Gibson - Just living in the past.

RaymondLin

The problem is until Gibson can find a way to use BRZ boards and nitro in a way that is illegal now, it will never be 100%.  Doing things like plastics brings you 0.0000001% closer but they could make it like 5% closer in terms of material with BRZ boards but that will never happen so they are just chasing a dream.

Whitecat

RaymondLin said:

The problem is until Gibson can find a way to use BRZ boards and nitro in a way that is illegal now, it will never be 100%.  Doing things like plastics brings you 0.0000001% closer but they could make it like 5% closer in terms of material with BRZ boards but that will never happen so they are just chasing a dream.

They did a lot of Braz last year in the Custom Shop but it was all not-for-export (like PRS does with most of theirs). 

https://reverb.com/uk/item/9713688-2018-gibson-brazilian-r9-historic-1959-les-paul-limited-run-new-with-coa-ohsc

terada

Having had guitars with floyds, locking, standard and vintage tuners.

I find the more modern ones too much of a faff. I'd rather rely on the string under its own tension than a mechanism to hold it in place

chrisj1602

Blueingreen said:

stickyfiddle said:

Some of us genuinely aren’t fussed about locking tuners. They add weight so you can save 10 seconds per string when changing them. 

Yeah but my point isn't that their appeal is universal, it's that there is enough consensus that they are a good thing for most manufacturers to fit them as standard on high end guitars except for Gibson and Fender. 

But locking tuners have featured on Gibson and Fender guitars, plenty of them. Locking Grovers have been on the Les Paul Standard and Traditional Pro recently, and Fender have their own branded locking tuners!

Jez6345789

I think they have made a start with returning a Les Paul standard to being a standard not a traditional ,shows they are prepared to listen to their customers and clearly separating classic and modern seems right also. 

I think the new CEO has a lot of ground to cover unravelling Harvard Henrie's view of the world which was a somewhat antiquated approach of force-feeding the market what Gibson could generate the best margin on, then putting what they actually want as a sort of fake ivory tower. It was a very cynical model and one that in the end was his undoing and rightly so. 

I have said this before but to me its pretty simple make the best guitars and people will beat a path to your door no excuses no sleight of hand people who want a Gibson want what all the classic stuff the golden years had to offer. In terms of tone fit and finish etc. I think PRS has succeeded in doing that from the point of view of quality. 

I think it is almost pointless trying to do the Gibson budget stuff done under Henries regime in the US once you are advertising hard and physically demanding 12 hrs shifts with compulsory overtime you are literally forcing tired people to try and produce at their optimum to meet targets corners will be cut and quality will tank and you build no sense of pride or ownership in the company or brand. just knackered people. That stuff needs to move offshore.

As for innovation again with a solid working core range of Gibson guitar paying the bills, they can use some of their many brands like Valley Arts to bite into their competitor's markets (Fender, PRS, Suhr, Ibanez, etc) Nobody will chastise innovation under the Valley Arts brand. Yeah relaunch the custom pro and standard pro  but quickly from there pivot the brand to appeal to modern players.

As said bring back Ebony on Customs I got the distinct impression from some comment I read it was as much to do with Bob Taylor positioning himself as a sustainable Ebony supplier to the industry and Henry remarking we don't buy from our competitors some while back. Seeing as Ebony was never used on mass by Gibson like Rosewood it seemed far more a political point than one of sustainability. 

Next year will be interesting to see how far they get. 

Whitecat

Jez6345789 said:

As said bring back Ebony on Customs I got the distinct impression from some comment I read it was as much to do with Bob Taylor positioning himself as a sustainable Ebony supplier to the industry and Henry remarking we don't buy from our competitors some while back. Seeing as Ebony was never used on mass by Gibson like Rosewood it seemed far more a political point than one of sustainability. 

