New Hartford and Ovation

I was perusing Doyle Dyke's site tonight and he had a recent post about a recent stop at the New Hartford facility. He's going to take two Ovations on the road with him along with his Olson and Sand guitars. A 12 string blue Adamas cutaway and an Adamas wood top. I didn't know Ovation was his first sponsor before Taylor and Guild. He mentioned that he opened his recent shows with the song "New Hartford".

The following is a quote from that post.

"..By the way, I’m playing these guitars just because I want to and because they deserve to live! I’m hoping to see more electricity in that old pre-Civil War building once again cranking out one of the most innovative and treasured guitar brands of all time… Ovation!"

Was there ever a definitive reason for Guild and Doyle parting ways? It just seemed odd to have a signature model developed and promoted only to sever the relationship so suddenly. I guess he just wasn't in their vision for the future.

By the way, the 400 Guilds that were stored in New Hartford are nearly all gone. I was just there last week. There is a small contingency of Ovation employees performing both warranty and non-warranty work in the old detail shop...they refuse to go away. It's nice that they gave Doyle a couple of models to work with. I think they'd like to fire up up a small operation making very limited numbers. The eqmt is still there to do it.

There is a report from someone who had warranty work done on an Ovation within the past few months that there is still (guitar) life in New Hartford. My understanding is that the building is not owned by a guitar company so the landlord will probably negotiate with anyone who might rent the space, including a current tenant who isn't using much space now. So nothing we know now precludes the possibility of Ovation resuming US production there. Indeed equipment that was exclusively Ovation's may still be in the building along with machines CMG did not acquire and move.

Fascinating! I think Doyle was as pissed by the NH shutdown as many of us were. It's a little strange; I thought Fender was shuttering the place...

I can confirm (met with the boss and took a tour) that none of the Ovation tooling, fixtures or machinery went to Oxnard. It's still in New Hartford. The factory is privately owned and leases out space.

Only equipment that Guild owned was moved.

Fair enough. But, Fender owns the Ovation brand(s), so whatever's going on there is Fender's doing. Anyway, I hope some of the ex-NHers keep jobs.