Indonesian Made

[Marvin]

Someone in Indonesia, employed in manufacturing, could expect to earn about 2.8m IDR/month, which is about £145 per month (that's net, not gross) If you were on min wage in the UK,  your take home is approximately the £1000-11000 mark.

[Dad3353]

9 minutes ago, Marvin said:

Someone in Indonesia, employed in manufacturing, could expect to earn about 2.8m IDR/month, which is about £145 per month (that's net, not gross) If you were on min wage in the UK,  your take home is approximately the £1000-11000 mark.

And how much is a reasonable rent, in Indonesia..?

[Judo Chop]

5 hours ago, greavesbass said:

I own two lowly Indo Vintage Modified P's after a lifetime of playing this and that. One of them is so good its crazy. Lightweight, with a perfect neck and with the SD PU's as standard. For the price its both stunning and playable but still deemed a beginners instrument..and I would love to see myself at Glasto on stage with it.

I've got one of those and the fretless jazz bass too, they're both really good basses particularly the jazz!

[Aidan63]

Acoustic and semi-acoustic instruments require much more hand labour in assembly than solid body ones hence most of them are made in China where labour costs are generally lower than in Indonesia.

South Korea is now suffering from a shortage of labour amidst a falling birth rate in much the same way as Japan did. Indonesia being prominently Muslim will probably not see such a change in the birth rate and needs to find work for its people so will probably continue to be a dominant force in instrument manufacture for a good while to come.

It would be great if a proper documentary maker could get access to all the far East plants and really show the processes and the conditions that the staff work and live under, and that the materials are produced and stored under and do some real analysis of the true cost to the environment and cost and benefit to the people making the instruments of this industry. I realise of course that is never going to happen.

If you want a new instrument buy something built in the UK, otherwise there's plenty enough used instruments in circulation to satisfy us, especially if we all restricted ourselves to 1 or just 2 each 😲😃

[bassbiscuits]

I’ve got Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, American and Mexican bits of kit at the moment.

Long ago realised that good quality and bad quality kit exists regardless of price point or country of origin.

[Dad3353]

2 hours ago, Aidan63 said:

...If you want a new instrument buy something built in the UK, otherwise there's plenty enough used instruments in circulation to satisfy us, especially if we all restricted ourselves to 1 or just 2 each 😲😃

Any advice as to which car to buy..? A new telephone, maybe..? A washing machine..? Not to say that British-built instruments aren't good, but why limit oneself in this respect, and not the others..? Just curious as to the reasoning. 

[M@23]

8 hours ago, TheLowDown said:

Mostly bigotry and naivety. People automatically assume made in somewhere in the East is cheap and nasty. The truth in 2021 is that that if it's made in the USA or Europe, it's most likely expensive garbage riddled with quality control issues. There is actually very little that is made in Europe or USA even if it says so on the label. The laws surrounding what constitutes a Made in USA or Made in Britain label for instance are typically vague and lax, and it's perfectly lawful to make everything in China or India and then ship it over to the USA to package it up with a "Made in USA" label.

Many people buy good ol' British made or "made by Uncle Sam himself" goods because they left their opinion in the 1970s. It's much easier to tar groups and nations with the same brush for reasons of simplicity, and they truly believe that when they buy British or American they're getting a well made product by union jack wearing employees, and retailers play heavily on this perception and use it as a means to jack up their prices.

Personally I would much rather have my bass made by a talented, enthusiastic, and efficient workforce than slackers who do a half arsed job because they hate their job and are just there to pay the bills or while studying at uni.

 

I mean, I agree with some of your post but the bit in bold is surely bigotry and naivety too, then?

On the cost front, it’s not like a Sadowsky or Overwater (or whomever) costs the same to produce as a Cort (or other), which is where most of the price difference lies. It’s not because retailers are being greedy and cashing in on any bias. I don’t think anyone that works for a respected maker would be a slacker either, I mean, it’s not an unskilled random job. It’s pretty specific and i’m sure the training required is thorough and top notch before they let you start making instruments. It’s hardly a summer job for uni students. 
 

On the “made in USA” labelling, isn’t it actually quite strict? I remember years back, someone (Fender/Gibson I guess) having to change labelling because the California laws were changed so that at least X% had to be materials from the USA. It was 95% of wholesale had to be from US materials or something like that. 

