Captain Tightpants
New member
Re: Check out Gibson's so-called "Game Changer"...
Nigel's gonna be pissed.
Nigel's gonna be pissed.
Proving once again, that Gibson is way out of touch. Instead of filling the market with proven designs, they feel that they should dictate what we want- kinda like the music industry as a whole has done for years.
"Bread and Butter". They still do that and will always do that. Frankly, until I play one I'll reserve judgement.
$5500 MSRP. This isn't being marketed as a toy. On board effects, batteries....not for me and I don't think in general what people are looking for from Gibson. I am all for companies producing innovative products, but you have to listen to what the marketplace wants. If you're going to make a guitar like this, put it in the affordable range.
+1. It doesn't matter what a $5,000 guitar looks like or does, they're only going to sell a handful of units at that price. Obviously Gibson put a lot of R&D time and money into developing this. They won't get that money back. The average player can't come up with $2,500 for an LP Std, which is far more appealing than this space age Firebird.
What Gibson should have come out with 25 years ago is a design to go head-to-head with Super Strats (like a Super SG: HSH and HSS with P-90's and a 5-way). Instead they lost market share to competitors. who beat them on innovation, price, and consitent quality.
Frivolous designs like this (and the Reverse V, V2, Zoot Suit SG, etc) drain Gibson's cash flow, with no hope of recouping the substantial investment involved. That forces them to put huge markups on their other guitars, to pay for these flights of fantasy.
An efficient, well-run corporation could produce and sell American-made guitars for half of what Gibson does, and still make a respectable profit. But that means they couldn't indulge themselves with hopeless, poorly-researched new products. The Firebird X isn't what the public wants, or what they're going to buy. Even at $500 it wouldn't make a big splash. It doesn't change the game. It just confirms that the Gibson of today is out of touch with guitar players.
If Gibson wanted to quickly and inexpensively increase their revenue, all they have to do is add some new or 'limited edition' colors to their already pupular designs.
This isn't directly related, well a bit I guess.... but if you are going to go with on board controls, don't overload it.
My opinion is that one of the companies that pushed the idea of versatility, of creating one guitar that could do all you needed to do, and integrate it into one guitar, is Godin. Their three voiced guitars feature active on board EQ, seperate output for Piezzo, coil tap, 13 pin synth access directly built in.
http://www.godinguitars.com/godinlgxtp.htm
That's as far as I would take it. The average player won't mind having a solid guitar in their hands that has no built in delay of flanger, and just use a stompbox for those effects if he needs them. Piezzo and synth on the other hand, are some desirable features in an guitar.
In my opinion, there is going to far. Godin got it right, and didn't go to far. Gibson is testing the waters, but I think it will cost them.
I would suggest they consider more pickup offerings including Mr. Duncan's and Mr. Dimarzios, and offer split coil options on some standard guitars. I am a big fan of Bigbsy tremolos but they're hard to come by in stock models.
change isn't always good, you know Henry! For instance, if i saw my leg off tonight i'll have changed myself but tomorrow i'll have trouble standing while i pee.