does. He subcontracts the work out to other people. Many time this may lead to quality control problems, sometimes you may get lucky and it might be built by an extremely talented lutheir. There's probably a few very expensive repairmen/lutheirs he has work on or build the rock star guitars to keep them happy.
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

Probably back in like, man... 2002 or 2003 the bass player from a band I mixed a record for ordered a custom bass from Ed Roman. This guy wanted some very very specific stuff... headless like a Steinburger, woods, neck shape... whammy bar etc. I want to say it was a 5-string as well.

All I can remember about the transaction is that he supposedly ordered this thing way before we started mixing, and a year after the record was released he was still waiting. Maybe six months after that he moved to Massachusetts or New Hampshire because of hte day job, somewhere up there and I have NO idea if he ever got the bass.

That's a long freakin' time for a custom thing of ANY type... be it an instrument or an amp or even a car. I mean, it was at least a year and a half that I knew about and a few months before that. Two years?
 
Re: Has anybody here actually owned or extensively played an Ed Roman guitar?

No, but I extensively overlooked him for over an hour talking gear with a sales rep, and found him very interesting in a funny opinionated gear leprechaun sort of way!

But I will say this....If you can own a guitar store that has thousands of killer guitars in Las Vegas, and his store is NO JOKE, then you've got something going on.
His store is the size of a Walmart full of every imaginable kind of guitar. It's really something to see if you go to Vegas.
 
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