Great Guitar Myths: ignore the hype!

#1 -- Everything that you have EVER heard about "wolf tones."
Specifically, (1.a): "There is no such thing" and (1.b): "They MUST be completely eliminated!"

FALSE

The term "wolf tone" is unfortunately used to refer to entirely different phenomena, AND to the various and often unrelated ways in which they occur.

Gutars, and especially the electrified versions, are cursed willful and persnickety beasts. All the "engineering" and "craftsmanship" in the world will not eliminate that. The ONLY way that two "identical" guitars will behave COMPLETELY the same is if the quality (of build and materials) is so low that any individualism is buried in the generalized shit-worthiness.

I first heard "wolf tone" in reference to a squeal I was having at moderate volumes with my Univox High Flyer. That model has a Jaguar-style vibrato, so there's a hand-span of open, undamped strings behind the bridge. Raise the volume, and anyone with a Strat or Bigsby trem or a trapeze tailpiece can run into the same problem. But in the right situations, even the open strings at the headstock can ring out. I have demonstrated to others how the open strings behind your fretting hand can set off feedback.

If you take that problem to your nearest guitar store, they will be more than happy (without even needing to hear it) to pronounce it "microphonic," and sell you a nice shiny new pickup which won't fix the problem but WILL make them money. Instead, in my case, I stuffed a foam scrap under the strings at the tail -- problem solved.

Call that Version One. Here's Version Two: Besides all those string resonances, a guitar's neck has its own resonant point. It is a thin rigid plane between a heavy wooden body (further bulked by a pound of pickups and controls and wiring) and a heavy headstock (with a quarter-pound of hardware). And the neck itself is tuned to a single note, as though it were a single string counterbalancing the actual strings. And let's not forget that you've got a metal rod running down the neck that is also tuned to a pitch.

Pick up your best electrified instrument, put on a pair of headphones, and spend an hour carefully playing every single note. Some sort of noise-gate will help, as it cuts off the signal when it falls below a certain threshold (I used a Zoom amp modeler). Set the cutoff higher than you normally would.

As you work your way up and down the neck, you will quickly find a few notes that are (to use the technical term) dead, or "dub" -- no matter how hard you pick it, the tone fades to nothing in a second. Yet, if you go up or down a fret or two, THAT note will ring on forever, and sing like angels.

Sometimes, as a dub note dies, you can hear it sort of pulsing (beating); in a bowed instrument, that becomes very pronounced, and it's caused by the note you intend being very close to a natural resonant frequency (or an overtone) of the instrument.

If you primarily chord, you may go through life without ever being consciously aware of the wolf! And big chunky chords, especially majors, will overwhelm even a significant wolf problem.

But anyone playing a fretted instrument -- acoustic or electric, guitar or bass, steel or nylon -- is probably aware of wolfing on an unconscious basis. We try out a guitar, and get that "something's not quite right" feeling that we just can't pin down to anything concrete or logical.

One guy brought a Strat clone to me. He'd bought it with .009 strings, totally loved it, then gone to .008... which required tweaking the trussrod. That's when it just seemed to go to hell, where solos that had formerly sounded great suddenly lost some sparkle, and his bandmates chided him for messing up his fingering or picking, with the dub notes. I told him he'd either have to go with the heavier strings -- and trussrod re-adjust -- or sell it, because any other options could be extensive, cost him a lot, and likely create more problems than solved.

Really, there was another option: learn to live with it. Coexist! If an instrument works really well for one thing, why punish it (or yourself!) by trying to force it to be what it isn't? Maybe you love your axe, but it's got all sorts of resonance issues. Well, don't use it to record -- not for delicate passages, anyway -- but it's perfectly fine for general use, and certainly good enough for any half-drunk hillbillies at the bar.

#3 -- "It's a Limited Edition, so it's going to be worth more!"

FALSE

Recall my post about how a guitar's actual value is determined. Define "value" as "how much cash you could reasonably get if you were to sell it, right now, in a reasonably short time."

If everyone who wants a Limited Edition owns that Limited Edition, and nobody else is interested, then those guitars aren't particularly valuable. If owners all agree their guitars are worth $1,000, that's a price, not a value -- they might as easily all agree some morning that they're now worth $10,000 each, or $100,000. But until at least one is actually sold, value has not been established. Before that event, no statement about what one such guitar is worth can be made.

That's the short version, and you will be forgiven for skipping the following details -- it won't be on the test.

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Anyone who thinks about buying a "limited" just because it's "limited" should either find out exactly what is meant by the word, or accept that they're really, really gullible.

About a decade ago, one Fender dealer accidentally broke silence about a limited-edition Fender when he blogged that the run was 10,000.

Think a moment: There are VERY good midrange guitar brands that won't sell 10,000 guitars, TOTAL, in a year -- and they're probably better instruments that cost less, so 10K is by no means a rare item. Yet, you just know that there are morons buying two or three or four, maybe putting one out for display to impress their few friends and locking the rest away in anticipation of massive profit in the future. (By this I also point to ALMOST EVERY apprentice stockbroker and junior attorney in Manhattan -- the males, of course -- losing sleep in anticipation of every next PRS "Private Stock" run. Every time you see a guitar sitting in the corner in a film, TV show, commercial, or print ad, you should wonder "does anyone actually know how to PLAY that?")

