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Charging more for left handed models.

#61
A few people mentioned that they may be charging more because it's more "annoying" to build it left handed. "Annoying" means that it takes longer to do, and therefore costs more in labor. You're paying the high price because you believe that their work is worth the cost, so them having to spend extra time building your instrument should also be worth the cost.

If you contracted someone to do work on your house and they had a standard price for most jobs, but your house had something different that they didn't usually deal with, and it took longer to do the work, wouldn't you expect to pay more?
 
#62
I build custom instruments on a small scale and I would charge at least 15% more to build a lefty. A large company that makes production instruments almost always uses a cnc to carve necks and bodies. To make a lefty you reverse the program and the router cuts the body and neck for you. Whether Fodera use a cnc or not their bodies require a large amount of hand carving and doing things backwards takes more time due to unfamiliarity. For a builder without a cnc things become more complicated. My jigs and tooling have been setup to build right handed instruments because that is what people buy 95% of the time. Building a lefty would require me making new jigs and reverse many familiar processes, making them unfamiliar, thereby more time consuming and with a greater margin of error. Also, as a right handed player I cant properly gauge how a left handed bass plays so i would either have to find a left handed player to try it out or ask the customer to repeatedly come by and play. Also time consuming.

All that being said, a customer that "knows" how much I should charge to build a custom instrument a certain way is not someone I would choose to deal with.
 
#63
When I started working at a local guitar shop many years ago no one was encouraged to play lefty. First off very few lefty guitars second no one taught lefty, if you were a lefty and didn't have your own instrument and wanted to join in and play you couldn't because the vast majority of players played right handed.
 
#64
There are certain things that a lefty is just naturally good at like bowling (natural hook and I love mine) and pitching. However, we are not talking about sports and we definitely do not live in a perfect world. That being said, let us ridiculously look at other instruments. The piano is an ambidextrous instrument in much the same way as a bass with one exception...there are no left handed pianos. Why should the bass be any different? It may or may not take longer to learn but in the long run there are more options. I consider it a blessing to be a lefty but living in a right handed world presents its challenges. I will concede that there are those who will never be comfortable playing righty but have you really tried. Listen, no matter what anybody says when you are first being taught or are teaching yourself don't tell me that holding a guitar in proper position that you were completely comfortable especially when you started fretting notes trying not to grip the neck with your thumb. I have tried to hold and play a lefty bass and it felt alien to me. Then again I am a lefty who plays righty...
 
#66
DaDrew2112 said:
Yeah, learning lefty is stupid IMO. there's a time to rebel and then there's a time to realize you're just being an idiot. I write with my left hand and am left side dominant in nearly everything save hockey and batting. So it made sense to grab the guitar and use my MOST COORDINATED hand to do the HARDEST JOB, the fretting. I'm sorry if i seem rude but i argued with one of my buddies who is learning guitar for literally days about learning guitar right handed. He was a lefty and said it didn't make any sense, then i explained my theory. He looked dumfounded and then claimed being a lefty just "felt right". His loss, in an attempt to be cool he's lost out on serious selection and dollars. smart move for something you can easily adapt either hand to do as you have no previous experience with the motor skills necessary to play guitar.
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As a left handed person playing a left handed bass for the last 40 years I find the above rather sad. I'm not stupid or an idiot, and would never criticise a right handed player for playing a right handed instrument. Lefty basses are readily available from all the major manufacturers including Fender, Gibson and all the Asian manufacturers and all the entry level basses manufactured in China for Squier, Aria, Ibanez etc. are readily available in LH at no extra cost. Granted model choice can be limited, although things are improving all the time, Eastwood for example do some great retro LH basses. Boutique type basses, being hand made will cost more to 'reverse' which is fair enough. There is no earthly reason why anyone should be told not to play left handed if that is what feels natural. I believe the Victorians thought you could 'cure' left-handedness, (and also homosexuality), and went to great lengths to prove it. Luckily for Jimi and Sir Paul those days are long gone.
 
