Gibson Fooked

mikeyrob73

Philly_Q said:

It must be getting serious, they were actually talking about Gibson's problems on 5 Live Breakfast this morning.  They had an interview with Chantel McGregor about it.

I think i am a little bit in love with Chantel McGregor 

Musicman20

Interesting times indeed.

I can imagine the pricing structure in the UK (no doubt also due to the £) has not helped....

They seriously just need to make well made Les Pauls/SGs, without all the gimmicks, with the specs most people want (e.g. more of a vintage spec) and cut out things like the 'HP' models and awful colours.   

fandango

richardhomer said:

Philly_Q said:

It must be getting serious, they were actually talking about Gibson's problems on 5 Live Breakfast this morning.  They had an interview with Chantel McGregor about it.

May be they could get John Humphries to shout at Henry Juszkiewicz on the Today Programme.

Or Cathy Newman.

beed84

This is hardly surprising for a company who initially told Les Paul to do one. Evidently they're without vision, and look where it's landed them. Up shit streak. As for the G(hastly)-Farce tuners... well they are possibly the most needless guitar accessory to date.  I suspect the lads at Heritage are glad they got out when they did.

andyoz

ICBM said:

One of the major problems with the G-force is that it doesn’t work well with a conventional nut, so to fix that they fitted a brass one, but they made that idea too complicated as well and used a clunky adjustable design which meant widening the neck (although not the string spacing), which made the guitars feel very wrong to a lot of people. On top of that the brass proved too soft and had to be replaced with titanium. Just badly thought-through from the start.

It is true that there are a minority of buyers who like the wider neck - as there are a minority who like the gold case! - but even that works better with a conventional nut with string spacing that properly matches the neck. An adjustable nut isn’t a bad idea either, but they couldn’t even get that right.

And on top of all that they put a logo on them, which although intended to be a tribute to Les Paul, unfortunately looked like a small child had been let loose with a gold marker pen...

And as already said, the real problem is that they then applied all this to the whole standard range, whether buyers wanted it or not. The result was an up to 90% drop in sales according to some sources.

Biggest issue I had was why the hell should something that cutting edge be used on one of electric guitars oldest designs currently in mass circulation .  Seemed madness.

I'd have understood it being used by a Super Strat maker etc but not a Gibson Les Paul.  The Les Paul players I know either use standard tuning or Dropped D mostly (or semitone down across the board) so it didn't even seem to make sense in that way.  It just seems to me that at the board meeting years ago where it was decided to go ahead with the R&D costs some people must have known it was suicide but were too scared to rock the boat?

It should have been used on a few cutting edge new designs but I suspect the R&D costs spiraled (it could have easily increased 4 or 5 fold from the original forecast as it looks a 'simple' thing to do right but I'd say the R&D lads got caught out trying to isolate 6 strings and the harmonics from one another amongs alot of other issues?) and they had to get it out there en mass to try to recoup something and it backfired.

Include the brass/titanium nut and the whole iconic headstock starts to look fooked.  That's what alot of people buy Les Pauls for...that headstock!

ICBM

andyoz said:

Include the brass/titanium nut and the whole iconic headstock starts to look fooked.  That's what alot of people buy Les Pauls for...that headstock!

I think they may have confused 'iconic' with 'ironic', which is possibly an easy mistake for Americans to make.

Musicman20

Whilst I would hate to see vast numbers of people lose their jobs (unless things transition smoothly), do you think we will see a large amount of 2017/2018 models going cheaper in the shops? Or more expensive?

darthed1981

andyoz said:

Include the brass/titanium nut and the whole iconic headstock starts to look fooked.  That's what alot of people buy Les Pauls for...that headstock!

I think that goes a bit back to the argument @impmann said earlier, why didn't they try having a different brand name and innovating there, leaving Gibson for the old men shouting at clouds (im paraphrasing)...

The Bonamassa fans could go out and get their Traditional old proper Gibson Les Pauls.

The other brand could do what everyone else did, all those singlecuts (the LTD EC401 I've got, that sexy new Jackson thing) with a redesigned heel for proper upper fret access, that weird back mounted pick up thing that makes the HPs look nothing like Gibsons they did this year etc.  Oh yeah and the G-Force system, they could have tried it out there first...

They could have dealt with all the LP issues like weight, the breakable headstock, the neck heel etc. and made incredibly innovative guitars as "whatever by Gibson" and it would have been exciting and expected of the brand!

They could even drop the silly model year idea for "Gibson" (it's a Les Paul, now stop f**king moaning or I'll hit you with it etc.") and have new models every years for the other brand.

Maybe their new Chinese owners will make this move? 

andyoz

I still think any acquisition might be more left field than we think.

They will be just bidding on the name right?  The assets could be a separate thing in the carve up.
Maybe that's too simplistic.

I still think there's a good chance of alot of Gibson stock from 2015 until now getting trashed in this thing no matter what.

Philly_Q

rossi said:

My G Force  battery was dead this afternoon .Crappy Gibson .I mean who knew you had to charge the battery .I had to use these new fangled windy things on the side.I mean it took at least 2 minutes to tune up .Two fucking minutes .

I've got a 2008 Robot SG I bought from the States, the charger has a US 2-pin plug (and presumably runs at 110V).  I'm sure I could buy some kind of adaptor but I can't be arsed paying for one.

