Hey Gibson! Knock it off!
Hey folks. Not a lot of value add this time, more a rant really. I’m seriously disappointed in Gibson. Let me tell you why, I think that they’ve missed the boat, or jumped the shark or whatever.
Gibson is a prestigious name. Even though no one wanted that Explorer thing that ended up being crushed, it was at least an attempt at something new. A poor attempt perhaps and definitely weighed down by legacy expectations.
I cannot fault the current leadership. They’ve done the research, poked the chicken entrails and copied everything that they can from clothing brands (go figure) to make the Gibson that exists today.
Putting Signatures on Guitars
I would love to see something actually innovative from Gibson, but since doing so would not permit the company’s favourite bucket of bafflegab including authentic, iconic and the myriad other nothings that set off bullshit detectors at 100 yards, they would not do it. And if they did, they’d be excoriated by the marketplace who doesn’t actually buy instruments, but likes to yell at the sky because whatever Gibson built was not a copy of something made 65 years ago.
In the last month or so, Gibson has released a bunch of “signature” guitars at higher than the usual high prices because someone’s name is silk screened on it somewhere. Once upon a time a signature was a different build and limited in quantity and there wasn’t a new signature every other week. I am sure the numbers support it, but who is lining up in 2022 to buy an Everly Brothers signature J-200? I’m old, and the Everlys were already done when I started listening to the radio. Who is the buyer? A bunch of older folks with enough money to overspend on a guitar that is a J200 with black paint and a pair of pickguards? No young musician, even if respectful of those tunes from so long ago, has the money to spend on this kind of thing.
There’s a Lzzy Hale something or other. Does it play better or sound better than whatever it is based on? Of course not, but it’s a signature. Same for the lately announced Dave Mustaine Flying V. Is it significantly different from a bog standard Flying V, an interesting guitar only in body shape that was never a big seller? That would be a big no. I remain a huge fan of the great American songwriter Tom Petty but even my love for his music would never convince me to drop that kind of coin on a Jumbo, fancy pickguard notwithstanding. Too expensive and for too few. Brings revenue today, but does not build a future.
Quality
My first Gibson was (is) a Les Paul from the Norlin era. It started life with the first owner as a Les Paul Deluxe, but by the time I bought it in 1976 it had been gutted out to take humbuckers. It is the Norlin era sandwich body, and has all the resonance of a piece of crap brick but at least it’s really heavy. I’ve changed the pickups in it several times and with some hard work by an excellent luthier it is now playable and sounds decent. But the initial quality was shit. Then for a while after Henry and Co. bought Gibson quality improved, even if half the lights were out in the factory. JC and Co did turn all the lights on and for a short time, quality on non-Custom shop instruments improved. Actually QA improved and you could with 40% success pull a new Gibson out of the case and it would be ready to go. Not so anymore. Quantity again trumps quality and I am told reliably that every Gibson out of the case needs work in the store to make it playable. I’ve been in enough stores where this is not done that most of the Gibsons that I have picked up were horrible to play and we will not talk about the finish quality. Quality is better in the horrendously priced Custom Shop models before they head off to the destruction factory to fake out false age. At which point, I saw no way am I spending ten grand on what was possibly a decent guitar fake aged to serve a moronic ego need.
Last year came the cost effective Generation acoustics with the side soundport. Prices were decent for anything with a Gibson label and they looked good right until you played one. If there was ever a setup done on these things, I and many guitar store managers would be stunned. Looking inside, the construction would need to improve not to be sloppy. There’s glue all over the place. Moreover they do not sound good from an audience perspective and that so called satin finish is just another way of saying too cheap to put a decent finish on it. Spare me the tripe about a satin finish breathing better than a gloss finish. That’s just a pile of burning dogshit, particularly if the satin finish is still polyurethane.
New Models
I’m not convinced that every musician wants another Les Paul or SG or Explorer or Flying V. Gibson’s vaunted semi-acoustics do not get much attention, which is probably a good thing because of the quality issues. The recently released Theodore is reputedly based on a drawing from the Fifties done by then Gibson President Ted McCarty. Yay! Another Fifties instrument, this one tulip shaped, just like other tulip shaped guitars of the period. McCarty never proceeded with it, which tell us something, much like Moderne, another generic instrument that is both uncomfortable to play standing or sitting. I can say this as I own an early 2000 and something Moderne. While I have heard wonderful compliments for the Theodore, it is from a componentry perspective no more than a P90 equipped Les Paul Special. A slab of wood with two pickups, no fancy finish, no binding, just an odd shaped guitar. However this odd shaped guitar has an MSRP of $4995 USD compared to under $2K for the Special. What are you getting for $3K? Nothing that I can see other than the ability to overpay for something that the designer decided never to build.
The Great Designs
Gibson as a design innovator is long since dead. Their hollowbodies have gone to The Great Gig in the Sky. Where’s the innovative design of a Tal Farlow or Barney Kessel? You can still order an L5-CES or Byrdland for the price of a decent used car or the price of a small new car. Not happening. Moreover, Gibson is trying to fish in more budget conscious buyers by using their China Epiphone factory to build “Inspired by Gibson” models which should set your BS detector flashing. There have been some brilliant Epiphones, like the Sheraton II or the Casino, but no, the focus is on signature models inspired by Gibson, such as the Epiphone Les Pauls. My personal take on Epiphone, is that two to three years ago, they were delivering amazing guitars for the money but now the QA is shit. You are far better off with a China made Squier Classic Vibe, or any of the myriad guitars made by Cort labeled for lots of companies. Where the guitar is made is irrelevant if the QA is crap. For example, the PRS SE line is made in Southeast Asia, but before being shipped, every single one is inspected and set up at PRS Maryland. Pretty hard to beat a PRS SE at it’s price point and up to twice that. Gibson should be capable of this, but they aren’t doing it and that has to be a conscious decision by the leadership.
Rant Ends Here
Guitars are not denim jeans. Heck denim jeans aren’t even denim jeans anymore. Built to last or built for fashion? Gibson is now a fashion company not a guitar company and if they don’t smarten up, they will go down the tubes again, whilst the current leaders make a bundle. It’s not 1959. Build a guitar that is 2022. I dare you.
