ramirez mysteries

[keith]

my g.s.i. page opened up at the bottom and i noticed you now sell jose ramirez STRINGS. who makes them? somehow i doubt the luthiers make these on their lunch breaks. can you provide some descriptive info? i went to their website to gather info and found nothing but i did see they dropped the fl-2 and increased the number of crossover guitars. wanna give us the straight dope?

[killer58]

I saw them too and am very curious as to their details. Ordered a set but have yet to install them. I'll post as soon as I do.

[Todd]

Creative marketing boys. That's all it is.
People want to buy "Ramirez" stuff, and retailers take full
advantage of this.
Put the word Ramirez on a polishing cloth, and you can get an
extra 25 bucks out of it. :roll:
Get a string company to send you some strings, and slap
the name Ramirez on them, and bam, Hey look, more stuff
to waste our money on, comon, lets buy!! Buy! Buy!!

It takes a special breed to make a living in sales/retail.
Alot of creative telling of the so called truth.
I couldnt sleep at night personally. :?
TK

[keith]

it will be interesting to see how the ramirez strings perform. about a year ago or so conde hermanos started selling strings under their name. i tried a set. the two words best used to describe them: bow-wow. the ramirez strings are a buck more than d'addario and i suspect addario is making them since ramirez guitars have traditionally use d'addario.

on the flip side of this coin, there is this woman in spain, lisa de granada who works as a contact person for folks to buy guitars and horses. she sells strings under her name and the price is very very reasonable and the strings seem to be pretty good. obviously she has her strings made by an established company (it is not d'addario from what i have been told). you can check her out at: http://www.lisadegranada.com/

she seems to be a pretty cool person and what a great life. you can get her strings in the states at www.stringsbymail.com

and check out her polishing cloth!

[NGiorgio]

The other night I was on the Flamencoworld site. They sell (along with many other items) guitars and strings. They have Esteso strings for sale. They have three different sets. The 720, 730 and 735.

Let's see, Luthier Strings in NYC makes a 20, 30 and a 35. I wonder ............

[keith]

hey nick, as i recall the luthier trebles were white--the esteso/conde strings are clear--but dogs just the same. actually they were not that bad but i was not impressed--maybe i was expecting more or maybe they were designed to bring about a conde sound to non conde guitars.

they could be made by luthier (it would not surprise me) using clear nylon.

years ago, before diet colas as we know them, coke decided to try to market a diet cola. knowing if it bombed it could have serious reprussions, they sold the diet cola under the name TAB. maybe the luthier/conde strings is similiar.

what is weird is how the classical world is mimicking the steel string world--a lot of steel string makers have strings with their names on the package.

i wonder why g.s.i., importers for ramirez guitars, have not piped in yet?

[NGiorgio]

Yeah, the 20's are white. The 30's are clear.

Marketing, such a clever word. Brand loyalty and all that.

For me, no new strings until Charo endorses them.

[keith]

nick--charo plays a ramirez...hmmmm....maybe she plays the strings?

[Tim Miklaucic]

I'm not sure what to say here. Ramirez introduced a new set of strings. Tornavoz Music is the US distributor of their products. GSI is the retail division of the company which owns Tornavoz. We figure we should at least carry the product.

My own point of view is that if I buy a product for the brand, I do it for a reason. I get some kind of security that the brand is reliable. I am willing to pay a little more for this in most cases. Honestly, this is so common in the marketplace from milk to clothes to musical instrument products that I am surprised to see some of the comments written in this thread.

We don't know who makes these strings or if the they come from more than one manufacturer and are assembled by Ramirez. However, we tried them and liked them. Of course, the most important thing is that our customers like them. Looks like we'll know this soon enough.

Regarding Keith's comments about the "straight dope," we have not dropped the FL2. Just do a search and you will find it or check the list all flamenco guitars. I don't know if that was the question, Keith, or if there was something else you wanted to know.

Tim