Interesting trip to GuitarGuitar today

TINMAN82

Nothing like a trip to the guitar shop in person to dispel some preconceptions (and alleviate GAS...up to a point).

Sat with several guitars that I’ve drooled over recently.

For anyone interested in reading on for my purely subjective observations here they are:

1) The quality of Gibson rosewood fretboards, on average, is abysmal. Some more beige than brown. Horrible textures. This isn’t intended to be a Gibson bashing type of thread.

2) Gibson Les Paul modern (new one with contoured heel). Cool burgundy colour, nice ebony board, fairly pointless cutout as barely improved upper fret access at all.

3) Jimmy Page tele (the £2300 one). Very nice. Looks great. Nice dark rosewood. Nice set up off the hanger. Neck not as thin as I thought it would be but slightly thinner than the American original 60s tele. Resonant unplugged. Fretting out above 1.5 step bends.

4) American original 60s tele (LPB, bound). Lovely. Needed action lowering slightly but still played well. No fretting out on big bends. If they bring these out in other colours I’d be interested.

5) American original 50s tele. Ok. A lot heavier than my AV52. I think probably a slightly thicker neck than the AV52. Fingerboard edges less rounded than the AV52 but even so the low E too close to fretboard edge. I had the nut changed from new on the AV52 for the same reason. I think this would need the same.

6) Ibanez Jem 77p blue floral (Indonesian). Interesting as I recently got a Japanese Jem 7v-wh. Easiest playing (by far) and best setup guitar of the day. Liked the jumbo frets (I normally prefer medium jumbo). Well finished, possibly even better than mine. Noticeably thinner neck (depth) than my Jem which surprised me. Also, neck construction is different and the finish on back of neck very thin satin. Didn’t plug it in but felt an excellent guitar. Light and resonant unplugged. Tempting.
Edit: neck probably not that much thinner at all now I’m home with the 7v in hand. 

Brize

TINMAN82 said:

1) The quality of Gibson rosewood fretboards, on average, is abysmal. Some more beige than brown. Horrible textures.

Couldn't agree more. I know that good quality rosewood is becoming scarcer, but it can't be too much to ask on a £5k Custom Shop guitar.

terada

TINMAN82 said:

Nothing like a trip to the guitar shop in person to dispel some preconceptions (and alleviate GAS...up to a point).

Sat with several guitars that I’ve drooled over recently.

For anyone interested in reading on for my purely subjective observations here they are:

1) The quality of Gibson rosewood fretboards, on average, is abysmal. Some more beige than brown. Horrible textures. This isn’t “that” type of thread.

Not sure about USA models, but the les Paul custom shop ones I’ve seen recently have been diabolical. 335s seem ok, so perhaps Memphis are getting priority over the stock. But when you see a R9 with a fretboard lighter than its lemon burst, it makes you wince. 

Which GG did you go to?

Phil_C

Brize said:

TINMAN82 said:

1) The quality of Gibson rosewood fretboards, on average, is abysmal. Some more beige than brown. Horrible textures.

Couldn't agree more. I know that good quality rosewood is becoming scarcer, but it can't be too much to ask on a £5k Custom Shop guitar.

Yes I've noticed this as well.

Who wants a bright cheap looking rosewood fretboard!

Nice dark rosewood please!

Kalimna

Regarding the comments on rosewood fingerboards so far. The colour is absolutely, 100%, not an indicator of quality as a fingerboard. It may not be the colour you would like - thats an aesthetic issue that could be fixed with dye and you would *never* know. But as a fingerboard, quality is density, grain, degree of quartersawn (very difficult/impossible to assess without looking at the endgrain) and tap-tone when a slab of timber not processed into something holding frets.

If i was to buy a 5k guitar, i would want it to play and sound like it was worth 5k, not be concerned with what it looked like.

The other issues? Well, thats a whole different story!

Adam

TINMAN82

terada said:

TINMAN82 said:

Nothing like a trip to the guitar shop in person to dispel some preconceptions (and alleviate GAS...up to a point).

Sat with several guitars that I’ve drooled over recently.

For anyone interested in reading on for my purely subjective observations here they are:

1) The quality of Gibson rosewood fretboards, on average, is abysmal. Some more beige than brown. Horrible textures. This isn’t “that” type of thread.

Not sure about USA models, but the les Paul custom shop ones I’ve seen recently have been diabolical. 335s seem ok, so perhaps Memphis are getting priority over the stock. But when you see a R9 with a fretboard lighter than its lemon burst, it makes you wince. 

Which GG did you go to?

Edinburgh.

Its not only the colour, they have funny textures with odd pores. The worst (at least that I noticed) was on an otherwise nice looking Pelham blue SG special P90. The board was khaki.

By contrast a £600 Ibanez RG I tried had a perfectly acceptable, normal rosewood board. Fenders were generally fine, some lighter sure. The JP mirror tele and Am original 60s were great. Can only assume Gibson have serious supply problems or there are active cost cutting measures in play.

