those chinese gibsons....

[RacerX]

Sheesh!

Get a room, you two. 

[OUTLANDAH]

FIGHT!FIGHT!FIGHT!FIGHT!

[hisheroisjon]

over four pages of heated debate and no one has mentioned Givson yet? Granted they're made in India but look at these fucking things haha.

[VOLVO)))]

I wasn't trying to be a dick or anything, but I'll be damned if anyone is going to tell me I am wrong, and condescend to me without a solid-fucking-case. Just because I am a "Moderator" doesn't mean I won't engage in the same petty bullshit as the rest of the board. So, let's fucking dance.

"I don't care but here is my extremely grating and condescending opinion, anyways, because I want to be contrary just to be contrary. Cuz, you know,  just sayin' you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but I won't provide explanation or evidence stating my claim."

^^^ this is what you really meant, right?

[eoin_not_ian]

over four pages of heated debate and no one has mentioned Givson yet? Granted they're made in India but look at these fucking things haha.

The lightning stickers just has 'pure tone' written all over it.

I need to check out these Givsons.

[RacerX]

over four pages of heated debate and no one has mentioned Givson yet? Granted they're made in India but look at these fucking things haha.

The lightning stickers just has 'pure tone' written all over it.

I need to check out these Givsons.

Not only that, but that guitar is 100% legal—it doesn't look anything like any Gibson model out there. If anything, it reminds me of a BC Rich Eagle.

[VOLVO)))]

over four pages of heated debate and no one has mentioned Givson yet? Granted they're made in India but look at these fucking things haha.

The lightning stickers just has 'pure tone' written all over it.

I need to check out these Givsons.

Not only that, but that guitar is 100% legal€"it doesn't look anything like any Gibson model out there. If anything, it reminds me of a BC Rich Eagle.

koa Eagles are so classy looking. Underrated doom axes.

[Mr. Foxen]

- Check the control and pick up cavities for sloppy routing or wiring
- Real Gibson guitars use one piece necks

Sloppy routing and wiring is how they come. Two piece necks comes a little later.

koa Eagles are so classy looking. Underrated doom axes.

I spammed my one here?



And here is the Doom cred for it:

   
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCPrPMe8LHg

[dogfood]

over four pages of heated debate and no one has mentioned Givson yet? Granted they're made in India but look at these fucking things haha.

The lightning stickers just has 'pure tone' written all over it.

I need to check out these Givsons.

Not only that, but that guitar is 100% legal—it doesn't look anything like any Gibson model out there. If anything, it reminds me of a BC Rich Eagle.

I like the neck through pattern on the body and the obvious bolt on neck!

[jibberish]

not a fight.
i have the right to feel sunno is exaggerating and has limited scope of experience.

ok, you want reasons?

Sam Ashe opened in Lyndhurst on the Greens in the very ealy 90's. guitar center showed up out there, then over on the west side shortly thereafter. ever since those 2 places opened i have played the walls of guitars on a regular basis(well they have now gotten rid of the walls of guitars). this is how i found an ibanez with a neck and action better than anything else in the store. $200 ibanez, i may send it to you sunno for a careful refret. you will shit.  i later found another almost as nice for my son. it took 6 months of playing every guitar on th ewall.

i also played every giibson on wall, the LP's sg's all the epiphones, the $6000 custom specials or wtf. all of them month after month, year after year.  i flat guarantee you that i have handled way more gibsons than you have. i have seen the quality change, and change again. when i bought my cortez 59black beauty jap copy in 1978, i had 3 LP's right there to really compare. been checking them out ever since. some of those new weather cheapo LP's look worse than they actually feel. i dont like them anyway, but they played. i tried a few out. the only thing i really saw was cutting finishing corners like to save money. eliminating entire steps like bindings or certain finishes or inlay styles etc
  of th ethousand guitars i have messed with, the number of fucked up gibsons was right along with most everyone else with a few exceptions of no fucked up guitars. they never stood out as the worst.

ok here is my basic rundown on qualtiy of what i saw in GC and SA to further qualify

PRS - pieces of artwork, i never saw any of them screwed up used or new.
parker - also, someone was making these with love all were immaculate, i dont like them, but they are built very sweet
jackson, IMO this is a junker line in these stores hi end ones were pretty nice, rest were junk
fender, they are pretty consistent like ibanez, but most dont play right, or just need tweaking, esp strats
ibanez, best necks ever for mass production, rest is garbage on their lower guitars. the one with the handle plays like a dream even tho it is queer as hell
esp, nice, nothing special imo
musicman, awesome ass lil guitars, tight solid, players, every one
gibson, ya there some that leave you wondering, but the bulk are just fine. i like my action lower than typical gibson factory so once i noticed they were all high, i was ok again
Schecter - IMO VERY underrated guitars. , they are built like cheap PRS's look feel play great, but there are bad ones for sure
lucitemockingbirds...no..seemed nice but i didnt like them so i never played those heh
danelectro-there were some clinkers but also some players, just didnt feel they would last long, like jackson

epiphone and squire, id buy those, many many really nice players. some that should not be on th esales floor
and oddballs, hamer , peavey, i cant think of the other stray dogs that i didnt see enough of to have a feel


so, i really like you, you are one of my favorite people, and i just was not going say anything more when you say 1 of 100 gibsons is ok. becasue i know that is not true FROM WHAT I HAVE SEEN IN MY EXPERIENCE (only heh)

