What's going on with the Custom Shop?

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Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

The Duncan Custom Shop isn't being run the same as it once was.

The price of popularity


But that being said... the OP is a bit of a nightmare to deal with. I had a VERY similar conversation with a girl not 3 hours ago.

She comes in and says I want a skull with some roses. I say "cool here is a 3 inch thick binder of skulls and roses already drawn ready to go"

"No i want you to draw it... I want something original" inside i sigh and think to myself she wants the least imaginative more unorginal subject but she wants me to redraw it... I give her some suggestions that like i can take this skull with these roses and shift the composition up. Nope not good enough. Then i tell her i have a drawing that I did of a skull and if she likes i can draw a couple roses onto it and see if she likes it.

While Iam drawing shes looking on my wall and sees a classic 70 year old tattoo design and says "thats perfect! thats exactly what i want... but its on the wall i cant possibly get something thats on the wall"

I want to beat my head into the desk.

dead honest I have a sign in my shop that reads "Sometimes your worst customers and your competitors deserve each other" I would have pointed it out to her if i thought that she would have been able to read the english.
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

And then, you have thousands of humbucker bobbins for a custom pickup that only ONE customer wants.

Except they told me they have done it before.

Gabriel, I *do* agree with you on that though. That mag swap in the hot stack seems simple enough. But... I'm sure there's some sort of explanation for why it can't be done.

Maybe they're already tried it, and it sounds crappy?

I truly doubt it'd sound bad. They can make a 22k Alnico 2 humbucker (el diablo) and another at 48k (slug) not sound muddy.
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

But that being said... the OP is a bit of a nightmare to deal with.

In your case, you were the one trying to give feasible suggestions and she was the one denying all of them. In my case, it was the exact opposite. And the only reason I didn't run to the competitors is because I don't know who else does custom pickup designs. The one shop I tried speaking to simply said "we don't do high output pickups".
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

The price of popularity


But that being said... the OP is a bit of a nightmare to deal with. I had a VERY similar conversation with a girl not 3 hours ago.

She comes in and says I want a skull with some roses. I say "cool here is a 3 inch thick binder of skulls and roses already drawn ready to go"

"No i want you to draw it... I want something original" inside i sigh and think to myself she wants the least imaginative more unorginal subject but she wants me to redraw it... I give her some suggestions that like i can take this skull with these roses and shift the composition up. Nope not good enough. Then i tell her i have a drawing that I did of a skull and if she likes i can draw a couple roses onto it and see if she likes it.

While Iam drawing shes looking on my wall and sees a classic 70 year old tattoo design and says "thats perfect! thats exactly what i want... but its on the wall i cant possibly get something thats on the wall"

I want to beat my head into the desk.

dead honest I have a sign in my shop that reads "Sometimes your worst customers and your competitors deserve each other" I would have pointed it out to her if i thought that she would have been able to read the english.

You're a tattoo artist?
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

Yep.... And I got into it long before the boom long before it was hip and every neck beard who rides a fixie started doing it.

Cool. I've been wanting to get more tattoos myself but haven't done it yet. I'm not a very good artist but I always thought I would like to be a tat artist if I were.

Damn neck beard hipsters. Give it time, they will realize they are doing something everybody else wants to do soon enough and return to their typewriters and pseudo coke bottle glasses.
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

i don't think the op is being a nightmare at all. he has a sound in mind (srv fat single coil) and wants it in a humbucker rout. if his designs aren't going to work, the least they could do is offer a pickup they could make that will be similar.
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

ITT, fanbois defending poor customer service for the nth time
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

i don't think the op is being a nightmare at all. he has a sound in mind (srv fat single coil) and wants it in a humbucker rout. if his designs aren't going to work, the least they could do is offer a pickup they could make that will be similar.
But the things that he suggested (as per his own post) would never sound like SRV.

What would I have done? I would've wound an Antinquity Texas Hot neck on an SSL-5 type bobbin. I would've cut the ears off and mounted that to a humbucker mounting plate. Then I would've balanced that with another bobbin would with something inert (string?). There ya go, SRV single coil in a humbucker mount.

Am I a pickup expert? By no means. Am I crazy? Yes. Would this sound like what the OP is looking for? Yeah. Is it a fairly simple solution that does the job? I think it would work.
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

ITT, fanbois defending poor customer service for the nth time

This is a Seymour Duncan forum, not a "DreX's opinions" forum. Of course there are going to be fans of Seymour Duncan and of course there are going to be people who have had nothing but good experiences with Seymour Duncan on a Seymour Duncan forum. That being said, if you had actually read the posts in this thread most people are not defending anybody here but rather making helpful suggestions and giving example scenarios.
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

All I see here are rationalizations; "OP is a bit of a nightmare to deal with", op is a "snobby girl", criticizing OP's design goals, saying OPs idea would require too much R&D, saying OPs idea would sound bad, or OPs idea would make the Custom Shop look bad, well.. a Custom Shop that would refuse a request on those grounds is not really a Custom Shop. The only valid retort is that they're most likely manning a booth at NAMM, but even then they should have an auto-reply for their email so that people like OP will know why they are not receiving a reply now, and when they can expect one later.

Hows that forum pickup coming along, btw?
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

i don't think the op is being a nightmare at all. he has a sound in mind (srv fat single coil) and wants it in a humbucker rout. if his designs aren't going to work, the least they could do is offer a pickup they could make that will be similar.

Thank you.

ITT, fanbois defending poor customer service for the nth time
All I see here are rationalizations; "OP is a bit of a nightmare to deal with", op is a "snobby girl", criticizing OP's design goals, saying OPs idea would require too much R&D, saying OPs idea would sound bad, or OPs idea would make the Custom Shop look bad, well.. a Custom Shop that would refuse a request on those grounds is not really a Custom Shop. The only valid retort is that they're most likely manning a booth at NAMM, but even then they should have an auto-reply for their email so that people like OP will know why they are not receiving a reply now, and when they can expect one later.

Thank you. [2x]

But the things that he suggested (as per his own post) would never sound like SRV.

Am I a pickup expert? By no means.

Neither am I. That's why I was trying to discuss ideas with the SD Custom Shop, who are experts. But they haven't offered anything useful.

Quick update: the dealer said he's talking with their UK distributor, which is in turn talking to the CS. So that might be the problem: the distributor. SD might not even be getting my messages in full, or their messages might not have been sent to me. Unfortunately, they don't sell directly to Europe, which means I can't even call MJ.
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

Quick update: the dealer said he's talking with their UK distributor, which is in turn talking to the CS. So that might be the problem: the distributor. SD might not even be getting my messages in full, or their messages might not have been sent to me. Unfortunately, they don't sell directly to Europe, which means I can't even call MJ.

This is why people need to put locations in their profiles. Had we known you were in Europe and not dealing directly with the CS, you would have saved two pages of discussions.
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

Hey gabrielstreit, I tired to send you a PM somewhat related to this thread, but your account doesn't allow PM's. PM me if you'd like.
 
Re: What's going on with the Custom Shop?

Quick update: the dealer said he's talking with their UK distributor, which is in turn talking to the CS. So that might be the problem: the distributor. SD might not even be getting my messages in full, or their messages might not have been sent to me. Unfortunately, they don't sell directly to Europe, which means I can't even call MJ.
welltheresyou128605672408165562.jpg
 
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