WARNING: Darrin Huff Basses / Zeller Guitars

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#4,981
James Gazzard said:
. i want the clients to get their scroll basses that is my deal 100% . i made some points and got attacked.
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I know you won't like reading this, but I would be surprised if you ever got your bass. I would be even more surprised if the waitlisters get their bass before you do.

Having said that, I have no dog in this fight. I sincerely hope it works out for everyone involved, and will go back to lurking.
 
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#4,982
James Gazzard said:
no completion date for the proposed bubinga scroll or the MW choice .i did not ask never talked about. it was always after the clients were fullfilled though .but i figured a small deposit i can possibly own a Dhuff down the track.how far down the track not sure. cannot remember a while ago now.maybe i was researching scroll basses like a CT and it popped up. then i saw the luthier skills Darrin has . second to none.i was just sorting out a question on the MW bass. i wanted folks to know i was never jumping the queue.
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DH is not the only person who can make a very high quality custom bass. Why not give your money to someone with a proven record of integrity and ability to do what they promise.

I guess people pour money into the Superlotto every day thinking they will beat the astronomical odds and be the winner. In fact, they are throwing their money away.
 
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#4,986
James Gazzard said:
very small deposit mate . 5%. OK i still beleive the clients orders will be fullfilled .yeah OK still wary granted .the problem how i see it anyway is Darrin builds the bass guitar version of a stradavarious voilin. too much extreme perfectionism in his mind . off the chart perfectionism . he cannot step away from it somehow and build 9/10 great quality scroll basses and crank em out to the very patient clients. that is the intervention i proposed. who knows how to fix this i don't . anyway i am no psychologist .
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Building a violin is more complicated and time consuming than building a solid body electric guitar. Carving a violin scroll for a professional luthier takes maybe an hour. Stradivari built 1,100 instruments during his life without access to much in the way of power tools and no electricity.
 
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#4,990
gln1955 said:
Darrin wouldn't be messing with us would he?

Nah....
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Nope, that's not Darrin, unless he's suddenly become a supersophisticated internet user and spoofer of IP addresses internationally.
I know everyone's rightfully beyond PO'd about the grotesque quagmire (great descriptor @Gunga Din ) that is the backlog of D. Huff's bass travesty.
But please do not be so quick to jump on someone new.
I don't read this poster as defending Darren. "He's no sociopath, he's a fairly nice bloke" is in fact EXACTLY what a new person would think about someone who has sociopath tendencies, if you think about it. If Darren, in initial communication (order or pre-order time) came across as a raving axe-murderer type, none of you would have ordered in the first place. It's precisely because he can come across as a "fairly nice bloke" (and has good luthiery skills) that people got sucked in.
 
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#4,991
James Gazzard said:
not even close .have you not read what i have posted. .i answered a question needed to be addressed on the MW bass and also to say i am not jumping the queue ever. that was it ?!?! i had some insights to say Darrin suffers perfectionism and that may be the cause for the client list going unfullfilled. "constructive " mate. i want the clients to get their scroll basses that is my deal 100% . i made some points and got attacked. no argument to say "Darrins not so bad " was made to the people left out in the cold . i actually showed empathy to the clients predicament. which still stands despite.
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You give Darrin the benefit of the doubt, and that's your prerogative. However you (and Darrin) both have to understand that after 10, 15, and even 20 years of, let's say, mysterious behavior (see below), some are no longer going to give him that benefit. It's not the least bit unreasonable for some on the waiting list to believe that they will never receive the bass that they paid at least 50% down on 10-20 years ago.

It's also not unreasonable for anyone to be angry about it, especially given that Darrin has managed to finish instruments, scrolls included, that have not gone to the waiting list. Not long ago he managed to build and sell a batch of Zeller guitars -- his claim was that this would somehow allow him to complete overdue scrolls, but of course that resulted in zero overdue scrolls. Earlier this year Darrin acquired a CNC machine and promised that all overdue scrolls will be done by August 2021 -- again, the end result was exactly zero overdue scrolls. This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding decades of mysterious behavior.

