what happen to Gibson Guitars?

MarkDyson

Blues Hound Wannabe
I wasn't even trying to bash the guitars themselves, I have my 339 setup and playing beautifully. Love it! The point was, for a $3k guitar, it should have been close to bang on factory spec out of the box, and not need more than touching up to my liking. That's a serious QC issue. The music stores who take one out of a box and present them to customers without at least ensuring they're on spec, are just as at fault. Their fault, my gain, being able to get it at a bargain bin price.

This. :Beer:
 

jackderby52

Prehistoric blues knob (not newbie)
I can only speak from an acoustic standpoint as I don’t own any Gibson electrics (Yet :- )... That said, I do own a Gibson J45-TV and the attention to detail/workmanship was outstanding… Did I get lucky? Maybe… Did it need a setup? Sure… But that’s expected from my standpoint.. I always purchased a guitar knowing it’s going to need a good setup after a month or two once it’s acclimated to my house..

P.S. Martin ships their guitars with higher action knowing it’s up to individual preference…
 

MarkDyson

Blues Hound Wannabe
That's some great news!! Hope they can fix what is wrong and get back on track as one of the worlds leaders in great guitar's.

Indeed! It's encouraging that these "suits" are also guitar players so there's hope they "get it" in terms of both business smarts and what goes into a good guitar that people will want to buy and play.
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
The point was, for a $3k guitar, it should have been close to bang on factory spec out of the box, and not need more than touching up to my liking.
Agreed! If a $139.00 Firefly and a $219.00 GFS XV-500 can do it, then Gibson can sure as hell do it for 3K!!! To my way of thinking, that makes the Firefly and XV-500 better guitars.
 

MikeR

Guitar Challenged
Staff member
Guess I'll tell my Gibson story. I bought a 2016 Les Paul Studio T a little over a year ago. They list for around $1500 and can sometimes be had on sale for around $1100. I got one from a guy who had it a couple of months and wanted to sell it fast, so I wound up getting it for $600. It's a great guitar and I love playing it, but it has a very slight offset from the fretboard to the neck on the left edge. It's almost as if the fretboard was made a tiny fraction smaller than the neck. You don't notice it unless you run your finger along the edge and it doesn't affect playability, but that's some shoddy quality control for this guitar to have left the factory. If I bought it brand new, I'd take it back. I've bought all kinds of cheap guitars and necks and not one of them had a fretboard offset. Hopefully, the new management gets the quality back to where it should be.
 

arock

Help! I'm a rock
Guess I have been extremely lucky. I have a 2017 LP Standard, a 2017 SG Standard, a 2017 Gary Clark Jr. limited edition SG, and a 2016 SG Special T. All of them had no quality control issues. I alternate between the LP and the SG Standard for gigs. Sometimes I will use the Gary Clark edition SG for a set if I feel in the mood for P-90's. The SG Special T has mini-humbuckers and stays in open G tuning. It gets used for two songs. The last two gigs we played, each 4 sets, I played the SG Standard. It performed flawlessly (wish I did!)My 2014 American Standard Strat now stays in open E tuning, and gets played the last song of the night, Jumpin' Jack Flash. No work has been done to any of them except I changed the P-90's to some hum-cancelling Lindy Fralin P-90's. Got rid of the circuit board in the LP and had it wired vintage style. Also replaced the pots to get rid of the coil tap, which I didn't like. But these changes were personal preference; not due to QC issues. Like I said, guess I got extremely lucky, but I use to be a Strat guy. Now Gibsons are nearly all I play and gig with. YMMV, but I have been exceptionally happy with the Gibson guitars I've purchased! Hoping with new management the QC issues that so many seem to have will be ironed out.
 

Terry B

Humble student of the blues
My experience is also positive with my one and only Gibson, a 2012 Les Paul Traditional, only issue I can think of is I've busted a couple of plastic jack plates. But that was my fault for stepping on the cable. :confused:
 

CVTOT

Blues Newbie
I have six:
2013 Les Paul Traditional
2015 Les Paul Studio
2015 Les Paul Traditional
2017 Les Paul Tribute
2017 SG
2017 Firebird HP.
All play great and never a problem either with the guitar or the G-Force tuning system that is on all but the 2013 Traditional.
 

PapaBear

Guit Fiddlier
I have six:
2013 Les Paul Traditional
2015 Les Paul Studio
2015 Les Paul Traditional
2017 Les Paul Tribute
2017 SG
2017 Firebird HP.
All play great and never a problem either with the guitar or the G-Force tuning system that is on all but the 2013 Traditional.
The tuning seems to work well, but changing strings is a PITA, at least compared to locking tuners, and I have no problem doing my own tuning. Maybe I should send it to you once it's off for spare parts.
 

PapaBear

Guit Fiddlier
I have six:
2013 Les Paul Traditional
2015 Les Paul Studio
2015 Les Paul Traditional
2017 Les Paul Tribute
2017 SG
2017 Firebird HP.
All play great and never a problem either with the guitar or the G-Force tuning system that is on all but the 2013 Traditional.
so which one is your go to?
 

Jalapeno

Student Of The Blues
until I came over to my friends place to check out the guitar myself I did't realize
that Gibson has lost its touch in building Guitars or at least his , he order it online and is very unhappy for what he got for the money
This sounds more like an indictment of buying online to me. I'm not sure I'd ever buy a guitar without playing it first unless it was really inexpensive and I knew I was going to mod it anyway. But maybe that's just me. I have one Les Paul that was a gift but I still played a bunch of them before I found the one that spoke to me before she bought it.

Eric
 
Top