ALSO ponder this: we both could be right. i would say of the last 100 gibsons i toyed with about half were the usual meh ok nothing special, 1/4 i wanted to take home, and 1/4 had issues. like look at 5-6 of a new model 1 maybe 2 were a dream, the rest were ok except for one that you go"wtf" on. And the last 100gibsons you saw were not the same ones i saw, so ya, 99 of those may have been bogus and only one was ok.

and i did not intend to agitate you to this degree.

[Jake]

My take is that there is not necessarily a flat out decline in the overall quality of a Gibson, but moreso that the quality to cost ratio with them has been on a huge downside for the better part of a decade. That is something that I don't think anyone would have a leg to stand on if they were to deny it.

On top of that there are several questionable business practices, both in the open marketplace and behind the scenes, that tend to tarnish their reputation and lead to further negative brand perception to people like me (and I am most definitely not alone).

Off the top of my head, things like:
- Purposefully making it  impossible for a mom & pop store to be a dealer, by charging exorbinate fees
- Which chokes off the supply chain to only the mega, big box stores
- Gibson topping the "worst places to work" lists, which highlight dictatorial style management
- Politicizing when they got caught (twice) importing restricted wood. "It's Obama's fault!"
- Seemingly all R&D efforts going into very gimmicky robotic guitars? Who wants those?
- Genreally do not seem to be interested in making a good and affordable instrument
- Baked. Fucking. Maple.

[The Shocker]

My take is that there is not necessarily a flat out decline in the overall quality of a Gibson, but moreso that the quality to cost ratio with them has been on a huge downside for the better part of a decade. That is something that I don't think anyone would have a leg to stand on if they were to deny it.

On top of that there are several questionable business practices, both in the open marketplace and behind the scenes, that tend to tarnish their reputation and lead to further negative brand perception to people like me (and I am most definitely not alone).

Off the top of my head, things like:
- Purposefully making it  impossible for a mom & pop store to be a dealer, by charging exorbinate fees
- Which chokes off the supply chain to only the mega, big box stores
- Gibson topping the "worst places to work" lists, which highlight dictatorial style management
- Politicizing when they got caught (twice) importing restricted wood. "It's Obama's fault!"
- Seemingly all R&D efforts going into very gimmicky robotic guitars? Who wants those?
- Genreally do not seem to be interested in making a good and affordable instrument
- Baked. Fucking. Maple.

I agree with all of that except the Baked Maple.  I like the way it feels (sorta like ebony).

[VOLVO)))]

Good, now this is something to work with. Alright, Jibs, You know what I do for a living, right? I drive. I am a Courier, the area that my company blankets includes Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and the very southern portion of South Carolina. All of these states have Sam Ash, and guitar centers. Florida has one in pretty much every major city, and even a few in suburbs of major cities. I have been to all the Guitar Centers in Florida, save for two or three. I have played Gibsons in all of them, I was curious as to if my local store** is getting bum shipments. I developed that theory based on playing a couple Gibsons in Jacksonville, about two and a half hours away. There was a vastly higher ratio of guitars that I deemed "playable." Jax is a large store, and high volume. Tallahassee is a small store, with pretty piss poor volume in comparison. TL;DR -fast forward- They tell higher volume stores to set the guitars up and do the minimum amount of work to make the guitar acceptable to people like me. Lower volume stores just hang them on the wall.

It's not like I am the only person that sees the flaws, and issues. If FRAM started making bullshit oil filters, or Pennzoil started cutting their synthetic oil with water, I'd treat them the same as I do Gibson. Giving less product, for more price, and not caring about what the general consensus says about it.

I could do a rundown of all the big brands and tell you what they do or don't do. There is something amongst all of them that is pretty much 100% common, though. Half-decent fretwork. I have never played a guitar over 400 bucks from ANY brand that had the low quality fretwork of today's 800 dollar Gibsons. That, to me, is bullshit. If SX and Xavier can do decent fret dresses on their MILLIONS of cheapie guitars, Gibson can fucking do it to theirs. There is NO EXCUSE to have a guitar leave that factory with fret ends that can cut my hand. That is outright, pure bullshit.

