gibson bankruptcy discussion thread

[Larry Mal]

Maybe this would be the end of the lifestyle fucking brand nonsense.

Well, I think we're seeing the brutal end of the bad mistake that was the "lifestyle brand" regardless.

[Grey]

I agree. There's been some talk of their prices and I agree that some of them are exorbitant, but as I pointed out earlier they've also made a consistent effort to manufacture a guitar for every price point. Yes, you can buy a $5,000 Les Paul from Gibson but you can also buy a $500 one, or a $700 one, or an $800 one, or a $900 one, and so on.

I'm not sure Gibson guitars are really the problem here, it's all of the ancillary brands they've acquired. What has Gibson done with its majority ownership of Onkyo, or Philips, or TEAC, or KRK? Zero. Zip. I'm not saying anything new here either, people have been mocking the Gibson "Lifestyle" for years now and watching the storm clouds growing.

Right now, I think the wrong people are in charge of the company, and what do I know, right? But Gibson's response for the past several years to narrowing profit margins and growing debt has consistently been to cut funds and features from their guitar business while funneling money into this other crap. I think Henry hates being the "CEO of a guitar company" and desperately wanted to be the CEO of his ideal lifestyle conglomerate.

So yes, I hope this signals the end of Gibson's meddling in consumer electronics and a return to their core focus with a renewed effort on delivering a quality, respectable product.

[HNB]

Would be nice if the new Gibson fixed the neck/headstock break. I know it is an issue with purists wanting Gibson guitars made the same as they have always been made, but it seems sad to think of a +$1,000 guitar that has a weak area known to break. It is even more sad that so many people accept it as normal and ok. "Headstock repair. Better than new." Kind of embarrassing to produce expensive stuff that has a known flaw just to be historically accurate.

The Gibson Les Paul's I have played in store were ok, but had fret or finish issues. The sort of stuff you don't mind on a $200-300 guitar, but not on a $600-700 guitar. There was this natural brown stained one I really wanted to love, but the frets and neck joint finish was sloppy and I just couldn't pull the trigger. Plus I would be worried about the headstock.

Then I go home and play my two Agile Les Pauls or my ESP Les Paul style and those look good, have a volute, nice frets and finish work, etc. I would be paying more for a less well made guitar just because it is a Gibson.... That just isn't me.

[StevenO]

To kind of echo what HNB just said... Some of the best feeling/sounding Gibsons I've played lately have all been non-Gibsons... I'd be totally okay with that if my brain didn't get all uncanny valley on me when I see non-Gibson Gibson (like those Collings ES-335-alikes or what have you...). I think that's a huge reason why Gibson are as profitable as it is, they may not always be as good as the non-Gibson Gibson-style guitars, but the non-Gibsons will never be a Gibson.

[stevejamsecono]

To kind of echo what HNB just said... Some of the best feeling/sounding Gibsons I've played lately have all been non-Gibsons... I'd be totally okay with that if my brain didn't get all uncanny valley on me when I see non-Gibson Gibson (like those Collings ES-335-alikes or what have you...). I think that's a huge reason why Gibson are as profitable as it is, they may not always be as good as the non-Gibson Gibson-style guitars, but the non-Gibsons will never be a Gibson.

Well said.

And I'm all in favor of the neck volute making a comeback. There's no reason not to have them.

But c'mon Gibson. Give me a double cut faded LP Junior and I'll buy you back into the black. You got my promise on that.

[rhythmjones]

I've heard people say the volutes don't actually lessen the amount of broken headstocks but I don't know if that's true or not.

[Larry Mal]

They might lessen them, but judging from the amount of guitars from that era with breaks it is still a danger.

[MrFingers]

The first memes are here!

[s_mcsleazy]

can i bring up one argument i see a lot from people on other sites/discussions? the whole "well rock music/guitar music is dead" im tired of seeing it. because it's always said by old men who say "modern music sucks" yet ironically enough, if anything like what they already like comes out you hear "it's a rip off of ____________"

i encountered one of these fuckers this morning.

trying out a jaguar and this fucker comes right up to me saying "you need to play a real guitar. carry the torch for rock and roll" and then giving me the whole argument i hear all too often in guitar shops/record shops when i just want to buy/try something.

