Not sure of the circumstances behind things but he no longer works for them. He’s still with Fortin (surprise surprise), but somehow made his way as an artist relations manager at BC Rich. I only mention this so people can use the Neural stuff and not be concerned with who the company associates with. :lol:
In fairness, I dunno what bringing him on board means for the direction of the company but they've been promoting more 'old school' features lately like the sharper original Ironbird, some retro-style Stealth and a Gunslinger re-release; all without abalone or bevels :lol: They also brought Neal Moser and Dan Lawrence back to work on the custom shop and design work.
It's just, between the Zoltan shit, now Engage and the fact I haven't seen one of their current guitars for under $1400, I've gotta say hard pass for now.
My buddy runs a BCR FB group, I shot him a text the other day and said "Oh dude, get ready, you're about to see the worst PR in BCR's history pop up.". He's more into the vintage stuff and is hopeful their new direction doesn't take a shit. While I'm not a BCR fan, I must say, every one my buddy owns plays and sounds killer, I just can't do those shapes.....and fuck Kahler's.
BCR has so many cool shapes. Back in the mid 2000s they had some quality imports as well. I'd love a cheap decent warlock and am always on the look for an older high end mockingbird that's beat up enough I can afford it.
I really liked that BC Rich that Chris posted. Back when it came out, I really wanted it. I love the maple/maple/maple, etc. look.
However, this was one case where I didn't want a signature guitar. Normally I don't care if it's a sig or not. I just don't like that band and for some reason didn't like the connection with this guitar.
Had no idea Zoltan was part owner of BC Rich. I guess I really don't pay attention to this brand. When I heard they were having a lot of new shapes/colors/etc. this year (or not necessarily new, but things you haven't seen for a while), that got me interested. But now - not really.
Either 5FDP is way more profitable than I'd figured, or the BCR IP was worthless. If the latter, I wish I'd known. I could be the new owner and crank out an endless stream of metallic neon Mockingbirds and Warlocks with Kahlers. :lol:
I mean, this is second and third hand but my understanding is that the actual brand was defunct, so it was a purchase of the name and IP, but there was nothing else to go along with it (ie: property, contracts, employees, etc) and it sold for $1,000,000. The original speculation was that it was all Zoltan and he was running it, but I believe it was clarified as a small group of guys and Bill Xavier is President and CEO.
Like I said earlier, they started out as kind of a 'buy direct' WMI ghost built thing like Agile or Solar, but I believe they've got multiple custom shops working on things, along with some pending deals with other factories for the budget lines, so it's scaling up to a semi-full operation.
I had one of those Bathory sigs years ago. When it came out I thought he was in Bathory. It was a pretty cool guitar.
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