I did a John Mayes commission six or seven years ago. He was getting all kinds of praise on the AGF, and I was looking to build the "End All" guitar. Went with Madagascar Rosewood and a beautiful bearclaw Cedar top in an SJ body. Several months and a very pretty penny later, the guitar arrived on the doorstep. It was beautiful. The craftsmanship seemed top shelf. The guitar sounded, well, like a cardboard box. No highs, no lows, just flat and blah. Tried several different types of strings, sent it back to John for tweaking, but no improvement. The guitar was simply a gorgeous, overpriced turd.
I ended up trading it at a ridiculous loss toward a D28 Marquis.
This taught me a very valuable lesson on the idea of custom, small shop guitars and the need to famiarize myself with their work. Word of mouth is a nice start to the process, but I need to play several examples of their work before I plunk down $multi-k for one again...