[wooderson]

The lifestyle brand stuff doesn't work with anyone under the age of ~50. No 20-year old wants to be the lameass wearing a Harley shirt or a Gibson shirt. My dad bought me a Fender shirt once and I appreciated the gesture but that's yard work-only attire.

Reorganize to shed some dead weight, get a new CEO/leadership group, and focus on guitars, Gibson will be fine if they're content to just be a big guitar producer. Contemporary capitalism suffers from a disease where no company is content to just be big in their niche and profitable, they have to be ever bigger.

Of course, Gibson could get double-screwed now depending on where things go - if private equity calls the shots, that could eventually actually kill them. ie - https://newrepublic.com/article/145813/ ... apocalypse

[HNB]

can i bring up one argument i see a lot from people on other sites/discussions? the whole "well rock music/guitar music is dead" im tired of seeing it. because it's always said by old men who say "modern music sucks" yet ironically enough, if anything like what they already like comes out you hear "it's a rip off of ____________"

i encountered one of these fuckers this morning.

trying out a jaguar and this fucker comes right up to me saying "you need to play a real guitar. carry the torch for rock and roll" and then giving me the whole argument i hear all too often in guitar shops/record shops when i just want to buy/try something.

It is pretty ignorant for anyone to assume you can only make ______ kind of music with _______ guitar. I have seen people shred with a tele, play metal with a Jazzy, do punk and pop with a Jaguar, and use a Les Paul for country. The type of guitar doesn't dictate what sort of music it makes. That is the user.

Making a blanket statement that modern music sucks is also very ignorant. It is highly unlikely that any person has heard all modern music in the world and to make a statement against it like that just shows they have a narrow view of the world of music and the tools used to make that music. Modern music is always different because there is always new stuff coming out every day. If guitar music is dead, why do you see concerts with people playing guitars? If rock is dead, why are there still artists releasing music categorized as rock?

Maybe they are more upset that music isn't how they want it to be. Sort of like an AC-DC fan who is perfectly happy with loads of songs that have a similar sound. (I like AC-DC, that isn't a dig. They are good at what they do.) If you are a person who wants music to keep being done in a same way, that would, I think, kill it more than doing different things. Variety makes for more diversity and new ideas and new things. Art normally has periods of time where there are commonalities, but then things change and there is a new normal or trend. Sometimes they cycle back, sometimes they don't. I don't really think any one aspect of music dictates it. It just happens as it happens.

[oid]

I've heard people say the volutes don't actually lessen the amount of broken headstocks but I don't know if that's true or not.

The volutes do help, but they can still break and do not solve the issue. The problem here is not a flawed design, it is the owners of the guitars, Martin and others have used virtually the same mahogany neck/head stock design as Gibson and they rarely break, hell, Gibson's own acoustics rarely break at the head.

[Don_Karnage]

Walk into pretty much any music store and the guitar will probably be the most over-represented instrument yet still people stubbornly claim that the guitar and guitar based music is dead.
I’d rather say guitars have been over-represented for a long time and the market has pretty much been saturated for a while which is a huge part of the problems Gibson and other big brands are facing.

And who knows? Maybe the popularity of the guitar is in decline but considering how over-represented it is as an instrument I’d say (And now I might kinda be swearing in church...) that’s only fair... kinda. But I think that’s it’s gonna remain a popular instrument since it’s above all very expressive but also relatively portable, polyphonic, in a range that human ears are very well tuned to and so on.
But yeah, people seem to love being self-proclaimed doomsday prophets not matter if it’s about guitars/rock music or whatever it’s about...

[wooderson]

The monoculture is dead - the guitar and guitar-rock will never have the cultural import of the late 20th century again... nor will anything else. Hip-hop is the lingua franca of American youth culture but it's mixed into everything else people under the age of ~35 do/listen to. You go see The Coathangers and drive home with Migos on the car stereo.

There will never be another NBC Thursday night lineup like Seinfeld/Friends/ER (in terms of reach) but as of yet no one's bemoaning the death of network television or sitcoms.

[higgsblossom]

Guitars are maybe the only thing that remains in a capitalist world that does not have a built in obsolescence date...