Nowadays, most companies are even less clear than Fender. One company says their "limited edition" will only be made available, on demand, for a calendar year -- they could sell a hundred or a million, but so long as it's a finite number, it's "limited," right?

The Fender Custom Shop says each of their offerings "is only available for a short time" (though they avoid saying how much time). They are, though, honest about why they're doing this, and it's not because scarce handcrafted parts are required, or because they're taking enough time to produce total quality -- no, it's because this "makes it eminently collectible and adds to its investment value" so you'd better not expect a discount because they are "highly anticipated" and will "go very quickly." Clearly, these are NOT tools to be used, but trophies to be displayed or investments to be hidden safely away.

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One of the most honest guitar brands was 1978-2010 Washburn, but even they couldn't pass up some easy money, albeit by giving quality product. For a decade, they annually released an "LTD" acoustic guitar, with less than 2,000 units made. (The gimmick was that they'd offer a number based on the year: like, 1,996 of the 1996 LTD.) Most years, they gave these away to retail dealers, salespeople, distribution associates, etc. They're certainly good instruments, but no different from other Washburns from the same year with a similar MSRP -- certainly not worth any more for being "limited." To their credit, Washburn actually put a unique sequential number on each label stuck through the soundhole, so you could trust that you were indeed getting #1,833 of 1,998.

What Washburn didn't tell the gulls is that MOST of the their irregularly offered models -- guitar, bass, electric, acoustic, banjo, mando -- were ordered in batches of 250, at least initially. If a model seemed to sell well, Washburn could order another 250 or more, or put it into full production. If it failed, or simply didn't meet expectations, Washburn just wouldn't order it again, and it would be quietly removed from the next price list.

There were other reasons, too. Washburn's short-lived 1998 Shadow Series (WS/WT) were very good clones of the Strat and Tele, MSRP $350. The company dropped these to focus on their original-design and wide-ranging Maverick (BT) series, which served them very well for a decade. As a result, the Shadows may not be truly "rare" but I doubt that 1,000 of each of the three models were ever made. (Dividing by finish makes for more "rarity." Black is by far most common; I've seen a few ivory WS-4, one red WS-4, and none of the tobacco sunburst.)

The core low- and mid-range Washburn models were maintained constantly -- off the top of my head, examples include WI-64, WI-16, X-10, BT-4, D-10S, M-1 -- but more generally if a model didn't catch on with the public, Washburn simply didn't order any more. Any surplus low-end instruments were sold at cost to their regular retail customers, mid-range went to dealers like World Music Supply, and the best went to better shops, as when the pricier electrics showed up at Funky Munky. Washburn came out ahead because selling at cost or even less meant they didn't have to support huge warehouses.

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ILLUSTRATION
You would have to expend a little effort for this, but I believe you will find it rewarding as a public display of how "collectibility" actually works.

Go to Reverb.com. Look up some axe or amp you know something about. Select a particular listing where you think the price is a bit more than condition would warrant. Note how many Watchers are involved.

If you can, find a similar listing but at a higher price. My experience of the past few years is that there will be even more Watchers.

Now, here's the problem: If those are people (like me) who are simply fence-sitting, waffling over whether they can afford to pounce on their wounded rabbit, simple probability says that there will tend to be more Watchers for the lower-priced items. More often, that is not the observed situation.

No, they are jackals, and rather inept jackals at that, the sort of two-legged jackals who have given actual four-legged jackals a bad reputation. When I share news of sighting something cool with others who appreciate such data, I sometimes alert them about "Lots of eyes in the twilight."

But they are not interested on that particular item, and they are not waiting to buy. No, those jackals more probably own something imilar. Or, worse, they know where one is to be had (pawnshop, tag sale, Mom's linen closet, Uncle Bill's parlor...), and are waiting trembling for a sign from God that they ought to kill that other wounded rabbit.

I ridicule that on a few bases.

First, they are mostly masturbating over the thought of some potential profit -- and the thrill of snatching it away from the current owner, likely someone with whom they have a relationship with some element of trust.

Second, they don't want to enjoy that guitar, they want the joy of turning a profit. In all likelihood, they wouldn't recognize a good guitar if I crept up and poked them in the butt with one -- you see these people all the time on Reverb and eBay, gibbering randomly as though they'd just had a stroke. Most Watchers, like flies, assume that if there's a crowd, there must also be value.

Third, they don't know what they're buying, so it's unlikely they know any more when they sell. If you spot that type from their poor item description, be prepared for unstated defects, and maybe outright nonfunction. (As a personal example, I casually track the market for the Roland GR-1 and VG-8, as I actually own both (and the manuals, even!), I'm aware of how to spot the functional and the upgraded ones, and as well the broken ones.) On Reverb, smart buyers seem to steer clear of certain sellers from this fact.

Fourth, they need to focus so much attention on tracking a few prey that they are self-blinded to potential bargains wandering right past them.

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CONCLUSION
Most highly-desirable models (and brands) of instruments and gear that I have noticed (since I first began noticing such things, about 1973) did not start out as big-ticket items and neither had they been flagged BY THEIR as somehow "exclusive." Back in my youth (when dinosaurs roamed), if anything was correctly described as "collectible," the owner (whether Grandma or a museum) was notably unlikely to want to part with it at ANY price, which is rather the opposite of how the term came to be applied.

Using "collectible" as TOTALLY EMPTY marketing hype was done to death by 1985. Anyone since who accepts it at face value is likely a sheep badly in need of shearing.