ESTEBAN VINTAGE LEGACY MASTER SERIES "HELP"

[MIKE 450]

A friend in the US bought her daughter a Esteban Vintage Legacy Master Series. She sounded very excited in her email, informing me "SHE'D BETTER LEARN NOW" and went on to say it was black with mother of pearl. WOW I thought- it must be very expensive, Legacy Master Series fine words but still Vintage mmm I think I smell a RAT!- Question is --is it any good, do any of are US friends have any info-- I checked it out it come's with everthing except the kitchen sink--I'm wondering will my friends sixteen year old daughter who is an excellent poet wake up to find her first guitar is rubbish--- when I warned them to buy quality--learning acoustic is hard enough.

[Loki]

How can I break this to you gently, Esteban Guitars are ( insert several strong expletives of your choice) awful.

There is a huge publicity circus based round this Joe dressed up like Zorro and all manner of hype and rubbish all aimed at selling appalling instruments with a well recorded history of self destructing when an attempt is made to tune them.

I would gently advise your friend to move immediately to plan b.

Some acoustic forums run threads with competitions for uses for defunct Estebans, eg bird houses, geranium pots, rodent traps - but the most popular suggestion seems to be kindling.

Sorry for your friends daughter

[MIKE 450]

Thanks Loki, but you know what! --How do I email my friend and tell her the truth. They think it's a beautiful guitar, and now I feel bad because I incouraged her to buy her daughter a guitar in the first place. This young lady is a great singer/poet so I told her mum that she'd make a great songwriter and I stressed- to make sure she bought a quality guitar as I'm well aware of the pitfalls of buying rubbish. I'm always telling mums and dads to make sure they buy quality, all the folks at are local swimming club where I happen to practice and teach guitar, love to listen to me playing my Avalon. When talking to the parents and kids I tell them a guitar's not just for Christmas it's for life--and yes they all laugh-then I remind them how much a puppy cost's -- and it's hard to play "She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain" on a puppy.

[lewddude]

yeah, thats a tough one... My father did the same to my brother. The guitar was pretty, but JUNK! Was all glitter midnight blue with stars and a Jewel inlay, but the you could not tune it up... I let them figure out themselves that it was no good, and then bought my brother a quality used acoustic... So be a chap and buy her an Avalon will ya

Good luck,

Ron

[tcamp22]

Estaban. He shills his guitars on the Home Shopping Network here in the states. Pretty much anything on Home Shopping Network is junk. Yes, he dresses like Zorro or some kind of flamengo cowboy. Never quite figureed it out. He's actually a good player though, but his guitars are bottom end. A lot of the critiques you hear are from people who play high end guitars....so there is probably a prejudice there. I've never owned one, or even seen one for that matter, just read about them. My take is maybe its good enough for a beginner, maybe not, which would depend on the action and if it can be kept in tune. I have read that the instructional CD's are not bad, if thats any consolation.

[tcamp22]

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/foru ... ht=estaban

The guts of an Estaban

[MIKE 450]

Thank you very much tcamp your link says it all. That's one hell of a picture, then I read - so go out and live real good--and I promise you'll get beat up real bad--that alone was worth my post--how wonderful it was to read these words from Rich Mullins. Thanks again to our Avalon friends in the US for your support.

[tcamp22]

Who knows? Maybe it will be good enough. The thing is, there are some good Asian made beginner guitars out there for a similar price. I bought my daughter a little Cort a few years ago, about $100. Its not great, but stays in tune, sounds decent and its very playable. Pretty good little guitar really. She played it a lot, and got to be a pretty good player. Its tough when people get junk instruments (not just guitars). They want to learn, but everything they play sounds bad so they think they stink and give up.

[MIKE 450]

Yeah tcamp, Cort make excellent bugget guitar's, we have a lot of them here in Ireland. I think Tanglewood and Cort are one company now, they don't make bad guitar's at all. I suppose living close to Avalon and Lowden i'm starting to get pretty selective about acoustic guitar's. We also have McILroy Guitar's here in Ireland,Kieran Moloney makes these guitar's he used to work for Lowden, he now has he's own place in Galway on the beautiful west coast. So I've three of the best acoustic guitar maker's in the world quite close to my home, though Avalon is just a few fields away.I love playing all types of acoustic's but Avalon guitar's suit what I TRY to do that Irish modern folk think "I hope" try listening to my new song "KAY"www.myspace.com/michaeldickison1--it's a cheap recording which I done live,so I need to re- record it properly,but you can hear the Avalon's Irish tone. The tuning is EADEAE- Recording is so expensive over here your best to do a demo first then listen to it a hundread times then get your money out. I suggest people do the same when buying guitar's, again-this is why I love Avalon you can go into the factory and play to your hearts content plus JB is there to explain everything.

[tcamp22]

Well, I have seen and played an Esteban for the first time. I dont know what Zorro model it was or anything like that, but overall it seemed like an okay beginner guitar. The action was decent, fretboard seemed okay. I only picked on it a little bit, so I cant give a full analysis. But, It was tunable, and sounded okay. I dont like the paint though....not one bit. But, I guess for a beginner, its okay. How long it will last is another question. Wouldnt be playing at Red Rocks with it though.