Official Barefaced Bass Cab Club

#265
kringle77 said:
In small to medium clubs I totally agree with Alex about just using you amp with no pa. I've been doing this consistantly for the last year or so and only have a mic on my cab for my in-ear feed.
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Me, too. I only go DI when necessary. I love the sound of my rig by itself. At jams I've gone out to listen to others play it, and it sounds just fine. By now I have a pretty good idea how loud to play in order to fit in the mix. Can't wait to get a couple of Alex's cabs to do it all with. Soon, though, soon.
 
#269
Unfortunately, complaining in public is the only way you will get action. I managed to get mine on the stroke of 12 weeks. You have been waiting 4 weeks longer. If I had known that it would take 50% longer than quoted I would have bought something else. 16 weeks is totally unacceptable if he quoted 6 - 8.

I really don't think the Designer that Alex is, has quite got his head around running a manufacturing business. My advice to you is to join his Facebook group and bitch on that too. If he asks you for money because your cab is "nearly ready", don't send it until the cab is actually in the box.

What cab did you order?
 
#272
Hmmm... now I'm a little concerned.

I was contemplating an order with these guys and was quoted 6 weeks, and I can hang with that... but I'm NOT OK with my order taking 4 months.

Is this the common experience with people right now?
 
#273
Hello everyone!

Right now I have 66 emails to reply to, two thirds of which are "when am I getting my cab emails?" We're working on a few dozen cabs right now and we've shipped thirteen cabs in the last week. There is still a substantial backlog but it's dropping quickly. Everyone's emails will always be answered but you may have to wait a while whilst I (a) find the time to answer and (b) find out what the actual answer is!

Earl's cab, along with a host of others, is sitting here awaiting grill cloth because our supplier completely let us down and we've had to import it ourselves, and that whole mess has wasted weeks and weeks of time.

http://barefacedbass.com/ordering-and-availability.htm
 
#274
alexclaber said:
Hello everyone!

Right now I have 66 emails to reply to, two thirds of which are "when am I getting my cab emails?" We're working on a few dozen cabs right now and we've shipped thirteen cabs in the last week. There is still a substantial backlog but it's dropping quickly. Everyone's emails will always be answered but you may have to wait a while whilst I (a) find the time to answer and (b) find out what the actual answer is!

Earl's cab, along with a host of others, is sitting here awaiting grill cloth because our supplier completely let us down and we've had to import it ourselves, and that whole mess has wasted weeks and weeks of time.

http://barefacedbass.com/ordering-and-availability.htm
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Thanks for your courteous response Alex. Manufacturing is always a challenging business. A manufacturer bases commitments on both the past records of his supplier and commitments made to him. These commitments are after made by a supplier who has commitments from their supplier. In the case of larger manufacturers, they typically have the means to secure inventory to back up commitments. On the other hand, small manufacturers seldom have this same capability and often have to rely on promises made by his suppliers. However, one of the common expectations of boutique manufacturers is extraordinary customer focus. The catch 22 is when things don't go as planned such as goods not delivered as promised or unexpected orders coming in beyond the capacity of the manufacturer beyond promised delivery times, the first thing that commonly takes a hit is customer focus. As a manufacturer I have often faced the dilemma of trying to balance time between filling orders and focusing on customer response which easily becomes overwhelming when commitments ante not being met. I am sure Alex is "hands on" in the manufacturing process and has to battle the feeling of falling further behind every time he sits at his computer answering emails rater than making widgets. Been there, done that, not fun.
From a consumer standpoint, if I order a widget and it is week 6 of the 7 week delivery commitment, and I have not heard from the vendor, I am anxious to say the least. To be frank, my order to me is more important than anyone else's. I really don't care for the most point how hard the vendor is working on someone else's widget, he needs to stop, call me and tell me he is working on my widget and it will be done in 37 minutes, shipped in 38 minutes next day air on the space shuttle and I will have it tomorrow. I'm just saying.
I say all this to say, there is a wide division between the manufacturers’s prospective and the customer's prospective. Both are legitimate and valid. Alex makes an outstanding product based on everything I read, maybe the best on the market. That takes commitment to a high level of work ethics. At the same time it is easy not to reassess one's ability to meet deadlines and not revise delivery times and not communicate the new delivery schedule to the customer who are already financially vested in the product.
I hope this makes sense and causes both Barefaced and the customers to take pause. I have no doubt that Alex's intentions are to deliver his exceptional product on time and his customers wait with great anticipation to receive them.
Peace all.
 
