Gibson suck

I have been so disappointed in the guitar quality of fender and gibson for years. Gibson much more so. Fender makes 30,000 guitars a month someone told me. Tom Anderson 700 a year. in the last 10 years i discovered Suhr and Tom Anderson guitars and they are the best guitars i have ever owned. Every guitar they sell needs nothing. no set up no fret work etc. Stainless frets and impeccable sounds playability and feel have me now owning 4 to them. Check Anderson guitars works out. You will never be disappointed. Tom was even kind enough time give me a shop tour. Tom and Roy Rock.
 
vintageguitarz said:
I have been so disappointed in the guitar quality of fender and gibson for years. Gibson much more so. Fender makes 30,000 guitars a month someone told me. Tom Anderson 700 a year. in the last 10 years i discovered Suhr and Tom Anderson guitars and they are the best guitars i have ever owned. Every guitar they sell needs nothing. no set up no fret work etc. Stainless frets and impeccable sounds playability and feel have me now owning 4 to them. Check Anderson guitars works out. You will never be disappointed. Tom was even kind enough time give me a shop tour. Tom and Roy Rock.
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Thats the thing, NO new guitar should require anything out of the ordinary (except maybe small tweaks like an action adjustment). Every new Gibson Les Paul I've worked on in the last 5 years has needed serious work to get it playable by Epiphone standards. Even then after much work, I've rarely encountered anything special coming out of the Gibson factory recently.

I'd buy a guitar from a craftsmen any day over a new Gibson. The way that Gibson is run nowadays, they have neither the volition or the ability to CRAFT guitars whilst maintaining their profit margins.

In my opinion, just look elsewhere.

Anyone play a Japanese made 'Orville' by Gibson? Get one of those. 10x the guitar, wrong name on the headstock.
 
Yes, Jap Orville by Gibson. Just look at this site (among many others) guitargai.

I play Fender - but I would never, ever pay for a labelled one. All my Strats are Squire Japan from the 80'ties. Cheap, great sounding and reliable.
 
I have 5 custom shop Gibsons. 1 Standard which is not from the custom shop (it is just ok). IMO all their guitars should be of Custom Shop quality. The cost/value ratio is skewed (understatement). The only good thing is that many Gibsons hold their value and/or appreciate over time. Not many other brands can say the same, including Epiphone (other than pre Gibson Epiphones of course).
 
The newer ones are overpriced. I bought my '82 two years ago (I think it was on EBAY) for less than what dealers were asking for. Same deal with my 335. I
don't trust any new Gibson or Fender right out of the box. Why I should trust some bloke on EBAY I can't say. My feeling is that an older guitar has stood the
test of time and has greater resale value. My strat and my 335 are both '77's and the LP Custom is a Tim Shaw '82. I rotate playing them and pretty much love all
three of them. Together with the FX they give all the tones I'll ever need. Want a real nice substitute for a new Gibby at about two thirds the price? Try a St. Blues.
 
I have a quite different experience with Gibson. I've been playing guitar for a long time - since the 60's - pretty much every genre. I owned only one electric guitar from 1971 until 2007 when I bought an Epiphone Les Paul Studio as a knock-about guitar while I was travelling and working. My Gibson (It's an ES-345 TD and I am the original owner) was made in the Kalamazoo factory in 1969. I played it many years in Africa first, then it went to England for a year, then it went to Paraguay and Argentina in South America for 4 years. Then it went to Canada for 9 years and then to California for 6 years, then to Florida for 14 years, then to Seattle, Washington state for another year and then finally to Florida again where it still is 5 years later.

I mention this because this poor instrument has been subjected to extremes in temperature and humidity. The finish began to take on its "golden" appearance (it's a tobacco sunburst) about 15 years ago as the finish "yellowed" a bit and about 10 years ago it began to "craze" (or crack, if you will) slightly on the top and finally I think that there are one or two fissures on the back too. Nowhere else. You can't see the fissures - you have to look really hard and make sure that the light angle is correct or you can't see them. You also can't feel them at all. There's not much left of the frets though after all these years and my fretboard is even a bit worn but it still plays and sounds unbelievable.

I began playing in a Classic Rock cover band about 4 years ago and got a PRS SE Custom and customized the hell out of it to make it more versatile so I could cover all the different artists. I didn't like it though - the feel wasn't very good and the stock sound was unusable - hence the customizations. Finally after tolerating it for about two years I decided that Classic Rock would be in my future for some years to come and that I needed a decent instrument. So I did the rounds and played all the usual suspects. I really didn't feel or hear a guitar that I would pay the asking price for. I must have played a dozen or Les Paul guitars while on this quest. They were utterly inconsistent - a few played nicely and the others were firewood.