[Al Krow]

6 hours ago, Aidan63 said:

Indonesia being prominently Muslim will probably not see such a change in the birth rate and needs to find work for its people so will probably continue to be a dominant force in instrument manufacture for a good while to come.

Really?? What data have you got to back up such a statement?

Declining fertility rates are generally considered to be correlated to economic improvement and women's educational opportunities.

Specifically Indonesia's birth rate has fallen from 5.7 in 1960 to below 2.3 today so it has clearly fallen a lot in that time contrary to your statement. Bear in mind a replacement birth rate is around 2.1

[TheLowDown]

16 minutes ago, M@23 said:

I mean, I agree with some of your post but the bit in bold is surely bigotry and naivety too, then?

No. it's realism.

On the cost front, it’s not like a Sadowsky or Overwater (or whomever) costs the same to produce as a Cort (or other), which is where most of the price difference lies. It’s not because retailers are being greedy and cashing in on any bias.

Companies use every trick they can in the book to gain competitive advantage to squeeze every ounce of profit and revenue that they can. There's a lot of people who buy into the idea of buying British, and every company with more than half a brain is going to tap into this for all it's worth.

I don’t think anyone that works for a respected maker would be a slacker either, I mean, it’s not an unskilled random job. It’s pretty specific and i’m sure the training required is thorough and top notch before they let you start making instruments. It’s hardly a summer job for uni students. 

They probably don't want their employees to be either, but the cultures are every different here to what they are in the East.
 

On the “made in USA” labelling, isn’t it actually quite strict? I remember years back, someone (Fender/Gibson I guess) having to change labelling because the California laws were changed so that at least X% had to be materials from the USA. It was 95% of wholesale had to be from US materials or something like that

Not even slightly. Companies are free to fraudulently claim "made in America" with zero penalty according to this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/us/politics/made-in-the-usa-ftc.html

As mentioned, the laws that dictate what constitutes "made in America" are lax according to the FTC website.

. 

 

[Aidan63]

9 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Really?? What data have you got to back up such a statement?

Declining fertility rates are generally considered to be correlated to economic improvement and women's educational opportunities.

Specifically Indonesia's birth rate has fallen from 5.7 in 1960 to below 2.3 today so it has clearly fallen a lot in that time contrary to your statement. Bear in mind a replacement birth rate is around 2.1

my bad, I thought it would still be higher than that, I didn't actually check what it is

 

but it is the world's 4th largest country by population and it does have a population growth rate of 1.3% which is moderately high so they maybe won't have the same demographic change in the short to medium term that other countries have gone through

Edited January 24, 2021 by Aidan63
further research

[40hz]

Haven't we got to a point where country of manufacturer is borderline irrelevant? The advent of super advanced CNC machining means quality will be uniformly good across the board from most reputable manufacturers. The origin of manufacture may have meant something 15-20 years ago and beyond, but now? . . . I don't think so.

Any issues nowadays tend to stem from time taken to finish and set up, and that's not something that is location specific, but rather £££ specific.

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, Aidan63 said:

my bad, I thought it would still be higher than that, I didn't actually check what it is

but it is the world's 4th largest country by population and it does have a population growth rate of 1.3% which is moderately high so they maybe won't have the same demographic change in the short to medium term that other countries have gone through

Demographic change can happen quite quickly as has been shown by Indonesia already. Have you checked the forward growth projections?

It was the link you made between being a "Muslim" country and high birth rates that we should tread very carefully on. Poverty and lack of women's education seem to be much bigger factors in this and Bangladesh would be another good example of a Muslim majority country where fertility rates have dropped considerably over recent decades.

The highest population growth is actually predicted to be in Africa not Asia.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Al Krow

[kodiakblair]

16 hours ago, Aidan63 said:

Acoustic and semi-acoustic instruments require much more hand labour in assembly than solid body ones hence most of them are made in China where labour costs are generally lower than in Indonesia.

Where did you get that idea from ?

 

Figures from Statista have China at $6.99 ph for 2020, Mexico trails at $4.82 with Vietnam on $2.99.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/744071/manufacturing-labor-costs-per-hour-china-vietnam-mexico/#:~:text=Read more-,Manufacturing labor costs per hour,%2C Vietnam%2C Mexico 2016-2020&text=In 2018%2C manufacturing labor costs,2.73 U.S. dollars in Vietnam.

 

Wages in Indonesia have dropped from $200 per month in March last year to $188.

