Bilt guitars gets into Mustang game

[BoringPostcards]

I've been debating between getting either a jaguar or a mustang for my main short scale guitar. Since the jazzmaster is my favorite guitar I always thought the mustang was like a weird half offset body shape. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like if it was more offset. Now I know.

I don't think its the worst thing ever, but I'm wondering why you would spring for one of these instead of an actual mustang, or a squier one, or literally anything else.

Mustang is just as offset as the JM/Jag, as offset refers to the waist alone, and the Mustang has the same degree offset in its waistline.

[wooderson]

I never understood how Bilt are still in business. They may make wonderful guitars, but they are so so ugly. Interestingly, this new Mustang is not too bad, though there is no reason for it to exist when the actual Mustang does.

Can't get a Mustang with WRHBs or in Burgundy Mist Metallic or with a different neck profile than whatever Fender wishes to offer you or in a different radius or with a matching headstock or with a regular offset vibrato or etc..

Every Fender knockoff exists to fill a gap that Fender can't or won't until you get into $6k+ truly custom Custom Shop jobs.

[javier-san]

BiLT should use the tagline "Like Fender, but 55% more Stunning and Brave"

Oof. This one is poor taste. Are we supposed to interpret that Lizzo is the "worse" version of Beyonce? There is no reason to cut down Lizzo like that.

[Larry Mal]

Yeah, I was gonna comment on that also. Maybe body shaming isn't the way to go when criticizing this guitar.

[jorri]

Can you really be surprised, if they called a guitar "Zaftig"? (See definition) Its obviously their intention.

Body shapes aside i don't understand the criticism but i am not that enthused, and nor am i by Mustangs to be honest that it seems pretty alright.
I like the revelator/zaftig/volare though certainly something over the top charm in ridiculous numbers of switches attacking your eyes, in a good way.

I just browsed their shop and found one that's /actually/ ugly https://biltguitars.com/product/merc/
I dont quite know what happened there or a way to describe it. Melted strat?

[Dok]

Yeah, I was gonna comment on that also. Maybe body shaming isn't the way to go when criticizing this guitar.

Yeah, that absolutely sucks to see.

Also it will always be hilarious to me how conservative most guitar players are when it comes to designs. I'm totally guilty of it myself (I'll never own an acoustic with a cutaway, for example), but I'm surprised to see so much antipathy toward these, especially considering the range of options available on them.

[Fiddy]

Yeah, I was gonna comment on that also. Maybe body shaming isn't the way to go when criticizing this guitar.

I agree. My pregnantstang comment wasn't meant as body shaming, but more so about how a belly sticks out.

Im not down with the fat/skinny pics... Hopefully my comment wasn't taken wrong or associated with those pics.

[Larry Mal]

Also it will always be hilarious to me how conservative most guitar players are when it comes to designs. I'm totally guilty of it myself (I'll never own an acoustic with a cutaway, for example), but I'm surprised to see so much antipathy toward these, especially considering the range of options available on them.

You know, I am not criticizing this guitar because of the design because frankly, I am wondering if I've become so conservative with my preferences that I'm just not accepting this because it's slightly different from guitar canon- yeah, I brought canon back into it.

But there certainly is a canon as far as what guitars are considered to be, and the sad fact is I seem to be very much under the sway of it.

This guitar looks enough like a Mustang but different enough from a Mustang that I reject it and think, shit, why not just get a Mustang?

But a Mustang is canon.

On the other hand I could say why would you just build a guitar that was basically a Mustang but only slightly different?

So I don't really like this guitar but I have to wonder if I don't like it because it's not what I've been conditioned to accept.

Then I get pissed off at electric guitars and go to play my acoustics, none of which will ever have a cutaway either, because...

Fuck.

[doctor_capleson]

Gross.

I have seen people who play Bilt swear by them, but to me they are just too ugly. Not cool or unconventional-looking like Japanese & Italian stuff from the 60's. Just unappealing visually in general. I also really hate the headstock.

This new one is no different for me.

I really do like the options and what one can create with their site, but as much as I'm sure I could create the perfect "never need another" guitar, I don't know that I could ever bond with it visually. They're also way out of my price range, and I don't know that I could ever take something that cost that much to a gig or on the road, ever.

[Gordon]

I like it. Y’all are such haters lol. It doesn’t look exactly like a Mustang because it isn’t one. Those already exist.

Fender's Mustang Special (Pawn Shop series) seems to disagree.

[Fiddy]

Wow, that's hideous.

If you want to pay far too much for a non-Mustang, I'll accept £2000 for this

I had never realized how close the pickguard is to the edge of the body.

[Dok]

Then I get pissed off at electric guitars and go to play my acoustics, none of which will ever have a cutaway either, because...

no cutaway is how you get it to sound like a cannon

I'll see myself out

[JSett]

Oof. This one is poor taste. Are we supposed to interpret that Lizzo is the "worse" version of Beyonce? There is no reason to cut down Lizzo like that.

Yeah, I was gonna comment on that also. Maybe body shaming isn't the way to go when criticizing this guitar.

Yeah, that absolutely sucks to see.

Your interpretation of me meaning 'worse' is an incorrect interpretation, that's on you, I just meant 'bigger'. But she definitely is 'worse' if you want to comment on her health and life-expectancy - that's an indisputable fact.

I did write an apology but, fuck it, it's a joke...lighten up a bit. Lizzo is fat, that's a fact, it's not 'body shaming'. Facts trump feelings. It must be utterly exhausting being so hyper-sensitive all the time the pearl-clutching and virtue-signalling isn't a good look.

I'm technically obese but I won't stoop to glorify or celebrate it as it's not a healthy way to be. If she was a dangerously thin heroin addict everyone would be saying she's a terrible role-model - that's double standards and hypocritical. There's a reason it's classified as 'morbidly obese' in science and medicine...and that's because it can literally kill you.

I will still remove it, as I'm sorry if it was perceived as bad taste, but jorri was right...

Can you really be surprised, if they called a guitar "Zaftig"? (See definition) Its obviously their intention.

...as their Zaftig line literally means "plump, full-bodied woman". Y'all need to lighten up.

[Zeus]

Melted strat?

I don't think even the Bilt guys would disagree that their aesthetic boils down to "melted Fenders".

I like the Zaftig a lot, I've been on the fence for years about ordering one.

[X-Ray Spex]

I might be in the minority here but I really like everything BILT usually do.

Not a fan of the guitar versions of this model at all though, I think the thing that's putting me off isn't actually the body shape but just how ugly the headstock is with just bare maple and no painted swoosh!

However I do like the bass versions with the mudbuckers quite a lot.