mr dave

gonna have to disagree. money is all relative. it's all in how you chose to spend it.

having said that you guys across the pond have a COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS markup on gibsons. holy effing **** man. it's the same numbers in the price tag but in pounds instead of dollars. no wonder you're getting so pissed with their drop in quality. average les pauls at my local store run from $995.00 to about $1500. obviously more for customs or special models. but that's canadian dollars. or 500 - 750 pounds.

so yeah, you guys are getting seriously gouged in the pocket. and yeah, you're goddamned right i would expect a $3000 to be flawless and immaculate. then again i doubt you'd be getting 'that' upset about some cosmetic flaws on a guitar that only cost 500 pounds or so.

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GuitarBizarre

Not minor ones, hell I'd probably live with more than most if the guitar played and sounded good, but the kind of stuff gibson is letting slide really often is getting beyond a joke... if it werent for that i would have nothing against gibson. I dont like their designs too much but just like stratocasters, they have their place and I'm not going to deny it. its the insane reverence of their name coupled with the QC crap.

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mr dave

not in your friends case (or that series of guitar by the looks of things) but i think overall considering the amount of product they have out there the vast majority of the issues people will have with their instrument will be cosmetic and minor.

having said that i think it was an incredibly poor decision to have a campaign for weekly custom series guitars that they couldn't deliver properly. but it's not really up to me to decide whether or not gibson wants to tarnish their name.

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GuitarBizarre

That guitar has a myrsterious hole by the neck pickup route. As shown by similar holes on another guitar I posted, that can be symptomatic of a poorly made neck joint

Then there are the 2 quotes I posted by proxy, of one person where gibson had ****ed the wiring up and it was noisy, and another where the bridge pickup wasn't even connected.

There are more than just 'cosmetic' flaws with gibson. As stated in that original article, Gibson seem to pay much more attention to the looks than anything else when it comes to QC.

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mr dave

right, but you're trying to paint their entire brand as shoddy based on a screenshots of 2 guitars and a couple of forum posts. consider the thousands of guitars they produce over a year. the big screw ups will be griped about online. the lesser ones, not so much.

should i flip out and start a thread because there's a blob of paint that's a little thicker around the edge of the binding on my ESP? of course not. while it's unfortunate your friend chose to get himself a bad model (as opposed to just ending up with a bad guitar) it's not like you're seeing routing issues on every gibson in the shop.

ideally it shouldn't happen. realistically it's how large corporations have developed over the last few decades. it's most definitely not specific to gibson or instrument manufacturers. people want it NOW they don't want to wait for quality, hell most people don't want to wait until they can afford it. a SMALL minority still do, but as i've said before. if you want real quality, you'll have to pay the price and be patient.

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GuitarBizarre

Except I'm not talking about just 2 guitars, I'm talking about many, many guitars, that I have both seen and played from across 3 decdes of Gibson. Gibsons on every single one have consistently failed to meet a quality level equal to the pricetag of the guitar, at best, and at worst have created instruments that are either flawed, unreliable, or downright terrible.

To be honest, I think it speaks volumes that out of all the LPs I've ever played the best one of them all was an Epiphone.

Like I said, I'm not trying to turn this into me flaming gibson at every turn, but the fact is that gibson are one of the largest guitar companies in the world and their guitars have a reputation as being incredible. They are therefore PRICED ACCORDINGLY.

So, given the price, the gigantic capabilities of gibson, and their reputation, why is it that I can play Ibanez, Epiphones, Gibsons, fenders, LTD and all manner of other guitars, yet out of all of them, the only ones that have consistently been either flawed or substandard have been the gibsons?

I understand I seem like I'm just spouting gibson hate, but the point isn't whether or not guitar companies make mistakes, they do, Ibanez have, schecter have LTD and ESP do, as do everyone else.

But then again, why is it Ibanez, jackson and the others can consistently produce guitars of a single good quality level while gibson seemingly cannot, even on guitars they're actively promoting? These are not growing pains or company expansion, this is laziness.

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mr dave

yeah, but like i said it's how very large corporations function in today's economy. what you're getting at has little to do with the actual product. the difference between gibson and the companies you list is scale. it's not an excuse, it's just why. at this point i think you're right in stating that the best thing about a gibson is it's name and little else. but i'm also positive that if ESP/LTD tried to accommodate as much of the market as gibson does their guitars would be just as messy if not way worse.

the thing is, much in the same way that the vast majority of guitarists are illiterate when it comes to reading actual music; most guitar players are ignorant to the gear they use. gibson knows this, and the public accepts it. it's the same logic i use to validate britney spears and her ilk's 'careers'. it's a buyer beware market, always has, always will be.

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GuitarBizarre

Sadly you're right, but I don't think scale can be the only issue with Gibson. Maybe with fender, who are arguably as big or bigger, and while they do have their share of lemons they still by and large produce quality equivalent to price, with maybe a little extra tacked on for brand recognition.

On the other hand we have Gibson, who have produced signature models for guitarists who no longer play Gibson or are dead, (Judas priest, Hendrix), who have produced signature models to exacting specifications costing thousands, which the artist themselves hate. (Jimmy Page, Slash models)


And when it comes to such a large segment of the market, maybe in terms of physical size, yes, but Ibanez and ESP both produce far more varied products, including double locking trems, fixed bridges, hollow bodies, semi hollow, jazz boxes, acoustics, electrics in a range of styles from conservative to the extreme, multiple exhaustive finishing options, set necks bolt ons and neckthroughs available at most if not all pricepoints, a TRUE CUSTOM SHOP as opposed to Gibsons 'We'll make you a guitar with your choice of colour but we're not changin anything else for you' excuse for a custom shop, etc etc.

As you say, the only difference is scale, but its not like Ibby or Fender are tiny companies...hell, Ibanez is big enough to invest serious time and money into the development of a single finish, let alone the vast numbers of completely self made bridges and other hardware, and the only complaints I hear about recent Ibanez guitars is that they're not using the original wizard neck anymore, which is more preference than flaw.

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mr dave

but now you're forgetting the issue of target market.

ibanez guitars are mainly sold to metal and shredder types, technical musicians. gibsons want to sell their guitars to middle aged fogeys who want to relive their youth and 'totally nail that rocking solo in stairway'. one demographic wants a technical instrument the other wants a new belt buckle and you can be guaranteed the manufacturer knows this. which is why ibanez usually doesn't ship garbage but doesn't always lend itself as well to other styles. although their new models i noticed recently seem to be a lot more accommodating.

speaking of awesome finishes - ESP's vintage black is WAY nicer in person than any pic.

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