[Nugget]

A violin maker told me that the criteria for a good violin is the volume of sound it produces not the tone. A violinist standing at the front of a full orchestra needs to be heard over the orchestra. He also said that most of the tone of a violin is produced by the player.

As a pickup maker I can tell you that it's a fact: good pickups can save a shit guitar.

I hear a lot of talk about us not being able to get unpolluted wood anymore. This kills me. When Fender and Gibson were using those alleged good, pure, unpolluted woods we'd had the longest era of World pollution ever. Just think, everyone had a wood or coal fire, factories belched out smoke night and day and that's before you consider the pollutions resulting from a civil war and a first world war etc....

There are guys who can make new guitars sound and feel like old guitars. My colleague Dave Dearnaley is one of them. I have one of his creations.
Saying that, if a sweet old '59 LP came my way, I'd love to have it and I'd take it to gigs.