There is a lot of shit that agitates me purely from a tech standpoint. I run everything with a fine toothed comb. I am very detail oriented when I am working with instruments. There is simply a lot of shit that you don't see as a "player." Now, I am a player, but the fact that I don't own a single guitar that I haven't worked on, and the fact that I have worked on guitars of every make and model for the passed five or six years of my life makes me a little more "in tune(lol,)" with the quality of workmanship regarding certain companies.

Fender, y'know? You have a hard time finding a Mexican Fender that is just a complete piece of shit, dog of a guitar. Sure, some guitars just-don't-have-it. On the top, These guitars are damn decent, hell, my favorite guitar is a mexican tele. Ever stripped the paint off one? Taken a fretboard off? Seen the stock wiring? You'd be mad as hell to see a truss rod route FILLED, and I mean FILLED, Can't fucking see the truss rod in it's own route style filled with glue. Do you have any fucking idea how hard it is to take a chisel and try to scrape the fucking glue out of a truss rod route so you can replace the fuckin' thing? Did I have to get all of the glue out? No. Did I? Yeah, because that's the proper way to do it.

There is no reason for the people counterfeiting the fuckin' guitars to do a better job than the people who actually make the guitars. You know how we pick out fakes at GC when one pops up? We look for shit fretwork, and corian nuts. Those fakes are really, really good now, to the point of using Gibson's lackluster quality to pick out the fakes against the real ones. That is outright fucking pathetic.

I'm just saying, you may have more experience playing them, but I most likely have more experience doctoring them. Do you tell your mechanic how to do his job based on you driving a car longer than he has? Cool. I ain't mad at you, but if you're going to accuse me of not being in proper understanding of the situation, you are going to have to back it up with some proof.






**The staff in the local store knows me very, very well. To the point of calling to me ask me information about equipment they don't know about. Discount, etc.

[Jake]

I really like maple too. I actually prefer it on a Fender neck moreso than any other wood.

But with Gibson, it strikes me as yet another costcutting measure – with the savings (once again) not trickling down to the consumer, but fattening a profit margin.

I could be wrong, but it's all about perception. In marketing, perception and reality carry the same weight.

[VOLVO)))]

8/4   Gaboon Ebony   $80.0 /board feet

Rosewood (Central American) 4/4 Lumber - $24.99 /Board Feet

Maple Hard White 4/4 Lumber  - $5.99 /Board Feet

[The Shocker]

So Sunn Jake, we haven't really discussed what you did on my brand new 2012 LP.  Before you go into it let me preface that I am an enthusiastic novice player, so my descriptions might not be totally correct.  The LP looked and smelled gorgeous to me.  The neck (frets) felt funny - not the worst ever, but not great.  The action was high & the pickups were kind of noisy.

I also sent Jake a new Epi SG.  The action was high, but the frets felt better than the LP. At the time he received both, he liked the SG a lot better.

Now that you worked on both, what are your thoughts?

[VOLVO)))]

For a low end, Chinese SG? The P90s were hot, the frets and binding were good (needed minimal polishing to get the mirror-like feel,) and it played really, really nice after the setup. I dug that guitar. Didn't neck dive, nothin'.

The LP? Fret ends were nipped, and hit once with a file, then steel wooled at the factory, I'm pretty sure. At least that's all I got from it. The fretboard itself had no relief, so the edges were SHARP. The pickups were noisy as fuck, no shielding (or conductive shielding paint.) Finish had blems and bubbles in the cut-away. I fixed everything but the paint blems and the pickups, They would have had to have been replaced. They're just tiny and weak, to me.

SG wins.

[Jake]

Let me speak a little bit about their guitars that are not brand new ones on the walls of the mega stores. You guys can better speak to those.

I bought a 2011 non-reverse Firebird last year. It was used, "open box" so the reduced price brought it to within my personal quality-to-cost ratio. A long way of saying that it was worth $1200 asking price to me.

Now only a year later, the wood has been drying and things are beginning to get a little wonky. The fretboard is not bound, so the shrinking wood has made the fret ends poke out. The guard is also slightly warping up in some spots as the wet wood dries and contracts. I'd love to get the frets taken care of now, but don't want to have to keep addressing it as the wood cures, so I'll leave it in the case and wait it out. It makes me sad, because I really love that guitar. I should say that I really love non-reverse Firebirds, and only like mine. If I could afford an old one, you better believe I'd have gone that route.

But it's not that it's a total loss or anything. I just wish it was something that didn't require constant intervention. Dry your wood, then build my guitar, Gibson.

PS - you just wait, newer Gibby owners. Especially the maple caps on new Les Pauls. Your pickup rings are going to be flexing up a storm in the not to distant future, I promise you.

[The Shocker]

Great.

[VOLVO)))]

Jake, shoot it here and let me see if the climate change effects it...

Also, ill fix dem frets.

[The Shocker]

Jake, shoot it here and let me see if the climate change effects it...

If humidity is good, I should be ok with mine.  I hope.