RIP Silver Creek

[gitnoob]

Those cheap all-solid-wood guitars made by Recording King for MF that some of us dearly loved are dead and gone. Sniff.

 

My name is Chris and I work for Musician's Friend. I have confirmed that we will do not have any plans for future Silver Creek guitars. We are taking our focus and putting it on growing the line of Mitchell guitars we carry. If you have any further questions or feedback, please email me at forums@musiciansfriend.com. We appreciate your feedback!

 

Sincerely,

Chris Baker

Night Supervisor

http://www.MusiciansFriend.com/

1-800-449-9128

[Freeman Keller]

Wasn't that the one you took a torch to to decouple it? I never heard how that finally came out.

[gitnoob]

Oh yeah, the "unfinishing" project. I considered a torch, but ended up using a scraper.

 

I didn't "publish" my results because they still confound me somewhat.

 

I removed the finish, sampled the tap tone, and qualitatively evaluated the tone. Somewhat surprisingly, the back's tap tone didn't change. But the tone seemed to improve.

 

So I continued to thin the back, hoping to drop the tap tone and attempt to couple the resonance frequency to the top.

 

This was the confounding bit: the tap tone still didn't drop even after making the back very thin -- thin enough to flex. My only theory is that the stiffness of the back braces is the overwhelming factor in determining the back stiffness and tap tone.

 

I still use the guitar for other experiments.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Maybe the conclusion is that the back doesn't make as much difference as some people would like to think.

[gitnoob]

Yeah, it doesn't seem to be a huge factor, but the qualitative improvement was in the "complexity" of the tone. The tap tone just measures the main monopole resonance. Thinning the back possibly affected the higher-frequency modes, which I can't easily measure.

[fastblueheeler]

The sweetest sound my T-160 made was when the guy at Guitar Center strummed it and said "we'll give you $125 for it."

[gitnoob]

That would be a sacrilege, but I only paid $117 for mine new.

[Samilyn]

About a year ago, in a fit of curiosity I played a couple of those Mitchell gits at GC. I can sum up the experience in two words:

 

Very painful.

[recordingtrack1]

I have only ever played one Mitchell so I can't really say much about that line, except the one I played would have been better used as kindling. it was freakin' useless as a musical instrument.

 

EDIT: well maybe you could have used it as a bongo drum

[Chicken Monkey]

I was surprised to play a wonderful sounding-and-feeling Recording King guitar at Elderly, but I thought it had a different make--Silver Creek doesn't ring a bell.

[FretFiend.]

Just sold my last Silver Creek for $200... which incidentally, was what I paid for it new. Beats making sawdust out of it.

[kwakatak]

 

I have only ever played one Mitchell so I can't really say much about that line, except the one I played would have been better used as kindling. it was freakin' useless as a musical instrument. EDIT: well maybe you could have used it as a bongo drum

 

 

How did it compare against the Rogue line? Those can give Estebans a real run for their money!

[AVisme]

We are taking our focus and putting it on growing the line of Mitchell guitars we carry.

How stupid. They're going to scrap a good line of guitars that are popular with people and go with some new line that no one knows or cares about. "Mitchell" is a lousy brand name for a guitar, anyway. It's too generic and just screams "cheap crap" to me.

[recordingtrack1]

How did it compare against the Rogue line? Those can give Estebans a real run for their money!

 

LOL

 

I've never even seen a real Rogue.......Esteban's are a different story. The pawn shops in my area a full of them. There's a valid reason for that.

[Samilyn]

LOL I've never even seen a real Rogue.......Esteban's are a different story. The pawn shops in my area a full of them. There's a valid reason for that.

 

LOL again. Same here.

[recordingtrack1]

Cool. There's a Music and Arts (GC off-shoot) near me loaded with Mitchell guitars, a few Yamahas and Eastmans. Never played the Mitchells because, being a practicing shallow person, the name wasn't inspiring.

 

That's one of the reasons we like you so much, pit......you're so......self aware

[kujozilla]

 

How stupid. They're going to scrap a good line of guitars that are popular with people and go with some new line that no one knows or cares about. "Mitchell" is a lousy brand name for a guitar, anyway. It's too generic and just screams "cheap crap" to me.

 

 

::sarcasm open::YEAH!!! Like, what about those "Martin" guys too? I'm so sick of people putting their damn names all over the {censored} they make. I mean, you know, it's like, we know you built it. Shut the hell up already.::sarcasm close::

[acousticdepot]

Regardless of what the Mitchells sound like, I don't like the necks. When I am at GC, I will pick one up to play and after about 2 minutes, I put it down and pick up a Yamaha instead.

[fastblueheeler]

The 000 size Mithchell was one of the better sounding cheap guitars I've played. Sounded better than the Silver Creek IMO. Maybe the one I tried was a fluke but it sure looked like a guitar

[FretFiend.]

Where can I get one of those flukes???

[daklander]

Don't confuse the GC/MF Mitchell guitars with Chris Mitchell Guitars......

 

I've never played a six stringer but I did play a Mitchell twelve stringer and it did not sound all that bad. Certainly not the worst I've ever played. However, it damned sure needed work to make it a truly playable guitar. The finish was acceptable but fit also needed some work. As is, it would have taken someone with fingers of steel to play it more than about ten minutes.

 

They probably should have increased their focus on the Silver Creek line but I think they have a large monetary interest in Mitchell. Seems I read something about that a few years ago.

 

Here's a comment I found on a site giving information about purchasing the right starter guitar, and Mitchell in particular.

There are other numerous websites from where you can purchase your guitar from but you need to make sure that the guitar being sold to you is an original Mitchell brand. It is quite possible that you can just as well be sold for a fake guitar.

Do you think it would be an actuality that someone would fake a Mitchell?

 

 

The Rogue line is actually a decent line of instruments and, especially when on sale, a good buy. Fit and finish aren't always that great but a good setup will turn one into a decent campfire guitar.

[fastblueheeler]

Where can I get one of those flukes???

 

Try Sea World.

[Opa John]

Friend of mine bought one of these a year or so ago. It's the Mitchell MD100SCE. On sale for $199 at the time. It's $229 right now. He loves it. To me.....it kinda looks like a guitar and it kinda sounds like a guitar. Can't say much more about it.

 

[DeepEnd]

 

How stupid. They're going to scrap a good line of guitars that are popular with people and go with some new line that no one knows or cares about. "Mitchell" is a lousy brand name for a guitar, anyway. It's too generic and just screams "cheap crap" to me.

 

Nothing "new" about Mitchell. They've been around for years as a house brand of Musician's Friend, Guitar Center, etc., named for Guitar Center founder Wayne Mitchell.

[FretFiend.]

The first Silver Creek guitars were made by The Music Link, and were decent guitars. Somewhere along the line, their manufacture was moved to another factory/maker, where the guitars from there were designed and built a bit different, and the quality wasn't as good as the earlier ones. If you look at some reviews, it looks like a lot more people were dissatisfied with the newer ones. More returns, poorer quality, poor tone, etc. At the prices that MF/M123 sold them, they couldn't have been making much profit on them. Looks like it was just a matter of time until it happened.

 

BTW, Don't knock the Rogues until you've tried one.