#275
What has made things so hard this year is that demand has increased significantly, we've brought production in-house for better efficiency and QC but that's required huge amounts of product/process development time and our increased output means our consumption of parts has increased to the point that our suppliers have been failing to meet our demands in a timely fashion. And increased sales means more of my time is taken up both dealing with enquiries and managing production and inventing and implementing new systems to manage a fast growing business.

In an ideal world we want our products to arrive on time and be perfect. If they can't be on time they must still be perfect. Perfection cannot be compromised by rushing things!
 
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#276
alexclaber said:
What has made things so hard this year is that demand has increased significantly, we've brought production in-house for better efficiency and QC but that's required huge amounts of product/process development time and our increased output means our consumption of parts has increased to the point that our suppliers have been failing to meet our demands in a timely fashion. And increased sales means more of my time is taken up both dealing with enquiries and managing production and inventing and implementing new systems to manage a fast growing business.

In an ideal world we want our products to arrive on time and be perfect. If they can't be on time they must still be perfect. Perfection cannot be compromised by rushing things!
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Yes! what you said is the words of a man of integrity who won't compromise on the product he committed to provide. I commend you.
 
#277
Mate, please stop talking about QC. QC is wasted, dead time. Inspecting good from bad, improves nothing. Quality ASSURANCE is upfront planning of design, processes and supply chain, to stop bad things happening. If your supplier let you down its because you chose the wrong supplier. Proper Production Engineering is not a waste of money or something that only other people do.

The honest thing to do would have been to email your customers, explain the situation and offer the other grill option. Copy and pasting 66 emails takes a couple of hours. My cab was late even with the other type of grill. Quoting inaccurate lead times makes a liar out of you and an enemy of your customers.
You would be amazed how people respond to timeliness and honesty.
 
#278
I'm not interested in offering other grill options. I expect our customers to keep their cabs for a long time and going with an alternate look or model to save some waiting time in the short term does not seem right. All estimates on delivery time which I have given have been based on the best information that I have had at the time. I know I've said this before but we have changed our whole business over the last year whilst simultaneously trying to manage increasing demand. As the business grows and changes we are constantly revising everything from tiny product details to stock management and accounting practices, all in the name of making the business better so we can do the best job possible of providing what we believe are the best bass cabs you can buy with as little wait as possible. Unfortunately implementing all those changes takes time out from production but I believe it's the right thing to do for the business, our customers and bass players in general.
 
#279
IMO, in today's culture (at least in the U.S.) we as a society have become so entitled and so demanding that we now are getting what we so rightly deserve...crappy, inferior products delivered quickly, or high quality products not delivered fast enough. Pick your poison.

We are a nation of spoiled brats. "I want, I want, I want!", as we stomp our feet and make demands of the world.

Hang in there Alex. Some customers may have legitimate complaints, but meanwhile keep holding your craft and products to the highest of standards as you transition into a larger business. Please, for God's sake don't ever get so large in an attempt to satisfy customer demands that your product turns to crap like most successful products produced here eventually do.

Best of luck to you, and to your customers. I hope some faith in quality and trust in patience will be rewarding to both.
 
#280
Pbassred said:
Mate, please stop talking about QC. QC is wasted, dead time. Inspecting good from bad, improves nothing. Quality ASSURANCE is upfront planning of design, processes and supply chain, to stop bad things happening. If your supplier let you down its because you chose the wrong supplier. Proper Production Engineering is not a waste of money or something that only other people do.
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To qualify what I mean by quality control, I'm encompassing EVERYTHING that affects turning the design into the finished product. You may call it quality assurance and that's probably the ISO9000 definition. We don't chuck cabs together, we build them right. Every process's details are considered: tolerances, time, parts, repeatability, etc. There are three of us fulltime here and we do everything. And we don't just design products, we engineer the production process, we carry out the production process, we market (not done much of that over the last year), we provide an arguably unparalleled consultative sales service and after sales support and anything else a VAT registered Ltd company selling globally has to do.

'Quality Assurance' is essentially what we've spent about half our time this year on - changing almost every single process so that traditional QC becomes almost non-existent because it is redundant as everything is perfect when it leaves each stage of the process. And we have done this with zero funding and selling products which are rarely paid for by credit, in the midst of the biggest global recession since the '30s! It is not easy but we are in this for the long haul, we want live music and bass players in particular to sound better and I'd like one day to gain some financial reward for making the world a better sounding and happier place.

If there's anything I've been guilty of this year it's underestimating the size of the task ahead and even as realisation dawns been over-optimistic of what our small team can achieve. I'd like to extend my huge thanks though to our customers and customers in waiting who have been predominantly very tolerant of the missed estimates (we've missed fewer deadlines) and generally thrilled at their cab exceeding their expectations despite the tiresome wait.
 
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