This was pretty much it as I understand it too... Bob has virtually the entire supply chain locked up now, except literally everyone else is perfectly happy to buy it from him and he is making it available at reasonable prices because it's good for the people who work in his mills in Cameroon. So now that the chief obstacle to it has been sacked, I see no reason why they can't do it.

Interestingly, Godin guitars have gone all-in on Richlite this year. They used to have ebony on a few of their high-end archtop models, but for 2019 it's been fully phased out and Richlite is used on all the 5th Avenue and Montreal models that used to (sometimes) have ebony. I know Robert Godin is a big fan of it, and he probably can get away with it too since the Godin stuff doesn't have to look all misty-eyed into the past... Gibson's got a tradition to uphold though!

ICBM

Whitecat said:

So now that the chief obstacle to it has been sacked

That phrase amused me . A new definition of 'CEO' when applied to Henry!

I don't have a problem with Richlite on mid-priced instruments, nor on high-end deliberately modern ones... but I do on a Les Paul Custom. Either you make a big thing about your traditions and do it right, or you don't do either.

The real problem is now for anyone who's bought a recent Custom with a Richlite board - they can probably say goodbye to a substantial chunk of its value.

Hydra19

I love guitars and buy a few every year but I would never, and have never considered Gibsons for the following reasons:
1. It was out of my price range when I was starting
2. Started looking at MIJ alternatives and scored a Les Paul I was really happy with the price (Orville by Gibson)
3. Started looking at more MIJ options, list was endless, only problem budget
4. Eventually moved over to ESP Navigators, which I believe surpass standard production Gibsons (paid less than Gibson price for each of my 4 Navigators)
5. Read all kinds of horror stories about Gibson QC issues, that I believe happen way too often. It's like 50/ 50 you'll get a crap one.
6. Navigators have spoiled me with Honduran Mahogany, how much would I have to pay to get that at Gibson? Historic prices?

I love Fenders too, but for Gibson style guitars it's always a copy. Navigators are copies but those are damn nice guitars, I'd buy any model unseen because all of them have been amazing. With Gibsons, I'd be fearing QC issues, but Gibsons are still out of my budget as I like fancy stuff.

I believe Gibson markets itself wrong, and perhaps they are happy targeting rich workers who wish to blow their yearly bonus on a model like their heroes used to play, but for the actual guitar players, it is not true that only a Gibson is good enough.
1.Bring down the prices
2. Increase in quality and quality control.
3. Bring the RI line down to the standards, and let the Custom Shop deal with replicas of famous players.

I am considering getting a 1969 SG because I believe Gibson still used Honduran wood back then and there are no other alternatives for a 1969 SG but if ESP or Tokai start making high-end copies I'd be all over them.

That's my story, had many Gibson style guitars but I feel they're way overpriced for what they are and believe their marketing is 'negative'. It looks down on other brands and innovations, with a slogan that everyone knows is a lie. And I believe they are not for musicians, more for posers. Tom Morello started Rage with a bitsa guitar, he didn't need a gibson, neither did Billie Joe starting out. How many guitarists that have to buy their own gear start out on Gibsons? Not many

TTBZ

The new ones look great but I went along and had a play on a few at NAMM and was severely underwhelmed given how much they're going for. Not exactly bad but the ones I tried had no wow factor. That new "all access" style LP neck join does the job though. The natural wood SG just felt plain cheap and nasty.

To be fair my judgement may have been clouded by man flu, sleep deprivation and hangover though. But I much preferred all the ESP/LTD guitars I had a go on. Just felt higher quality and the fit/finish and setup were better across the board. Even on the lower end LTDs.

merciful-evans

Gibson are in business to make a profit. We dictate what they make with our buying choices.

Gibson have tried to innovate, but they get punished every time they try. In 2015, the Gibson forum was ablaze with anger, bitterness and hatred for the innovations introduced across the USA (Nashville) line. I got a new LP at half price at the end of 2015 because they couldn't shift those guitars.