#68
TheOnlyJuan said:
A technicality...I don't think switching hinges from one side to another really counts.
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this is getting off the topic but dont SKIM and article then post.... ;)

[SIZE=+1][SIZE=+2]C[/SIZE]HRISTOPHER [SIZE=+2]S[/SIZE]EED[/SIZE] [FONT=arial, helvetica, swiss, geneva][SIZE=-1]is like any other pianist; he plays the piano. However, the piano that he plays is far from the ordinary. He has built a piano with the keyboard in reverse (with the treble register beginning at the left hand side and ending with the bass register at the right).[/SIZE][/FONT]
 
#69
There are real costs associated with left hand guitars that have nothing to do with manufacturing. They are the cost of the extra part numbers, marketing, stocking. design work, etc. All manufacturers of all products face these issues and that is why they try to share components among various product models to the greatest extent possible. Guitar makers like all other manufacturers have to recover these costs somehow. The real costs associated with items unique to your left handed basses could be passed on to the relative few of you who buy them, they could be averaged across all the guitars that a company makes (which penalizes their right handed customers and puts the brand at a competitive disadvantage in that more lucrative market), or some compromise position between those extremes could be applied. Small manufacturers may not have any option but to pass the full cost on to you if they hope to sell their right handed product. The largest makers sell so much product that they can and should price them all the same. I'd be harder on a Fender for this issue than a boutique brand in other words.

I am a righty and I would not dream of switching now but in some ways it would make more sense for us to play what are considered "lefty" guitars. French Horns are played lefty too, see here for example and keep in mind that rats play them the same way humans do! And as TheOnlyJuan points out many instruments, including most woodwinds like my clarinet, have no handedness. If you are a lefty just starting out it is not unreasonable to suggest that you at least try a "righty" guitar because the argument could be made that they are actually backwards for us rightys and place enough demands on both hands to make the distinction somewhat moot.

Ken
 
#70
amimbari said:
this is getting off the topic but dont SKIM and article then post.... ;)

[SIZE=+1][SIZE=+2]C[/SIZE]HRISTOPHER [SIZE=+2]S[/SIZE]EED[/SIZE] [FONT=arial, helvetica, swiss, geneva][SIZE=-1]is like any other pianist; he plays the piano. However, the piano that he plays is far from the ordinary. He has built a piano with the keyboard in reverse (with the treble register beginning at the left hand side and ending with the bass register at the right).[/SIZE][/FONT]
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Gotcha...sorry!
 
#72
PDQbass said:
As a left handed person playing a left handed bass for the last 40 years I find the above rather sad. I'm not stupid or an idiot, and would never criticise a right handed player for playing a right handed instrument.
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If nobody told you to learn righty, it's ignorance. If someone told you, and you ignored them, you're at the very least extremely stubborn. There are no advantages to being a left handed guitarist. You completely ignored my fretting hand logic, as most lefties do, because of stubbornness.
 
#73
The reality is that I too am not a fan of this policy -- and I am one of the owners of the Company. We talk about this fairly frequently at Partner's Meetings because none of us feel that the policy is "right." That said, the reality is that lefty instruments are much harder for us to build because we do them so rarely. All of our jigs are set up for righty instruments, our bridges are set up for righty instruments and our preamps too. Everything for a lefty takes us more time and needs to be worked differently and whenever we build one it takes us roughly 20-25% longer to build.

If you are ever truly serious about getting a Fodera, please feel free to get in touch with me at the shop and we will try to make it work for you.

Kindest regards,

Jason

Ian the bassist said:
This is something I've come to expect from music stores. The sx bass I bought years ago was 250 euro and I saw an Identical righty model for 220 in the same shop.

But for the laugh I was checking out the fodera website. It charges 15% more for a left handed model. I was thinking of doing something crazy in a few years(I was injured at the knee on a broken up path, could be a big claim) and thought I might buy one eventually as a present to myself. But after seeing this I wouldn't even touch them. I'd rather get a custom luther to build one than give money to them. Warwick offers customs in left handed at no extra cost.

Does anyone else think this is unfair that it costs this much more? It doesn't take any more work on their part. I feel this is an exploit, as most other lefty charges don't even come close to this(even if you take into account the change in prices of different basses)
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#74
DaDrew2112 said:
If nobody told you to learn righty, it's ignorance. If someone told you, and you ignored them, you're at the very least extremely stubborn. There are no advantages to being a left handed guitarist. You completely ignored my fretting hand logic, as most lefties do, because of stubbornness.
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Rythm is natural with your dominant hand, so you don,t have to think and let you concentrate on the fretting hand. I'm sure you have a hard time with rythm even if you can play very complex fingering pattern. I had a teacher who is lefty and play righty, but he needs to work a lot on his rythm because it isn't natural.

Not everyone is ambidextrous you know. I tried and couldn't do it, other succeed.

