mackerelmint wrote:
Yeah, could be. I'm picky about stuff. More than most, probably. But I've definitely played nicer gibbys and all of them were made upwards of a decade ago.
I wouldn't say you are being picky. I've owned probably 10 Gibson electric's over the years (from the era's late 60's to 2008). They were even my undisputed go-to brand for a decade or so.
My last one, an 08 Explorer Standard had terrible fret work and bubbles in the finish around any pockets. It did sound and play great, but the QC issues were a drag for an instrument that costs that much. For the price, you can get a lot more guitar from any number of brands that is built a lot better.
Aside from that, when I was looking for a backup for my 81 LP Standard a few years ago I tried out a few dozen new ones from the worn finish models to the higher end, quilted maple top ones. At best they were all meh in comparison to my main Gibson, which is from the tail end of the dreaded Norlin years (volute and all). I'd have rated most of them around the higher end Epiphones in terms of quality, albeit the higher end Gibsons did have better pickups.
I saw a lot of jagged frets, and overly dry fret boards. The budget ones usually had muddy humbuckers, cheap pots and tuners. Although I found that the P90 equipped budget models did tend to sound pretty good.
Anyway, I truly do hope Gibson stops wasting their time with self-tuning guitars, gets back to building solid, quality guitars and does well in the future.
).
!! There's enough second-hand Gibson's to service the market of folk who actually want to play them.
