Who is Virgil Arlo?

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Do any of you, resident californians in the San Diego area, personally know Virgil Arlo, allegedly boutique winder extraordinaire?

His FB presence at one point tells he's recuperating from a shoulder injury... however, I haven't been able to find a single picture of him on social media... does he even exist?

Can somebody here help?
 
Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

The Tone Specific guy posted the following statement on the TDPRI forum:
Tone Specific said:
Customers have been sending us e-mail over the past week or so telling us that we needed to pay attention to this forum. I was hoping to get out of here a little early today but I wanted to do this before the weekend. There is a lot that goes into our process of making pickups and running a business in general so you won't find me here that often but I did want to stop by and say hello.

Wow, there are pages and pages of discussion dominated by a few individuals that are not customers of ours. I wish these people well. I'm not here to argue or to try to change the minds of these people.

Our goal is 100% satisfaction to our customers. We work very hard everyday to make a great product and to be available to our customers. We strive to answer all e-mails quickly in a thoughtful way. I think you will have a very hard time finding a customer that has been unhappy with our service or our products.

When scrolling through the pages discussion our product you do find some nice reviews from our actual customers. Also, some nice individuals who said nice things even though they have not tried our products. Let me say thank you to these people. Your support is appreciated.

To address our critics, I understand why you might not want to buy our pickups. You have an understanding of the specifications of pickups. There are certain requirements you have before buying a pickup. Our approach to this business fails to accommodate your requirements. It is your right not to agree with our approach and to not buy our products. That's fine and I wish you well in musical journey with the pickups chose to play.

The idea behind Tone Specific is to make a really well made product that sounds great but is also easy for customer to choose. I think a lot of companies selling pickups these days offer so many different models with specs that appear to be somewhat similar that it can be very difficult for the consumer to choose. That difficulty could lead to many trips to the guitar tech to find your tone.

We offer a handful of pickups for Strats, Tele's & Humbuckers. We have several guitarist that demo each of these pickups against each other so the consumer can hear the differences. We use the same guitarists in these videos in attempt to make the comparison a good comparison. I know from experience in gear hunting that trying to compare multiple youtube video's can be difficult.

I have a few friends in music business and the business of guitar gear and they warned me before I not to engage on forums. The fact is not everyone is going to like us. That's fine, I hold no ill feeling towards anyone. I wish even our harshest critic well.

If you are a person considering one of our products, please contact us at www.tonespecific.com we are available Mon-Fri 9AM-5PM California time.
Click to expand...

Then a long-standing forumite in this forum going with the handle "LtKojak" asks direct question addressing some of the doubts about the rumous going around:

LtKojak said:
What exactly entails "making p'ups"? Sourcing the parts, wire, winding and assembling'em in house, or shipping an outsourced finished product made elsewhere? I'd like to have a specific answer from the source so we can put this matter to rest.

OK, then tell us if the rumour going around about your company manufacturing and selling the "Virgil Arlo" p'ups.

Can you provide with a definitive answer so we can put also this matter to rest too? The circumstantial evidence indicating both products coming from the same source is far too strong to ignore:

The domain register of both domains is the same. In both cases the actual person is redacted and subject to the following status, indicating the actual registrant being some kind of corporate entity:
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited

However, this can be explained with the register complying with the new norms for privacy in Europe, as many other americans businesses are doing.

Also look at the creation date of both domains:
Virgil Arlo: Creation Date: 2013-02-11T18:26:48Z
Tone Specific: Creation Date: 2013-07-01T02:17:16Z TS

Same registrar, only five months apart and even just around the same time?

Well, even if all of this is highly suspicious, wouldn't be enough to generate a subpoena... however this certainly would be: both brands share the same roster of endorsing artists!
Leonardo Amuedo

Allen Hinds


Mike Gallagher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip9-nn6E4ds

See, the statistic possibility of three guitar players endorsing two products targeting completely opposite demographics is close to nil.

All of this raise the possibility of a holding commercializing the same asian outsourced products as american-made boutique-oriented with basically a 1,000% markup in the case of the Virgil Arlo p'ups. And as it seems that nobody knows who this Virgil Arlo is, no pictures present of his winding workshop or his person, all this circumstancial evidence tend to generate mistrust.

So now you have the opportunity to set the record straight once and for all.
Click to expand...

In the next post I'll post the TS answer to this.

/Peter
 
Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

That's the answer to LtKojak's questions:

Tone Specific said:
It’s no secret that I got my start in this business working with Virgil Arlo. Pretty much an unknown outside of the scene at the time we made his pickups easier to get a hold of by launching his website and helping with other tasks.

I learned a great deal about making pickups during this time and used this knowledge to start Tone Specific. Out of respect we’ve chosen not to advertise this connection. In the end, I wanted the Tone Specific pickups to speak for themselves.

I had the idea for Tone Specific a couple of years before actually launching the Tone Specific site. We had previously secured the domain name but wasn’t ready to launch until late 2015. I really wanted to launch sooner but there is a lot that goes into it. A lot more work than I initially anticipated. All of our designs are unique and much time and thought was put into these different designs.

All of our pickups are made 100% by hand in the USA by experienced winders. When we bring a new winder on, he has to make dozens of pickups before any are considered for resale. It’s no fun removing formvar wire from a bobbin and starting over but it’s part of the training here. To make sure all pickups we make are of the highest quality we have an extensive testing process that involves multiple phases of testing and retesting. If it's not perfect, then it doesn't ship to a customer.