 

https://www.fxempire.com/macro/indonesia/wages-in-manufacturing

[tegs07]

I haven’t been there in a while but I would be cautious about drawing conclusions about average wage in Indonesia. Jakarta is a world away from Borneo or New Guinea .,,,

[kodiakblair]

1 minute ago, tegs07 said:

I haven’t been there in a while but I would be cautious about drawing conclusions about average wage in Indonesia. Jakarta is a world away from Borneo or New Guinea .,,,

Never been, info came from finance industry news page.

Your quite right about regional variations, maybe minimum wage would be a better measure.

Indonesia  $112.04 pm 2019

Vietnam     $191.57 pm  2020

Mexico       $156.36 pm 2019

China          $327.07 pm 2018

[M@23]

@TheLowDown, it’s not realism. It’s at best your opinion and at worst a load of nonsense. Or both.

You say if it’s European or US made it is ‘most likely expensive garbage riddled with quality control issues’. Based on what, personal experience? That’s a bold claim. Sadowsky, Sandberg, Enfield, Overwater have all been pretty flawless in my experience and there’s dozens of others that are very highly regarded due to decades of trade. 
I’m not saying better. In fact, I sold my Sadowsky because I really loved a Sire that I picked up which did it all. But I can appreciate both and understand that one costs significantly more than the other to produce, no smoke or mirrors, no retailer manipulation, no fleecing the public, just basic economics. 

[LeftyJ]

I wonder what inexpensive country will be next, now that we're already seeing some pretty high-end gear coming from Indonesia at pretty steep prices. The most expensive Indonesian-made Ibanez Premium costs more than the entry-level Japanese-made Ibanez (not a Prestige, mind. Think Genesis Collection). I bet in 20 years time the used market will be filled with expensive "vintage" Squiers from "back when they were still made in Indonesia, much better than they are now!" 

[Sparky Mark]

19 hours ago, Aidan63 said:

Acoustic and semi-acoustic instruments require much more hand labour in assembly than solid body ones hence most of them are made in China where labour costs are generally lower than in Indonesia.

Only an unresearched thought but rather than just pure labour costs, one reason may be China's decades long experience of orchestral instrument production; violins, double basses etc. resulting in a greater number of appropriately skilled facilities and employees. 

[TJ1]

Welll as ong as long as sterling ball(and his fmaily) realiszes that each Indonesian workers committment is a direct imspct on his9thier e rpeutation then I guess it's oK to poy them them whatiever they see fit(in tehe context of the Indosian nationl average wage)

[yorks5stringer]

6 minutes ago, TJ1 said:

Welll as ong as long as sterling ball(and his fmaily) realiszes that each Indonesian workers committment is a direct imspct on his9thier e rpeutation then I guess it's oK to poy them them whatiever they see fit(in tehe context of the Indosian nationl average wage)

that a chinese keyboard on your phone...?😉

[Nail Soup]

Not sure I can comment on how things will go in the future but the Indo-made Squier Tele I bought last year was great .

[EssentialTension]

I've had three Indonesian instruments and all were very fine , expecially the Lakland.

I've also had Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, German, Italian, and British instruments, as well as the USA ones.

All were fine.

[Rich]

 I watched a street vendor in Jakarta carving these things from bits of old plank using a crappy little knife and a few files. He asked the equivalent of 30p for this one (it's about 8" tall) and seemed surprised when I didn't haggle. I'd say they're pretty good with a piece of wood

[FDC484950]

Electric instrument-grade woodworking and setup skills aren’t that difficult to obtain. Any reasonable economy can produce a basic bass/guitar that is finished, put together and set up well. To think that what we call 3rd world countries means the product is worse because labour rates is cheaper is a nonsense - in fact it’s the reverse - there’s a very long history of excellent woodworking and instrument building all over the middle and Far East and Africa. There’s one reason only why bigger brands source instruments elsewhere: cost. The moment labour goes up they shift production to the next cheapest country, which is why manufacturing of all sorts of goods has moved Japan to Korea to China (where quite a lot of work stays) to Indonesia/Vietnam etc. Cheap crap instruments are usually crap because of poor raw materials or poor assembly and set up - which manifests itself across the globe in any volume manufacturer, except those who really have a lid on quality control. A new US Fender retails for £1,600-£2200, a Chinese Dingwall is in the exact same price bracket. Which one is better made?*
 

* no idea as I haven’t played any Dingwall Combustion/NG basses but you get my point!