When are Gibson gonna give up?

[Philly Q]

Any idea who the "famous guitar player" was?  I can't imagine Slash or Zakk trawling the web making notes of customer comments.

[dheim]

I've heard some terrible stories about Gibson from a reliable source.

These guitar of the month abominations are made from left over parts (scr@ps).

Gibson's slogan: "ship it fast and hard, and every guitar ONLY has a 50% it will come back."

And then this quote: " A good friend of mine told me about a famous guitar player that had issues with his Gibson Signature Model and spoke with Henry about it at NAMM.

Seems many players that bought his sig guitar had issues without ANY resolution from Gibby. So, he collected comments from the web, from emails and notes from in-stores, shows, etc.

Anyway, at NAMM he told Henry about the problems, showed him some of the notes and Henry told him: "F*$K those guitar players. They can't afford our new guitars anyway - I want the money from real professionals like doctors and lawyers- you know; real collectors. Guitar players are whiners".

TRUE STORY. I even verified it with a close pal @ Gibby and he said he's heard the same thing from the man himself...

When his deal is over, he's leaving. He's disappointed, pissed and wants nothing to do with them."

it doesn't sound too real...
anyway my guitar of the week looks, feels and sounds great. i don't think it's made from leftovers because its natural satin finish and its lack of a top would make it very visible...

the only issue i had was a quite surreal communication with their technical support: i read on the specs that it should have a push-pull knob, but my guitar obviously hadn't any... so i asked them if there was an error in the specs or in my guitar, and their answer was that specs ARE RIGHT and that my guitar HAS GOT a push pull knob.

i don't think so.

but it's a great guitar anyway!

[Ratrod]

Gibson has more signature artists than you can shake a stick at. I too am wondering who it might be.

Some of the comments come from a guy who used to work in the Gibbo Custom Shop.

The 'poisoned loans' of banks and Madoff's fraud didn't sound real either about a year ago.

[blue]

did read in an interview that james hetfield was going to do a guitar with gibson but got pissed off with them, said they were impossible to work with, the result being the ESP iron cross guitar!

[MDV]

I've heard some terrible stories about Gibson from a reliable source.

These guitar of the month abominations are made from left over parts (scr@ps).

Gibson's slogan: "ship it fast and hard, and every guitar ONLY has a 50% it will come back."

And then this quote: " A good friend of mine told me about a famous guitar player that had issues with his Gibson Signature Model and spoke with Henry about it at NAMM.

Seems many players that bought his sig guitar had issues without ANY resolution from Gibby. So, he collected comments from the web, from emails and notes from in-stores, shows, etc.

Anyway, at NAMM he told Henry about the problems, showed him some of the notes and Henry told him: "F*$K those guitar players. They can't afford our new guitars anyway - I want the money from real professionals like doctors and lawyers- you know; real collectors. Guitar players are whiners".

TRUE STORY. I even verified it with a close pal @ Gibby and he said he's heard the same thing from the man himself...

When his deal is over, he's leaving. He's disappointed, pissed and wants nothing to do with them."

I find this entirely plausible.

It is, after all, a company whose top end product has vastly inferior quality control to many companies Korean factories.

The business strategy and company policies and ethos behind this are pretty obvious. EVERYONES in it for the cash - its business, and thats great, but some are in it for the cash with no regard to the quality of their product and no respect for their customers.

[Antag]

We the consumer get loads of choice, the main one of which is not to buy one!

Exactly (& in this case I wouldn't even if I could afford it! :))

There are regular Gibson hate threads on here. Weird.

OK I admit I've bashed Gibson products regularly on here ("hate" is a little strong).  In 25 years of playing I've probably tried more Gibsons than I can count,  I've owned 8 in that time, still have 4 of them, so I think I've seen enough to form an opinion.

The astronomical prices of the ltd editions, "reissues" etc don't bother me.  Gibson charge whatever the market will support or they go out of business.  I wish anyone rich/dedicated/stupid enough to pay £4k for a guitar all the enjoyment they can get out of it.

It's the wildly variable quality control I have a problem with.  I've encountered new Gibson guitars with absolutely shocking fretwork, fingerboards that looked like they were sanded with a housebrick & pickups that had no business being installed in a guitar costing >£1200.

The lawsuit again PRS lowered my opinion of them as an organisation too....

[Ratrod]

I have no hatred for Gibson. I just think it's sad, ver, very sad, what this once great guitar company has become.

A management guru once asked the GM board what the goal of the company was. The answer they gave was money. It's all about the money and nothing else.

This gure replied with: "Then why are you building cars and not dealing crack? Less costs  and way more profit."

[PhilKing]

Well I can see that there is a lot more work in it than the basic VOS.  Someone has to take off the tip from the pickup selector and also there are 3 different knobs which need fitting in the right spot.  Oh, don't forget the Bloomfield burst finish too... though I didn't think they had any choices like that on the originals!

[Lew]

I'd rather have a Caparison!






...yes, I did.

[Jonny]

I'd rather have a Caparison!

To be honest, me too.

[Twinfan]

Any idea who the "famous guitar player" was?  I can't imagine Slash or Zakk trawling the web making notes of customer comments.

Elliot Easton?  I know he's on various web forums.........

[horsehead]

who?

I, as many others, have no problem with Gibson per se. I love the Les Paul shape, but I prefer the quality, woods & overall everything that some (not all) suppliers give instead of them. I tried 12 (I think) Gibsons & everyone had a fault or just felt shoodily put together. I tried 3 Tokai's (including 1 Korean) & everyone felt 100 times better than all of the gibsons.

As some said earlier it doesn't seem to matter with Fender as they seem to have a heart about, but with the big G, it seems to be more about screwing us out of our money.

[Will]

Why pick on Gibson?
How many signature Strats and Teles are there? Plus other variations on that theme. Fender are surely the leaders in the milking dry stakes.

The same could be said of PRS, or most other manufacturers. All of them only have so much they can play with, and naturally they want to sell as many guitars as possible. What's the problem with that?

We the consumer get loads of choice, the main one of which is not to buy one!

There are regular Gibson hate threads on here. Weird.

Nothing wrong with a Gibson, just got to try and find the right one for you.

However, they don't do factory seconds any more, and ship them out ready for the customer to send back 'faulty' stock. That is definately wrong though.
I am not one to complain about cosmetic issues anyway though

Any idea who the "famous guitar player" was?  I can't imagine Slash or Zakk trawling the web making notes of customer comments.

Elliot Easton?  I know he's on various web forums.........

Bonamassa? it might be a bit soon as his haven't been out long have they?

[MDV]

Pfffft...hand wringing.

I do hate gibsons.

We arent talking about a minority group of people here, you arent affronting any civil liberties if you hate them.

Only played one that was good. And it was very good. I put it down to shear chance. Stopped clock, etc.

[Lew]

I think twice when slaggin off a brand because it's not nice when you own a guitar by that company that you love and it's getting ripped to pieces - been there, got the t-shirt ( Hi MDV <3 )... but you have to draw a line somewhere and have some honesty about the short comings too.

 8)