TINMAN82

Kalimna said:

Regarding the comments on rosewood fingerboards so far. The colour is absolutely, 100%, not an indicator of quality as a fingerboard. It may not be the colour you would like - thats an aesthetic issue that could be fixed with dye and you would *never* know. But as a fingerboard, quality is density, grain, degree of quartersawn (very difficult/impossible to assess without looking at the endgrain) and tap-tone when a slab of timber not processed into something holding frets.

If i was to buy a 5k guitar, i would want it to play and sound like it was worth 5k, not be concerned with what it looked like.

The other issues? Well, thats a whole different story!

Adam

More than just colour Adam, although in some cases the colour is so light it looks odd on a Gibson. I guess light colour may also indicate dryness which will be reversible with oil up to a point.

Yes colour doesn’t affect tone and playability but you can’t completely detach aesthetics (in any area) from quality or desirability, particularly above the £1k mark.

Not sure tap tests have any relevance for fretboards, but you know that already 

But grain, texture, smoothness all poor in many examples. My seagull S6 at around £500 has lighter rosewood but far smoother and more visually appealing than many of these. Crazy.

Kalimna

Regarding tap testing - it is absolutely important in the selection of timber for a guitar. I shall bring some different 'boards in to let you see what i mean This is separate from tap-tuning as applied to acoustic guitars however.

The texture and feel - absolutely, i quite agree with you. And i also agree that aesthetics cant be completely detached - but they can be adjusted without any change to the underlying 'quality'.

Dryness is an odd one. Oil does not rehydrate wood. It does not 'feed' wood, nor does it really do much other than protect the surface and change the colour. In fact, there is a school of thought that, in certain situations (an acoustic guitar soundbox for instance), oil is quite detrimental to tone. However, that is far from a consensus view. And oil certainly affects the feel of a piece of wood, normaly in a positive way.

Wood is a fascinating product, and the way in which it is interpreted is also fascinating.

Adam

TINMAN82

Kalimna said:

Regarding tap testing - it is absolutely important in the selection of timber for a guitar. I shall bring some different 'boards in to let you see what i mean This is separate from tap-tuning as applied to acoustic guitars however.

The texture and feel - absolutely, i quite agree with you. And i also agree that aesthetics cant be completely detached - but they can be adjusted without any change to the underlying 'quality'.

Dryness is an odd one. Oil does not rehydrate wood. It does not 'feed' wood, nor does it really do much other than protect the surface and change the colour. In fact, there is a school of thought that, in certain situations (an acoustic guitar soundbox for instance), oil is quite detrimental to tone. However, that is far from a consensus view. And oil certainly affects the feel of a piece of wood, normaly in a positive way.

Wood is a fascinating product, and the way in which it is interpreted is also fascinating.

Adam

I assumed that wood was rehydrated by oil in some way but if not I’m even more concerned about some stuff on display.

Never intended these observations to trigger another Gibson debate.

But I think there are different permutations of “quality” when it comes to rosewood for fretboards. No doubt structural quality (eg toughness and durability) of these boards is fine, although if they are dry as well as light in colour I’d personally worry about cracks appearing. Aesthetic quality and tactile quality (which will affect playability) have already been mentioned. It’s really those two that interest me.

Being realistic and to use your example, I don’t think anyone spending £5k on a guitar (all those I saw today significantly below that btw) thinks there’s none of that going towards finishing or cosmetic appointments. The Martin D45s with fancy inlays and binding come to mind. Also, we can’t on one hand marvel at an exotic slab of highly figured wood destined for some boutique acoustic and on the other downplay the fretboard on an expensive electric as purely functional!

TINMAN82

PS I’d be surprised if rosewood bound for fingerboards is tap tested for quality in any production line guitar factories but would love to know where if it is! 

Kalimna

I would be very surprised if, for example, PRS, Suhr, Gibson, Ibanez, Jackson etc didnt select from a shipment of timber the best fingerboards on a basis of tap tones for the higher end instruments.

I agree that it seems unlikely (and am happy to be corrected by those with experience), that this would apply to lower-end ranges of mass-produced instruments. But that is separate to the higher-end 'custom shop' ranges.

We should discuss this over a beer or two!

Adam

bloomer

I'm a sucker for a dark board and can't help equating it with quality. I was in GAK the other week and it really stood out to me how light the gibson boards were on their high end ranges. Fender custom shop on the other hand seem consistently dark. I always thought quartersawn on the neck blank was supposed to be correct due to better stability but in the electric guitar world it rarely gets mentioned and no one seems to care. Never thought about it for fretboards though. Gluing two very different species of wood together as in rosewood/mahogany or maple neck construction in theory should be  a big no no because they exchange moisture at different rates, will move differently and tend to warp like a bimetallic strip. There again there's the truss rod. What was this thread about again? O yeh, Gibson fretboards. The one on my 2019 sg junior is reasonably dark but the texture could be better, maybe I'll give it a light sand. 

