New (to me) Gibson design.

[Rich_T]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

and you would probably grudgingly admit that Zoot Suits aren't bad guitars if you played one. I sure did..

I played one. It looked like a fisher price guitar, it felt like a cigar box, it sounded like... plywood.

 

[dr. ad]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

christ.

it's like the anti-guitar

 

[Rich_T]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

It's got those silly barrel tuners too. The strap button is in a really stupid place, it's going to hang weirdly.

 

[Mr Wolf]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

Not the worst of intentions, but it looks like a lame Jackson Warrior copy to me. It's like Gibson set off in that direction, then half way through lost interest and took some chunks out of an explorer and called it a day.

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

What in the Pink Floyd!?!?


:laughing:

 

[scottish]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

im going with a wahwah quote on this one, "it would look good with headstock snapped off and on fire"

 

[sosomething]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

dude how do you think they make crazy pointy guitars in Asia? You think the slave laborers there are using one-piece slabs of fine mahogany to make guitars shaped like that?

most guitars are multi-piece bodies and they have to use some kind of glue to put them together...especially if the shape is something totally crazy like that...Gibson's just telling it like it is instead of saying "MAHOGANY" when they mean "mostly mahogany and maybe some alder but definitely a veneer to make it look like a one-piece mahogany back and possibly another veneer of a flamed maple top with plenty of glue to hold it all together"

and you would probably grudgingly admit that Zoot Suits aren't bad guitars if you played one. I sure did..

I understand that you work retail at a Gibson dealer now and are compelled to stand up for every weird product they put out, but I don't care how "not bad" the Zoot Suit SGs may or may not be. Gibson is charging over a grand for a guitar made entirely out of plywood. That's horse****.

You're missing another really important point. Several, actually.

1.) Those "slave laborers" are, in most cases, properly-compensated South Koreans operating in a free market much like ours. They are proud men and women who work, not slaves.

2.) The guitars produced in Asia - let's keep using Korea as an example, since they're probably the farthest along with regard to manufacturing quality (after Japan) - sell for hundreds to thousands less than their US-made counterparts. You knew that.

Now don't get me wrong - I don't hate Gibson. I've owned... lemme see... at least six of them. I currently have three and love them. I'm not a Gibson basher. I'm not a huge proponent of imports either. I don't have any (though I have owned a number of different ones in the past). I'm just trying to give you a frame of reference here when I say...

If you want to buy some weird pointy axe made out of various hunks of shop floor scrap, why in the SCREAMING BLOODY HELL would you skip over the decent $500 import for a hacked-up explorer that costs $1,665.00????

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

Come back, Burns Flyte guitars, all is forgiven .....................

 

[MikeS]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

Ugly.

I wonder what "multiple" pieces means... exactly. That body shape, like the explorer, has a large footprint, would require a large blank, and would produce a lot of scrap. Anyone expecting a 1-piece body is a flat out moron, any expecting a 2-piece has his expectations set a little too high, and those expecting no more than a 3 piece, myself included, would likely be let down.

I do find it curious that they are trying to justify a multiple piece body (and the glue) when it's already a commonly accepted practice. Maybe that level of justification is the very marketing bull**** that they need to get the MSRP where they think it should be.

 

[sosomething]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

^^ That's what leads me to believe that the bodies are probably made out of MANY various pieces, then planed off and cut into blanks.

Otherwise, why bring it up?? Even LPs and SGs usually have 2 and 3-piece bodies these days. To mention it at all makes it seem like a whole new order of magnitude.

 

[marvar]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

We may pan this now- but who knows? in 50 yrs, this thing might be the holy grail! Just like the original Explorers and V's from the late 1950's were panned at that time!

 

[beandip]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

I'd rock it

 

[flieger67]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

We may pan this now- but who knows? in 50 yrs, this thing might be the holy grail! Just like the original Explorers and V's from the late 1950's were panned at that time!

Interesting thought but I think there are some significant differences between then and now. In the '50's, the Explorer, V and Moderne were very radical designs and that was why they "flopped" and subsequently are rare. In the case of that new Gibson abomination, it's not a radical design: see the Jackson Warrior or Ibanez Xiphos for similar shapes. Those '50's Gibsons were made of desirable woods and used real PAF pickups. The current silver Explorer abortion is simply a run-of-the-mill parts-bin guitar without high-end woods or pickups.

Someone, somewhere in the distant, may be interested in that whacked-out, bastardized silver Explorer as some sort of oddity for his Gibson collection, but I cannot ever see it being a true "holy grail" like a '50's V or Explorer is.

 

[Aceman]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

Can we get over the multiple pieces thing...A real Les Paul is Multiple pieces - A back and a top!!! BC Rich has some super sweet multiple piece guitars. People just like to beetch at some people for multiple peices and not others. Get over it. You love 5 pirce laminate necks.

Let's crtiticize for what it is...over-priced, under-designed crap.

 

[Zerberus]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

Hmmm, I think If I wanted one of these I´d grab a faded explorer, take a chunk out of it, refinish it, and hang it on my wall...

 

[SchecMan]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

I'd rock it

I would too, and you would look cool as hell playing that in a country band...

 

[DMR]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

Gibson is putting out some absolutely hideous stuff lately. The robot guitars are pretty cool but is this all the staff at Gibson is capable of.......turning the Explorer upside down, reversing the V, putting ridiculous looking cut-outs in those shapes, and cutting a fin tip off of an Explorer? Pretty sad.

I'd give anything to be in one of those staff meetings where these ideas are presented and approved by management. Gotta be pure comedy.

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

I think those barrel tuners are secksy.

 

[dominus]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

Not too bad, but they should have done something by the output jack. Smoother transition maybe? I've got an explorer clone, in a few months I'll see what I can do with a saw, sander, and paint.

 

[Travis H]

Re: New (to me) Gibson design.

Not too bad, but they should have done something by the output jack. Smoother transition maybe? I've got an explorer clone, in a few months I'll see what I can do with a saw, sander, and paint.

That would be cool to see.