When the batteries go flat - which they will quite soon, I'd imagine - I have no idea how to unlock the tuners and use them manually.

Whitecat

Philly_Q said:

rossi said:

My G Force  battery was dead this afternoon .Crappy Gibson .I mean who knew you had to charge the battery .I had to use these new fangled windy things on the side.I mean it took at least 2 minutes to tune up .Two fucking minutes .

I've got a 2008 Robot SG I bought from the States, the charger has a US 2-pin plug (and presumably runs at 110V).  I'm sure I could buy some kind of adaptor but I can't be arsed paying for one.

When the batteries go flat - which they will quite soon, I'd imagine - I have no idea how to unlock the tuners and use them manually.

Pull them out gently, they will click off the servos and engage into "manual" mode.

Teetonetal

ICBM said:

It is true that there are a minority of buyers who like the wider neck 

Guilty

ICBM said:

 as there are a minority who like the gold case! - 

Guilty

guitarcookie1

Teetonetal said:

ICBM said:

It is true that there are a minority of buyers who like the wider neck 

Guilty

ICBM said:

 as there are a minority who like the gold case! - 

Guilty

Me too... 

Philly_Q

Whitecat said:

Philly_Q said:

rossi said:

My G Force  battery was dead this afternoon .Crappy Gibson .I mean who knew you had to charge the battery .I had to use these new fangled windy things on the side.I mean it took at least 2 minutes to tune up .Two fucking minutes .

I've got a 2008 Robot SG I bought from the States, the charger has a US 2-pin plug (and presumably runs at 110V).  I'm sure I could buy some kind of adaptor but I can't be arsed paying for one.

When the batteries go flat - which they will quite soon, I'd imagine - I have no idea how to unlock the tuners and use them manually.

Pull them out gently, they will click off the servos and engage into "manual" mode.

Thanks, I'll give it a go.  I should do some research, there must be some kind of manual for the whole system somewhere online.  I haven't bothered because I'm contemplating selling the SG, if I do keep it I'll take out all the robot nonsense and put some normal tuners and hardware on it.

ICBM

Philly_Q said:

When the batteries go flat - which they will quite soon, I'd imagine - I have no idea how to unlock the tuners and use them manually.

It's a six-stage process.

https://media.rs-online.com/t_large/F0539520-01.jpg

http://www.guitarmania.co.uk/ekmps/shops/guitarmania/images/grover-102-18g-machineheads-tuners-for-les-paul-guitar-744-p.jpg

https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB15akWIpXXXXaWXXXXq6xXFXXXX/1pc-Hand-Drill-Chuck-Jewelry-Beading-Watch-Repair-Tools-Screwdriver-Drill-Watchmaker-Universal-Chuck-25pcs-Hand.jpg

https://media.rs-online.com/t_large/F0613482-01.jpg

https://media.rs-online.com/t_large/F0539520-01.jpg

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gibson-Tronical-G-Force-Tuner-System/192459717616

Philly_Q

@ICBM ; probably Sperzels or Gotohs rather than Grovers, but I think you're almost certainly right....

fandango

guitarcookie1 said:

Teetonetal said:

ICBM said:

It is true that there are a minority of buyers who like the wider neck 

Guilty

ICBM said:

 as there are a minority who like the gold case! - 

Guilty

Me too... 

I thought ICBM was referring to my comment about swapping the standard Gibson case for one of those fangly gold cases.

So, I'm guilty as charged. Have to say that each case has it's merits as concerns strength, weight, impact resistance, internal storage, aesthetics, shape, awkwardness. Now I've had both types of case, it's six and one half dozen of the other as to which I prefer.

ICBM

Exactly - there would be nothing whatever wrong with offering the gold case as an option. I personally don't like it - the look, the size or actually the protection (it's not in the same league as a Hiscox) - but I can see that the internal storage might be an advantage, and I know there are some people who like the looks too.

Likewise, there would have been nothing inherently wrong with the G-Force tuners if they'd been an option, or on a 'Modern Series' range separate from the normal models. As long as they could have done the nut right, anyway - the design of the adjustable one really baffles me, the extra width (which is what forced the wider neck) is totally unnecessary.

But even given all the bad publicity and low sales, the 2015 range did not cost Gibson as much or threaten the very existence of the company in the way that buying other companies did. I genuinely hope Gibson go bankrupt - not because I hate the company or the guitars, but because it's probably the only way of releasing them from this millstone (including the current owner) and returning the brand to making guitars properly.

Gibson won't disappear - the brand is too important for that - and I doubt the US factories will close either, there is a lot of demand for their products. But they need someone in charge who understands the guitar business as it is now and is willing to listen to customers.

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

I genuinely hope Gibson go bankrupt - not because I hate the company or the guitars, but because it's probably the only way of releasing them from this millstone (including the current owner) and returning the brand to making guitars properly.

Gibson won't disappear - the brand is too important for that - and I doubt the US factories will close either, there is a lot of demand for their products. But they need someone in charge who understands the guitar business as it is now and is willing to listen to customers.

I fear it'll be a bit like foreign ownership of football clubs.  Some good, some bad.

Let's hope Gibson don't end up with Massimo Cellino.  Or Venky's.

crunchman

The best bet would be for someone like Paul Allen (Microsoft) to buy it.

http://underthinkers.paulallen.com/