Then I played a couple of Music Man guitars and my quest was over. I settled on an EB Music Man JP6 EBFR Koa Top and now, two years later I'm looking to pick up another EB Music Man guitar, but a different model. I have been a luthier since the late 1970's (labor of love and occasionally income) but I have a "real job", so when I'd been playing my JP6 for about 6 months and I figured that I was totally used to the feel and setup, I was certain that some of the frets above the 12th fret were not _perfectly_ level with each other. Now, I'm perfecly capable of rectifying that myself but for the money I paid I expected a _perfect_ instrument. I called Ernie Ball Music Man guitars and they had me return it to them (I paid shipping) where they dressed the frets and it came back to me two weeks later and the fretboard was _perfect_. No charge - they even paid the return shipping. Now _that's_ customer service.

I still play the Gibson ES-345 which is still a beautiful instrument but its not as versatile as the JP6 and I don't want to take it out to some of the venues I perform at for fear it will be damaged. So sadly, it spends most of it time in its case. I have no beef with my Gibson guitar, but whether you'll get a good Gibson or a bad one is a total gamble and the company isn't very interested in customer service. You can still find a good Gibson guitar but the name alone doesn't make it a good instrument. The nitrocellulose lacquer cracking is a load of bull and they should be ashamed. It is no less than disdain, disregard and disrespect for their customer. So shame on them for that.

-G
 
Thats impressive you managed to come to terms with the JP6 after all those years with the 345 only. After 10 years of playing only LP guitars, my biggest issue with the JP6 is the floating trem. Putting 5 springs on the trem helped me get the feel back. Lost the ability to do fancy trem tricks, but the feel is the most important thing.
 
Yeah, I had exactly the same issue with the floating trem. There are some things you can do to to "lock" that trem though. I spent hours going through about a dozen designs of a trem lock and I even spoke with EB MM and shared my final design with them. I don't know if they'll incorporate it or not. Shortly after doing that I found that Schaller used to make a trem lock (its discontinued now but there are still a few in old stock knocking about) that was almost identical to the design that I finally settled on . So instead of building mine completely from scratch I bought the Schaller and I'm in the process of making an L-Bracket for it so that when I remove it my guitar will be completely stock with no blemishes. Here's the part: Schaller TremLok. It's a well made part but doesn't fit the JP6 without modification to the mounting - mostly because I don't want to stick anything to the guitar finish or screw anything into the front of the guitar.

Another trem lock would be the Tremol-No, but I didn't like it for many reasons. Check it out though because you may not have the same objections that I have. Here's the link: Tremol-No

At the end of the day, I'm going to be buying a second EB MM guitar, one without a trem. Maybe more than one. I'll probably pick up a Game Changer and an Armada which has no trem and a neck through.

Cheers.
 
vintageguitarz said:
I have been so disappointed in the guitar quality of fender and gibson for years. Gibson much more so. Fender makes 30,000 guitars a month someone told me. Tom Anderson 700 a year. in the last 10 years i discovered Suhr and Tom Anderson guitars and they are the best guitars i have ever owned. Every guitar they sell needs nothing. no set up no fret work etc. Stainless frets and impeccable sounds playability and feel have me now owning 4 to them. Check Anderson guitars works out. You will never be disappointed. Tom was even kind enough time give me a shop tour. Tom and Roy Rock.
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Totally agree with this. I absolutely love my TAG drop tops. They are so versatile and practically play themselves. When you start paying $3k+ for a guitar, it makes you think....is this guitar really worth it. Anderson's I always vote yes.
Gibson (new Les Pauls) always have me thinking.....really? this much $ for this guitar?
Some of the new Les Paul's I've played, don't play or sound any better than a Schecter....which costs 1/5th the price (or less).
It's a bummer, because I've been a Les Paul fan since the first day I picked up a guitar.
That being said - there are plenty of amazing Gibson's out there....you just have to look.
I have a 74 Black Custom, 84 Wine Red Standard, 76 Deluxe (Goldtop that some jackhole sanded to Natural), 85 Silverburst Custom, 91 Trans White Custom Shop and a Black VooDoo from the early 2000's. With the exception of the VooDoo, all of the others are just amazing guitars.
As much as the newer stuff like Anderson's are just amazing....I always am drawn to the feel of an old Les Paul.

