Shattering the price barrier??

[rjgoos]

Shattering the price barrier? Time will tell.

eBay number 160342144038

eBay number 160342147199


The second was was used, and first one is possibly a prototype made by this guy?

http://www.myspace.com/hylertouchstyle

[Caesy911]

Looks interesting :)

[HylerTouchstyle]

Wow, I've been so busy in the shop over these past months I had completely forgotten I had setup an account on here to introduce our instruments. (Thankfully I googled our product links, and this forum popped up to remind me =)

Anyways please disregard the link above, that MySpace was made as a test site, our official Social Networking page is http://www.myspace.com/hyler

We've been a private San Diego shop for going on 4 years now, mostly dealing in building exotic guitars, but have done a bit of restoration work as well. Most recently, over the past two years, we've done custom work on Chapman and Stu Box instruments (only one of each to be honest, but enough to introduce us to the inner workings of touchstyle instruments). Since then we've been a strong supporter of TouchStyle instruments, but absolutely jawdropped by their prices. While working on the guitars, we saw no signs of why they should cost so much. Woods are not too exotic, construction is very solid but not too extensive looking (time-wise), and the same type of hardware (headless and multi-string)can be machined in our CNC and Manual Mills for very low cost from aluminum and brass.

With that we launched several lines of Touchstyle instruments (well only 2 different types are continued being produced at this moment, but there's more styles floating around from our early prototypes). We also have an electric upright bass which we are currently putting finishing touches on, they will be exhibited over the next month and available to the public after that.

Our main goal is to either lower the entire price range of touchstyle instruments across the board in a hope to bring these instruments to the mainstream, or at the very least (and more likely) provide affordable alternatives with the same quality hardware and equal or better wood (usually better, as we love exotic woods and have a great affordable source for them when we buy in bulk). Years ago, the first time we saw a touchstyle instrument, our customer told us they saved up for 2 years to afford it, at first we thought this was just a top of the line model, but were shocked to hear there were no realistic/common alternatives in terms of affordable touchstyle instruments.

So, almost 4 years later, here we are. There's always a catch of course, because of our prices we do have a tiny waitlist, but regardless we always build more than we get in orders as 90% of our time is spent setting up machines and only 10% shaping wood and machining metal, so we can easily put out more if we make multiple instruments simultaneously. So if you're in a hurry, send us a message on myspace ( http://www.myspace.com/hyler ) and we can do rush orders at no extra charge. We always try and start production on the first and third weeks of every month (takes about 2 weeks from start to finish on any given instrument, usually about 4 instruments per cycle). We've handled most orders in person locally as that's where our advertisements are based, but have recently started branching out over the internet and so far have had two customers overseas and several more in the states outside of CA, so feel free to let us know if there's any way we can improve our distance customer service.... aside from me forgetting to make my introductory post on here til now.... =)

Prices start at $499 for Guitars and $699 for basses, they go up from their depending on exotic woods, additional hardware machining, extended ranges, etc. Quite a variety of options which should be posted online soon, I'll be in the shop today so I'll see if they have a list ready to post up on the web.

[Tom Drinkwater]

Welcome to Tappistry!!

[secondfiddle]

Welcome to the group!
Do you have another way of contacting you for those of us without myspace.

Fiddle.

[HylerTouchstyle]

Absolutely, like I said, we're all new into branching our shop out of San Diego and onto the internet (I'm not sure if I should still be calling us a shop or now a manufacturer....) so we currently only have a myspace setup as I'm supposed to be running our web marketing and our current orders are taking some priority over my time spent on the computer, all of us are actually pretty busy. Anyways, hopefully we will have a website setup where you can order direct and buy premade instruments, we also met a great seller on ebay who purchased a large number (I believe around 6) of our old instruments and b-stocks which we sold on craigslist awhile back so you can check around there, one of the auction numbers listed above is one of his where he's selling an older instrument of ours. Other than that, send me a private message and I'll do my best to get on here more and setup other methods of contact for inquiry regarding these instruments.

Thanks for the welcome everyone, I don't know how much time I'll have tomorrow, so I will try and setup an proper introduction to post on here with a few more details that our production manager left for me, hopefully much more to come when we finish up our current orders.

[K Rex]

You rule, Hyler-dude.

I'd love to get me a 6-string bass... I will send you a PM.

k

[lactose]

Do you have a brick and mortar store ? If so I would like to drive down one weekend and check it out.

[HylerTouchstyle]

The Home Depot was all out of brick and mortar, we ended up going with redwood and steel for our shop. =)

No storefront though, in all seriousness, even if we were a conventional (6 stringer) manufacturer, there'd be no realistic way to compete with the wal marts of the music industry (IE Guitar Center). We just hide away in our shop most of the time, milling away at the next line of instruments.

And we'd be happy to build a 6 string bass (touchstyle or otherwise), feel free to PM us with the specifications and I'll message you back with any additional info needed and possibly price quotes depending on how much info you can give us.

[PhoBucket]

Your bridges look well constructed and a good value too. I'd think they would generate alot of interest from the homebrew group.