It's with great trepidation that I talk about how Gibson has a new CEO...

[Larry Mal]

But they do. Other executives, also.

Anyone here knows that I'm a huge fan of Gibson guitars. I absolutely am wishing them the best here, although frankly I don't really know what I would have asked them to do any better these last years. I think the guitars are great, I think they have been a lot of fun as a company and done the bread and butter products they are known for and pushed the guitar in some new directions.

Oh, and did you know that all Gibson guitars are made in the United States? I seem to recall some talk about how that could be important somewhere around here recently. I forget where we all ended up on that.

Sure, they've made some weird decisions but I am glad they seem to have reorganized. I'm looking forward to supporting them in some way, with, I guess, someone else's money because I'm broke. But whatever.

[Danley]

The Gibsons I've tried recently (last year?) in stores all had two common features:

• Finish that wasn't properly grain-filled and had terrible orange peel on the neck
• Awful 'school bus' fretwork that doesn't play well; as a matter of fact the Epiphones they hang next to are much better in all respects.

The last Gibson I owned had a weak neck joint; Dollars to repair of some sort, and they were the last of many dollars I spent getting Gibsons 'right.' I gave up after that.

The choices they've made in their product lines are also not compelling to me. I mentioned I only (for the last while) buy US guitars- But I won't buy a US guitar just for the sake of it being made in the US, if I don't feel it's worth it. Gibson has pissed me off by doing more things than just the above in the past. Much better US-made guitars exist.

I hope they turn into a company I would buy from, but they sort of just make me shake my head of late. Hope the new CEO can make some good choices

*Also worth saying- yes all Gibson -branded- guitars are produced in the US, but Gibson certainly produces foreign-made brands such as Epiphone. It would be as if Fender decided that only their US-produced line were 'Fenders' but now everything Mexican/Japanese is a Squier.

[tdbajus]

The guy is from Levi's Jeans, so I am expecting a minimal improvement at best.

https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/ ... 4da779f8b9


They are talking about branding and other euphemisms for selling the sizzle and not the steak. Which makes me think quality is going to go down, while they spend tons of money marketing.

I would have fired everyone on the board that wasn't my lawyer and my accountant, take half their combined salaries and distribute them to my luthiers, and start making good guitars again, and sell them at a price which would allow me and my employees to make a good living, charging what the market will bear. I'd treat my employees well, and I'd make excellent guitars, and not try to grow too fast.

But they will almost certainly try to sell guitars like they were fast fashion garbage that you buy cheap, wear for a couple of months, and then throw away. If that is so, it would seem inevitable that they will move manufacturing of Gibsons overseas.

[Larry Mal]

The Levi's jeans part chills my blood.

[nanamour]

Prepare yourselves for the inevitable Gibson x Levi's American Icon Series Les Paul surely coming down the pipeline:

Hard work. Grit. Determination. With a little helping of rebellion(TM). Nothing is more American. And few products encapsulate that iconic rebellious American spirit better than Levi's denim and the Gibson Les Paul(TM) (or so say our focus groups). That's why we at Gibson have partnered with Levi's to bring you the Gibson x Levi's American Icon Series(TM) Les Paul(TM). This gorgeous imported instrument rocks as hard as you do, boasting powerful tonewoods and a top finished in genuine imported Levi's(TM) denim, distressed to authentic perfection. It tells the world you've been around the block, and your Gibson x Levi's American Icon Series(TM) Les Paul(TM) has too.

Just like a pair of trusty worn-in Levi's(TM) jeans, the Gibson x Levi's American Icon Series(TM) Les Paul(TM) says you're both classic and current, and with select manufacturing processes (all of them) moved offshore, your Levi's(TM) genuine leather wallet (sold separately) will give you the nod too. So take the first step in your new Gibson x Levi's American Grit Series(TM) Les Paul(TM), we promise it'll feel worn right in from day one.

Coming to a department store near you just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

[s_mcsleazy]

he looks like a parallel universe version of nicolas cage. so my chances of taking him seriously are now zero. every press release i read, im going to auto correct it to this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lct6x-XqWrw

ok. in all seriousness, he comes from levi's. another brand that very much sticks to traditional products and quality. i think that it's not as bad a thought as it could be. but here is the thing. i give gibson a lot of shit, but i do so because i want to see them get back to basics and making good guitars. stop trying to out PRS PRS. ask people what their favorite models are and why, it will do you 100x better than market research of dad rockers and teenagers who cant afford your guitars. yeah, you'll get dad rockers and teenagers throwing their hat in the ring, but you'll also get some surprises. start off with a small line up based on classics. no one wants you to re-invent the wheel. people buy gibsons because they want a gibson, not a gibson branded PRS.

also, focus on quality. im sure most of us here would not mind paying extra if we knew we were getting something worth it. i've seen a lot of horror stories about new guitars coming out the factory/arriving at the shop with paint issues, setup issues and so on. when burny/tokai/vintage are making better guitars for less than half the price, you have to rethink things. oh, and dont brag about having your guitars set up by those plec machines if the person operating it cant use it. my friend brought a brand new gibson last year and it had worse frets than some £100 guitars i've played.

here is a good tip too gibson. 50% of new guitar players are women. fender seem to be selling guitars fine to women but most times when i ask most female musicians what they think of gibsons, they bring up the stuffy image of old men with mullets or the dreaded blooze lawyer. you can change that by offering more things that female guitar players want. also try getting them in the hands of more up and coming female musicians who dont fit the "rawk" vibe.

destroy every last robot tuner. i'm pretty sure most dad rockers see that and start screaming "ahhh skynet is taking over and my guitar wants to kill me" and i'm pretty sure the same thing happens when they open the control cavity and see's the PCB.