Now we see that he was apparently offering basses to the public. He also took your small deposit on a "spare" scroll bass -- funny how these "extras" keep falling out of trees (no pun intended). All this after he'd previously stated that he would build no more scroll basses once all backordered scrolls were completed.

Point is, it's only natural for those who have been following this drama to wonder "what the fudge is going on here?" At minimum the optics are absolutely terrible, so it's legitimate for some to question whether the backordered basses are still a priority for him. And again, it's to be expected that some will get angry about it.
 
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#4,992
Fuzzbass said:
And again, it's to be expected that some will get angry about it.
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Forgot to mention: sadly, this is the age of internet vigilantism, and Darrin has apparently received hostile personal attacks. I've told him personally that this is wrong. However I've also told him that it isn't the fault of this Talkbass thread, and it wouldn't have come from anyone I know on the wait list. Bottom line: he's dug himself into an unprecedented hole so it's no surprise that he's become infamous for it, especially given his mysterious behavior (as I've been politely calling it).
 
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#4,995
joelns said:
Perhaps the individual that just posted was a troll. Joined yesterday, 9 posts, all on this thread. Does make one wonder...
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That was my impression.
Fuzzbass said:
You give Darrin the benefit of the doubt, and that's your prerogative. However you (and Darrin) both have to understand that after 10, 15, and even 20 years of, let's say, mysterious behavior (see below), some are no longer going to give him that benefit.
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He perhaps didn't start out as a scammer, but that's certainly where he ended up.
 
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#4,996
gln1955 said:
…I guess people pour money into the Superlotto every day thinking they will beat the astronomical odds and be the winner. In fact, they are throwing their money away.
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But most people who buy lottery tickets, or gamble in casinos, do it for the fun, the excitement of seeing money flying around, not the real expectation of a payout. And so it should be with Darren. If it’s Mr. Gazzard’s idea of a good time to put down deposits with an arch scamster, so that he can know the thrill of maybe getting something or maybe not, who am I to judge? As long as there’s no actual expectation of getting anything.
 
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#4,997
-Asdfgh- said:
I'd be lucky to build anything that looked vaguely scroll-like in a month and a couple of missing fingers :)
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slowburnaz said:
I think I could build something scroll-like... it just wouldn't be the cool curly cross section of a scroll. Rather, it'd be the side view, so, you know, a dowel.
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None of us are luthiers. The scroll is not difficult for violin makers. I do not think carving the scrolls is the problem.

My point was Antonio Stradivari managed to make about 1000 violins throughout his lifetime. He was old when he died, but it is reasonable to assume he made at least 10 violins a month without electricity and still had time to also make harps, cellos, and other instruments. I'm guessing Stradivari made more guitars in his lifetime than Huff has despite the handicap of no electricity.
 
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#4,998
Sid Fang said:
But most people who buy lottery tickets, or gamble in casinos, do it for the fun, the excitement of seeing money flying around, not the real expectation of a payout. And so it should be with Darren. If it’s Mr. Gazzard’s idea of a good time to put down deposits with an arch scamster, so that he can know the thrill of maybe getting something or maybe not, who am I to judge? As long as there’s no actual expectation of getting anything.
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good time ? thrill ? as i said a small 5% deposit to try to kick start Darrin's progress. no i beleive i will see my MW bass.
 
#4,999
kesslari said:
Nope, that's not Darrin, unless he's suddenly become a supersophisticated internet user and spoofer of IP addresses internationally.
I know everyone's rightfully beyond PO'd about the grotesque quagmire (great descriptor @Gunga Din ) that is the backlog of D. Huff's bass travesty.
But please do not be so quick to jump on someone new.
I don't read this poster as defending Darren. "He's no sociopath, he's a fairly nice bloke" is in fact EXACTLY what a new person would think about someone who has sociopath tendencies, if you think about it. If Darren, in initial communication (order or pre-order time) came across as a raving axe-murderer type, none of you would have ordered in the first place. It's precisely because he can come across as a "fairly nice bloke" (and has good luthiery skills) that people got sucked in.[/QUO thanks mate ! i appreciate it struth . this site talkbass is too tough for me.i was just trying to clear up the MW bass issue and state i would never jump the clients queue ever . 9 posts later still trying to defend myself.
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