Lastly I think you are the stubborn here.
 
#75
This is a GREAT post...especially the part about carving everything backwards. I cannot express to you how difficult it is for us to have to reverse everything that we do in our heads and with our hands...it really is difficult and it really does take a lot more time and effort...

J

Big B. said:
I build custom instruments on a small scale and I would charge at least 15% more to build a lefty. A large company that makes production instruments almost always uses a cnc to carve necks and bodies. To make a lefty you reverse the program and the router cuts the body and neck for you. Whether Fodera use a cnc or not their bodies require a large amount of hand carving and doing things backwards takes more time due to unfamiliarity. For a builder without a cnc things become more complicated. My jigs and tooling have been setup to build right handed instruments because that is what people buy 95% of the time. Building a lefty would require me making new jigs and reverse many familiar processes, making them unfamiliar, thereby more time consuming and with a greater margin of error. Also, as a right handed player I cant properly gauge how a left handed bass plays so i would either have to find a left handed player to try it out or ask the customer to repeatedly come by and play. Also time consuming.

All that being said, a customer that "knows" how much I should charge to build a custom instrument a certain way is not someone I would choose to deal with.
Click to expand...
 
#77
Clef_de_fa said:
Rythm is natural with your dominant hand, so you don,t have to think and let you concentrate on the fretting hand. I'm sure you have a hard time with rythm even if you can play very complex fingering pattern. I had a teacher who is lefty and play righty, but he needs to work a lot on his rythm because it isn't natural.

Not everyone is ambidextrous you know. I tried and couldn't do it, other succeed.

Lastly I think you are the stubborn here.
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Completely agree. My brother and I are both left handed. My brother had a left handed guitar, my sister had a right handed bass. I sat down with both of them for at least half an hour. I just couldn't keep the rhythm going with my right hand. I feel if I had have learned righty. I wouldn't be the player I am today. Slap, fingerstyle, flemenco picking. I do them all. All involve ALOT of work from your picking hand. And anyway. I at least picked it up both ways at first. I was also never warned of the "dangers" of learning lefty. lol
 
#78
DaDrew2112 said:
If nobody told you to learn righty, it's ignorance. If someone told you, and you ignored them, you're at the very least extremely stubborn. There are no advantages to being a left handed guitarist. You completely ignored my fretting hand logic, as most lefties do, because of stubbornness.
Click to expand...

Nobody told me learn righty, when I picked up my first guitar as a kid I naturally held it in the lefty position because it felt correct to me. Of course the strings were then upside down but this was soon remedied. As for being extremely stubborn, your fretting logic would suggest that 90 percent of all guitarists (right handed players) are playing their instruments the wrong way round and would be advised to change.
With finger style certainly, and even with a pick, the plucking hand is where all the groove, feel and artistry are required. The fretting hand is really just a fast-moving clamp to hold the strings down in the correct position. Both hands need technique and constant practice to get up to speed, but the plucking hand is where the funk is and deserves your dominant hand.
If you are left-handed, play a left-handed bass - that's why the manufacturers make them. Pretty straightforward really.
And to all those lefties persuaded to play as a righty, you'll never know just what an even greater player you might have been if you hadn't taken that advice to 'learn righty to fit in with everyone else for the sake of convenience etc. etc.'
 
#79
i dunno if i buy into that. Jimi Hendrix (my favorite guitarist of all time) was actually right handed and he played lefty, which is the reverse of what you're saying.

i'm left handed and play right handed (and not because i was told to). IMO, i think that i'd play the same if i would've started out playing lefty. to me, it's more in the head than it is in the hands. ymmv.
 
#80
johnk_10 said:
i dunno if i buy into that. Jimi Hendrix (my favorite guitarist of all time) was actually right handed and he played lefty, which is the reverse of what you're saying.

i'm left handed and play right handed (and not because i was told to). IMO, i think that i'd play the same if i would've started out playing lefty. to me, it's more in the head than it is in the hands. ymmv.
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Yes, there's a lot of truth in what you say. Jimi was an interesting example. Apparently he played guitar, held a cigarette and threw with his left hand, but ate and held a phone with his right hand. I guess this makes him ambidextrous. Perhaps having the best of both worlds like this could have contributed to his genius in some small way. Anyway, getting off thread now, but whilst I appreciate that many left-handed people are very comfortable playing right-handed, I don't think those of us who chose to play left-handed are stupid, ignorant and stubborn as someone on this forum suggested.
 

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