[Danley]

here is a good tip too gibson. 50% of new guitar players are women. fender seem to be selling guitars fine to women but most times when i ask most female musicians what they think of gibsons, they bring up the stuffy image of old men with mullets or the dreaded blooze lawyer. you can change that by offering more things that female guitar players want. also try getting them in the hands of more up and coming female musicians who dont fit the "rawk" vibe.

I don't know if there's any research to confirm it- But while that statistic is quoted in abundance, I think most women who play guitar play acoustic. Gibson makes acoustics, anyway.

(I really don't prefer playing acoustic. Oh well.)

[mackerelmint]

[Larry Mal]

Actually, they released a line of "Studio" acoustics, and it's been my guess that some of the features of that lineup is designed to appeal to women guitar players- well, they are slimmer guitars. I can see them also being useful for stage work, but I also got it into my mind that this might be Gibson trying to be more appealing to women.

Or maybe I'm a patronizing asshole, is another scenario. Megan will have an image or God help me even a gif for this possibility, so I will try to head it off with my own interpretation of myself:



(I'm the man in that scenario. I'm the man.)

But I'd like to think that Gibson is reaching out to women players in some way, I'd love to think that it would be successful.

Not that I care about how well Gibson does in this regard, I'd just like to think that women and girls might find a brand that appealed to them and take to playing in greater numbers. I don't really care if it's Gibson or what, but Gibson has much guitar macho assholia to atone for.

[mackerelmint]

I just find it hard to imagine that if we're half of new players that the "girls play acoustics" notion would hold, if it were ever actually true.

I think we've moved into a brave new world where "girls don't use distortion as much as boys do" is the relevant axiom.

[Larry Mal]

I do not, for the record, think that women only play acoustic or anything, or that this supposed new 50% are all buying acoustic guitars (or classical). That's a stereotype.

Sorry, I might be saying the wrong thing here tonight, I'm just super stoked to think of the Gibson and Levi's cross pollination. Women, schmomen, as long as I can imagine that Gibson guitars will be guided by the visionary that brought the world this kind of thing:



I think the future is in safe hands.

[Danley]

I have female relatives & acquaintances who picked up (at least for some amount of time) an acoustic and expressed a desire not to play electric. My dad bought my niece an electric, but as far as I've seen she has only played the piece of junk acoustic I gave her a couple years ago. In the meantime I know no females who have picked up an electric- so I will tell all them to stop being such stereotypes (and maybe stop eating rice and having slanty eyes while I'm at it.)

Of course that's not an accurate sample, and we've all got different geographic & cultural concerns in our particular areas of the globe. But I think the big driver is Country music. In my part of SoCal, Country music is not ubiquitous in any demographic- but it is disproportionately popular among females and most males won't touch it. If a girl hears a guitar, it's probably a Country song nowadays; not that acoustic is only a Country thing but...

Anyway - Gibson released that Les Paul Goddess thing. I'm the last person to tell the difference between patronizing and accommodating though. I did own a Daisy Rock, great guitar but it was fucking uncomfortable so I sold it. I can see why girls wouldn't want to play an uncomfortable freaking guitar shaped like a heart, if the upper bout always got in the way of my breast anatomy, let alone a woman's. Kind of like how many males don't like to play a guitar without a special 'ensconcement' carved into the back of it for our own protruding parts.

[wooderson]

The 50% women number is from Fender's market research - I imagine that acoustics make up a pretty small percentage of Fender's sales. I'd say more than half the 'indie' bands I've seen over the last three years had women playing electric guitar - from Japanese Breakfast to Deap Vally to Bully to Courtney Barnett to Noveller, women are a major part of the guitar younger rock world now.

Fender's artist relations department seems to do a great job of getting gear in the hands of that level of touring band (male or female), I don't remember hearing much about Gibson's artist relations giving anyone a new Les Paul.

[wooderson]

re: Gibson and Levi's, the press release was the most head-pounding kind of MBA garbage I've read.

[sookwinder]

I actually have not played a new Gibson with the "buy or not buy" desire for many years now, but last weekend I did get the chance to play a friends 2017 Gibson J45 "Vintage" with the thermally aged Adirondack red spruce, custom vintage hide glue top bracing, and back and sides constructed from genuine mahogany. http://www.gibson.com/Products/Acoustic ... ntage.aspx

The affected spruce top is meant to simulate, by drying, the aging process. Well I gotta say if I did not already have a vintage J50 I would be in the process of locating one of these beauties. The J45 "vintage " noticeably lighter than the 64 J50 I have… which in itself is interesting, there is a similarity with the sound between the vintage sounds of my J50 and the new 2017 J45 "vintage ". But there is also a difference… the bass notes are more rounded on the vintage J50. For me they were like cousins rather than sister instruments … but I would in a minute say yes to one… truly a superb (new) acoustic guitar. Well made, well finished, materials appear of high quality (wood, plastics, hardware), a guitar to hang one's hat on, so to speak.

Now the downside ... here in Oz the 2017 J45 "vintage "cost a tad over AU$5k ... RRP in the USA is US$4K

It is obvious Gibson knows how to make good, great, "cannot put down" guitars, but there is no way your average punter under 35 can afford US$4k for an acoustic that sounds the way it really should. Maybe there will come a time when Gibson guitars (USA made) are only for the older buyer with readily available folding money ... similar to the way that Hofner's business model is .... German made really expensive, but there is a line of cheap acceptable models for those on a budget.(Chinese made).

I hope the new heads at Gibson get a sense of the disquiet in the guitar community about their product and brand, but I will not hold my breath.