All of our parts come from suppliers in the USA. Although in these days it is likely some parts may have origins from other parts of the world. Cobalt for example is the “co” part of Alnico. I don’t believe Cobalt is mined anywhere in the USA.

It is no coincidence that some of the same artists use both Tone Specific and Virgil Arlo pickups. I leveraged the artist relationships from the people I met while with Virgil Arlo. These guys have rooms full of guitars and to expect them to use the same pickups in every guitar is like expecting them to own amps or pedals from one manufacturer.

There seems to an effort to discredit my company and anyone that we are associated with that is pretty much contained to this forum. I don’t know of one single unhappy customer. Most everyone sends us praise after installing their pickups. If a pickup is damaged in shipping, we send a replacement out right away with a return label. If a customer has problems with the install, we are quick to advise. At Tone Specific, 100% satisfaction is the goal.

It seems some people have made a conclusion about Tone Specific and are trying to build a narrative around it. We make a high quality product that is made in the USA and loved by our customers. If you are a person that doesn't believe we make a good product or that it is too expensive, then I would advise you not to buy our product.

If you are person that chooses to become a customer of ours then we will act quickly to get your product to you and do our very best to help should you ever have an issue.
Click to expand...

I read this and there are several parts of the explanation I just can't wrap my head around ... to make a long story short, I don't think I'm buying any of this.

So, I'd like to ask you, fine folk of the SDUGF: do you?

Let me know, will ya?

/Peter
 
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Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

"Bery bery interestink."

Incredibly suspicious; especially when you look at the domain registrar info.
 
Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

Well, the plot thickens: the following websites are part of the same ring:

tonespecific.com
virgilarlopickups.com
virgilarloamps.com
guitartone101.com

All seem to converge in the same undisclosed location in San Diego, CA. No physical address, no phone and no VAT number are listed in any of the sites. Yellow Pages show no trace of any of said business. No registrations in the local Chamber of Commerce are to be found.

There are several layers of administrative red tape, most probably destined to mask the source, although very possible to unveil if you know your coding and ways around the different social media platforms.

All of this is counterproductive is your intention is to manage a legit business dealing with your customers in a transparent manner. As it's been built, it checks all the boxes for a ring with fraudulent intent.

/Peter
 
Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

Interesting drama. It is funny that someone who claims: "Virgil Arlo is famous around the world for setting the Gold Standard of Guitar Pickup Makers . . .", on their website, doesn't appear in any Google images. No Wiki. No nothing.
 
Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

ArtieToo said:
Interesting drama. It is funny that someone who claims: "Virgil Arlo is famous around the world for setting the Gold Standard of Guitar Pickup Makers . . .", on their website, doesn't appear in any Google images. No Wiki. No nothing.
Click to expand...
Well, the one behind all this was no Marketing mastermind, that's for sure.

/Peter
 
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Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

Discharged said:
Well, the plot thickens: the following websites are part of the same ring:

tonespecific.com
virgilarlopickups.com
virgilarloamps.com
guitartone101.com

All seem to converge in the same undisclosed location in San Diego, CA. No physical address, no phone and no VAT number are listed in any of the sites. Yellow Pages show no trace of any of said business. No registrations in the local Chamber of Commerce are to be found.

There are several layers of administrative red tape, most probably destined to mask the source, although very possible to unveil if you know your coding and ways around the different social media platforms.

All of this is counterproductive is your intention is to manage a legit business dealing with your customers in a transparent manner. As it's been built, it checks all the boxes for a ring with fraudulent intent.

/Peter
Click to expand...

Sounds similar to (although not a business, but online forums with ad revenue):

mylespaul.com (My Les Paul forum)
marshallforum.com (Marshall Forum)

...both being owned by Alex (Chu IIRC).

And I'll bet there's more domains/forums from the same "ring"... and the same core group posters posting on all the different forums
to elicit traffic and new members.

Just goes to further prove the internet is a favorite medium for people who like to pretend to be someone (or offer something) other
than what reality states...
 
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Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

LLL said:
Of course. LOL

I wouldn't trust anything I read on that forum.

Got a better source than MLP (which you're always pushing)? :lmao:
Click to expand...

LLL said:
Sounds similar to (although not a business, but online forums with ad revenue):

mylespaul.com (My Les Paul forum)
marshallforum.com (Marshall Forum)

...both being owned by Alex (Chu IIRC).

And I'll bet there's more domains/forums from the same "ring"... and the same core group posters posting on all the different forums
to elicit traffic and new members.

Just goes to further prove the internet is a favorite medium for people who like to pretend to be someone (or offer something) other
than what reality states...
Click to expand...

LLL said:
I see that "Tone Specific" is a "MLP Vendor" over there and has a shiny little gold bar on his avatar.

What this typically means is he's paying $$$ to MLP for the right to spew about his product without consequence.

Any regular schmoe who questions his "provenance" and "good standing" will be slammed; undoubtedly. This benefit
also comes with the fee for a vendor gold bar.

Anyways, he's over there defending his good name (what name? LOL).

And all this just goes to prove once again: Don't trust anything or anybody over there... you won't
find players, only poseurs, scammers and jackasses.
Click to expand...

And yet you visit there quite often and post here about it.

This thread is about Virgil Arlo–the MLP link actually gave some very usual information about the topic with some very helpful research on the alleged "Virgil Arlo" and Tone Specific pickups.
 
Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

^He's also been told to stop slagging off other forums too.
 
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Re: Who is Virgil Arlo?

Being that this thread is complaining about another thread on another forum, I am going to close it. You can certainly debate who this person is on MLP, but to bring it up here and further discuss it when the people in question are not here isn't what this place is for.
 
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