For anyone who really wants a Les Paul....my recommendation is always to look on the used market. Search Craig's List....they are out there.
I few years ago I bought a 75 Cherry Burst Deluxe on Craig's list for $650....and it was just a killer player. Sold it because I have too many. But just pointing out....the old Gibsons are amazing, and they're out there.....
 
Rodrigo said:
les paul studio is a shit.....you dont have rights to ask
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Rodrigo, some Studios are really really good Les Pauls, the ones from the 90's are great IMO.

I took a bad one and refinish it from the owner, he was floored with it and i was too, with better pots the stock pickups actually sounded great and the guitar ended up feeling amazingly close to a "real" Les Paul as some like to call it.









 
nicolasrivera said:
Rodrigo, some Studios are really really good Les Pauls, the ones from the 90's are great IMO.

I took a bad one and refinish it from the owner, he was floored with it and i was too, with better pots the stock pickups actually sounded great and the guitar ended up feeling amazingly close to a "real" Les Paul as some like to call it.
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Man, your work is just amazing.
If you were in the states, I would absolutely have you refin an old Deluxe I have.
 
Hi,

I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice this - Last time I was buying a guitar (or was that the time before that...) I went to a local shop that stocks a bunch of Gibsons... I saw the quality of many (except the $5000 ones) was marginal at best. When I mentioned it to the (hero) sales guy, he explained that they must be good because he uses one every night at prestigious gigs like the local bars & parties and he was really good. :)

To be frank, they were terrible and a $2000 gibson is NOWHERE NEAR AS GOOD as a $2000 Fender. I bought nothing from out hero of course as I dislike heros.

I got a fender... then another fender..... then a rickenbacker.. then a musicman.... I forgot about the gibsons... If ever one is put in front of me second hand, and it's priced realistically, _and_ is a good guitar, I'll snatch it up - Otherwise, there are heaps of manufacturers out there that still care about quality & I'll go with them.

Pauly


malenko said:
My mate has always wanted a Les Paul, so he finally saved the cash and bought a LP Studio a few months back. When he went to play it the other day, it had parallel vertical cracks along the body. Turns out it's the lacquer cracking. He keeps it in his music room and it hasn't left it since he bought it, so it hasn't been subject to any extreme or sudden temperature changes but Gibson have told him that basically it's tough luck, it happens.
This was there response -

These cracks are lacquer cracks; they can occur even with slight temperature/humidity changes and these are not covered under warranty unfortunately.
If you search our forums or google "Gibson lacquer cracks" then you will see that you are not the only one in the world with lacquer cracks on a Gibson guitar. These cracks are inherent to the nitrocellulose lacquer that we use, as that lacquer lets the guitar breathe and have better sustain. The disadvantage is the cracks that can occur. They do however not affect the playability of the guitar.

Now does this suck or what! I have never seen a guitar do that and if I had I would want my money back as to me that shows poor quality. And of all the company's, I would have thought not only would Gibson be of better quality but provide a better response.
So now it seems he is stuck with a dodgy looking guitar that if he wanted to sell it on, he would have trouble, because that it looks awful.

Just wondering does anybody know of this problem, or even suffered with it? And did you get anywhere with the manufacturer?
Also makes me think, best to buy guitars that have been on display in the shop so that they have had time to acclimatize. Where as he bought it fresh in it's box from the factory.
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When you find a great Gibson -- they are hard to beat .... however finding one is the trick.

Here are a few of my "holy grail" finds

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One of the good ones, made during a time where Gibson were making some horrifically bad guitars as their tooling was falling apart as it was barely maintained. On guitars of this era, it's not uncommon to see blade marks on the fingerboard where blunt planers have skipped over the fingerboard and taken small chunks out. Lots of guitars of this era have a more relaxed carved top for the same reasons (mine has quite a shallow gradient too). So the Build quality in the mid to late 70s was awful and the QC was almost none existent.

She's a '76 deluxe pro that a previous owner had butchered by opening out the pickup recesses to accept full size humbuckers. Since the original pickups are long gone (and would no longer fit anyway) I've gone for a set of BKPs.

So she's been built at one of the rough patches in Gibson's history, she's been butchered by an idiot with a router yet from a players point of view, she's an absolute gem. I've played literally hundreds of Les Paul's and this ones special. She sounds great and plays beautifully. She resonates in a way that I've never heard from a modern production Les Paul. She has a very clear, fast attack and sustains for days. There's something to be said for a big ol' slab of mahogany!
 
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