When Rob Chapman asked the public to vote on what guitars his future company should make, is it any wonder they all turned out to be Les Pauls, Strats & Teles?

Guitarists are mired in the past. There has been innovation, and it doesn't sell.

Nunogilberto

I don’t think Gibson have a choice. Every time they try something new (innovations like G Force or new guitars like that superstrat thing from years ago) they get universally panned for it by the guitar community.

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t it seems.

ICBM

Nunogilberto said:

I don’t think Gibson have a choice. Every time they try something new (innovations like G Force or new guitars like that superstrat thing from years ago) they get universally panned for it by the guitar community.

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t it seems.

I think the G-Force debacle was more to do with how it was done than what was done. If they'd stuck to offering the system effectively as an option on a limited range of models, not crudely fixed the nut problems it caused by fitting an oversized metal one which necessitated widening the neck, not *then applied it to the whole standard range for a year whether anyone wanted it or not*, and not finally topped it off with a 'tribute' logo which looked like it had been drawn by a child with a marker pen, on models that the name didn't apply to... then they might have been better received. It's almost an object lesson in how to totally destroy any demand for an innovation.

If you mean the M-III as the superstrat, that was a good guitar - let down by some slightly odd styling choices that didn't make it attractive to the market it should have been aimed at, and with a switching system that seemed to have been designed to make use of the available switches rather than to give the most useful sounds. Another case of imposing what the high-ups at Gibson thought would appeal to buyers who actually wanted something different, because they didn't understand the buyers. It's like middle-aged corporate executives wearing leather jackets and shades and thinking they look cool.

Barnezy

As above, I think most the criticism toward Gibson around innovation was targeted at the year the decided to force metal nuts and g-force on to the range. If these were kept to just a few models, it may have received a better response. I don’t think this proof Gibson fans aren’t open to them trying new things, just not forcing it across their range. 

Bigsby

The above points are all true - Gibson did handle things badly, especially in 2015, although I suspect the 30% price hike that year did more than rub salt in the G-Force wound.

But innovation - or any change - has tended to not be welcomed by Gibson's customer base, whether it was their collaboration with Moog in the 80s, or just switching to fret-over-binding in 2014 (to solve the problems they'd created with over thick binding). Gibson could release a batch of new guitars in 1958, but the last one that really caught on and has lasted was the 60s Firebird. Marauders, Eye, Corvus, M-III, RD, Nighthawk - all have been about as popular as PCBs and zero frets. And note that the 2016 & 2017 ranges duplicated models in 'traditional' and 'High Performance' ranges. But by 2018 the HP models were restricted to just the LP & SG Standards - a sign that the 'T' sales were much better. (FWIW, I actually have an SG HP from 2016 and love it).

But... I think this could change, if Gibson do fully embrace the traditionalists at one end of their USA range, and introduce innovations at the other. I'm not sure they've ever truly done this, they didn't quite manage it with the T and HP ranges, but it sounds as though it's their intention now. It'll be interesting to see how well the 'modern' end of their USA range will sell, as we get into 2020.

terada

Hydra19 said:

5. ...It's like 50/ 50 you'll get a crap one...

I’m sorry but this is complete hyperbole. 

blueskunk

JC will save Gibson. You can bet on that folks. 

Jalapeno

They've loads more back-catalogue to raid.

I still want a mid priced L4 or L5, ES125 / 350 with P90s ..... (I also feel the 175 is way over-priced for a factory produced laminate)

SimpleSimon

guitars4you said:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  @Bigsby - I'm a paid up member of the PRS fan club - Yet I thought the offering at PRS NAMM this year was poor - Nothing really of interest whatsoever - Yes a few new colours on the Silver Sky and probably needed as well, as stories circulate that this is the only current success story within the USA range

I think the 594 is also a recent sucess story. The new hollowbody 594 looks lovely if you can afford one. I see PRS focus less on 'new' new products over Pauls continual refinement of existing models via tweaks to the tuners, pickups, etc