TeleMaster

Oil it and it’s sorted. I had the same issue with my 2019 Junior and then it was oiled and now it’s as dark as any other. Why they don’t oil them before shipping them out I’ll never know, but it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

TINMAN82

Kalimna said:

I would be very surprised if, for example, PRS, Suhr, Gibson, Ibanez, Jackson etc didnt select from a shipment of timber the best fingerboards on a basis of tap tones for the higher end instruments.

I agree that it seems unlikely (and am happy to be corrected by those with experience), that this would apply to lower-end ranges of mass-produced instruments. But that is separate to the higher-end 'custom shop' ranges.

We should discuss this over a beer or two!

Adam

I’ll need to look out the article I read a while back where someone in the know says the only criteria Martin (and I think Gibson) use for wood selection is weight and visual appeal. No tap tests even on regular acoustic tops (j45 etc) but rather relying on tried and tested designs and build methods. I guess they can’t afford to be selective in the way boutique luthiers can.

Also happy to be corrected as I have no expertise in this area whatsoever but I just can’t imagine these companies spending time and wages tapping fretboard wood, even in the F or G custom shops. For what gain? We’re all on here discussing aesthetics after all, noones complaining about rosewood boards disintegrating or failing to contribute to tone like they should.

fastonebaz

Point 2, agreed.  I went specifically to play one and they're pointless.  Virtually no different to a normal one in terms of access. 

TINMAN82

fastonebaz said:

Point 2, agreed.  I went specifically to play one and they're pointless.  Virtually no different to a normal one in terms of access. 

That’s what I found. Quite surprised but guess it shows how important a 2nd cut out is. Never tried a Les Paul axcess so cant compare with those.

fandango

TINMAN82 said:

terada said:

TINMAN82 said:

Nothing like a trip to the guitar shop in person to dispel some preconceptions (and alleviate GAS...up to a point).

Sat with several guitars that I’ve drooled over recently.

For anyone interested in reading on for my purely subjective observations here they are:

1) The quality of Gibson rosewood fretboards, on average, is abysmal. Some more beige than brown. Horrible textures. This isn’t “that” type of thread.

Not sure about USA models, but the les Paul custom shop ones I’ve seen recently have been diabolical. 335s seem ok, so perhaps Memphis are getting priority over the stock. But when you see a R9 with a fretboard lighter than its lemon burst, it makes you wince. 

Which GG did you go to?

Edinburgh.

Its not only the colour, they have funny textures with odd pores. The worst (at least that I noticed) was on an otherwise nice looking Pelham blue SG special P90. The board was khaki.

By contrast a £600 Ibanez RG I tried had a perfectly acceptable, normal rosewood board. Fenders were generally fine, some lighter sure. The JP mirror tele and Am original 60s were great. Can only assume Gibson have serious supply problems or there are active cost cutting measures in play....

Or maybe they JDGaF.

TINMAN82

fandango said:

TINMAN82 said:

terada said:

TINMAN82 said:

Nothing like a trip to the guitar shop in person to dispel some preconceptions (and alleviate GAS...up to a point).

Sat with several guitars that I’ve drooled over recently.

For anyone interested in reading on for my purely subjective observations here they are:

1) The quality of Gibson rosewood fretboards, on average, is abysmal. Some more beige than brown. Horrible textures. This isn’t “that” type of thread.

Not sure about USA models, but the les Paul custom shop ones I’ve seen recently have been diabolical. 335s seem ok, so perhaps Memphis are getting priority over the stock. But when you see a R9 with a fretboard lighter than its lemon burst, it makes you wince. 

Which GG did you go to?

Edinburgh.

Its not only the colour, they have funny textures with odd pores. The worst (at least that I noticed) was on an otherwise nice looking Pelham blue SG special P90. The board was khaki.

By contrast a £600 Ibanez RG I tried had a perfectly acceptable, normal rosewood board. Fenders were generally fine, some lighter sure. The JP mirror tele and Am original 60s were great. Can only assume Gibson have serious supply problems or there are active cost cutting measures in play....

Or maybe they JDGaF.

Please explain!

Kalimna

Im guessing 'Just Dont Give a F**k'

Im fairly sure ive tried one of the contoured heel joint Les Pauls, but for the life of me cant remember which one. Didnt think much of any increased fret access, but did think it was a lot more comfortble.

Adam

TINMAN82

Kalimna said:

Im guessing 'Just Dont Give a F**k'

Im fairly sure ive tried one of the contoured heel joint Les Pauls, but for the life of me cant remember which one. Didnt think much of any increased fret access, but did think it was a lot more comfortble.

Adam

Ah, I get it now. Guess that’s the most obvious reason. 

Anyway, an enjoyable 90mins in GG it was, made better by having just seen Scotland beat France at Murrayfield!

Kalimna

Anytime France gets beaten, even by Scotland, is a good thing
I really like GG (Edin or Glasgow) - helpful staff, not pushy. Although i suspect I'll actually have to buy something one day!

Adam