So, that whole thing about Gibson quality control...

ICBM

Here's a good one - on a 2002 ES-335 I'm working on today. See who can spot it first...



Yes, it's trivial - but a perfect illustration of the laziness and lack of care about doing things right, or correcting mistakes properly when they happen.

What's a lot less trivial is the nasty hump in the fingerboard which is causing major choking at the 12th-13th frets, and which I am fret-dressing out. Definitely in the wood, not a high fret or wear.

terada

ICBM said:

Here's a good one - on a 2002 ES-335 I'm working on today. See who can spot it first...



Yes, it's trivial - but a perfect illustration of the laziness and lack of care about doing things right, or correcting mistakes properly when they happen.

What's a lot less trivial is the nasty hump in the fingerboard which is causing major choking at the 12th-13th frets, and which I am fret-dressing out. Definitely in the wood, not a high fret or wear.

The label?

ICBM

terada said:

The label?

Bingo. Someone has written ES-135 on it, then - given by the shaky scrawl, after it was put in the guitar - crudely tried to put a 3 over the top of the 1.

Anyone who really cared about doing the job right would have replaced the label. The serial numbers are hand-written anyway, so it's not as if they have special ones printed.

p90fool

Well that's gonna ruin your chance of a chewy at the end of the gig....

Musicman20

From the angle, the bridge pickup looks misplaced, as do the bridge posts. 

ICBM

Musicman20 said:

From the angle, the bridge pickup looks misplaced, as do the bridge posts. 

The bridge pickup surround is about 1/16" too far to the treble side, yes. The bridge posts are fine, they line up correctly with the neck.

The irony is that this one has an unusually low neck angle, and if it wasn't for the speed bump in the fingerboard it would play really well. Well, that and the hideous squared-edged frets... which will shortly be gone too.

Three-ColourSunburst

Here's a 'better' example of Gibson QC on a red 335, this time a 1964 model.

Blueingreen

thegummy said:

Flametop said:

TheGuitarWeasel said:

Chalky said:

Person A stays in a hotel and isn't happy with the service.  A writes a negative review.

B reads the negative review and via a forum passes on to C, D and E that the hotel is not good. The pass it on to others.

Someone else reads this later and sees several negative comments about the hotel and concludes not to go there.  But the truth is that only one negative experience by one person led to many negative comments about the hotel.  And of course most people do not bother signing up to give a review because their experience was fine so why bother?

Thus the hotel gets a disproportionate reputation, mainly from those folks who regurgitate what they've read on the internet, often with no direct hands on experience.

A guitar has a twisted neck. Will it only be represented by one comment? No. It will be represented by comments by everyone who has had any connection with it, even when the only connection is that they saw a picture of it on the internet.  That is what the internet is like - one negative experience becomes multiplied and amplified. Good experience does not.

Have a wisdom :-)
Bad news has always travelled faster than good, papers have always sold on tragedy rather than triumph. Why should the internet be any different?

This is all true, but in the context of this thread does it actually make any difference. You would expect every manufacturer’s bad news travel at the same rate assuming they ship similar numbers of guitars.
I couldn’t find any recent data  to confirm this is the case but I recall some sales figures from a few years back that suggested that Fender was slightly ahead in terms of guitars shipped. Not vouching for the reliability of my memory though. 

The way I see it there are a few possibilities:

1) Fender has a similar level of QC but their marketing department is far more effective at stomping on outbreaks of negativity. 

2) People don’t make a fuss about a bad experience if they drop a grand on a guitar but they do if they drop 2.5k. 

3) There is a massive internet conspiracy to smear Gibson. 

4) Fender aficionados are far more positive people than their Gibson equivalent. 

5) Gibson’s quality control is actually worse. 

 None of this actually makes any difference to whether I’d buy one. I would just make sure I played it first, which given the cost, I would do anyway. 

I think the only feasible one is the last.

Point number 2 might come into it slightly if the problem is minute but someone finds that unacceptable on such an expensive guitar. But most of the problems I've seen reported aren't so minute.

I think a couple of other things may come into it.

1.  Gibsons used to be seen as simply a good deal more expensive than Fenders.  With both companies nowadays offering guitars at a wide range of price points the waters have been muddied but I still think there's a perception that Gibson is more of a luxury brand.  Part of peoples' criticism of Gibson relates to the perception that they are charging luxury brand priced and applying budget brand QC.

People think it's legitimate to compare Gibson to PRS, Suhr or Tom Anderson in QC terms, and it compares badly.  Apart from custom shop models people think that yardstick isn't one you can fairly apply to Fender -  yes, the QC on Suhr's and Andersons is better but you'd expect that, you are paying more.

2.  There's also an element of design.  If the goal is mass production of instruments with consistent quality, the Fender designs are simply better.  There's more can go wrong with a Gibson, so QC needs to be better to maintain the same consistency of quality.  All the evidence is that it isn't.

In any case I don't accept the "bad news travels faster" metaphor.  If you look at restaurant or hotel reviews sure, you will see people complaining about bad experiences.  But on average, hotels and restaurants that are providing a decent service will have positive scores, ie many more good reviews than bad.  It's simply not true that people who have bad experiences review while people who have good or satisfactory experiences don't.  A reviewer who left a trail of one star reviews would soon lose credibility.

ICBM

And this, on the same 335...



Bear in mind that this guitar has not been refretted, that's as it left the factory.

What did they cut the fret slot with, a chainsaw? The wood is badly torn up on both sides - and I certainly did not make the crowning file marks! I mask the fingerboard.

This is not a £100 Chinese copy, it's a £2K US-made guitar from one of supposedly the world's best brands.