Dealers dropping Gibson Prices

[spacelord77]

After last week's news regarding big G's troubles, i noticed that several dealers around Europe have started to discount Gibson guitars..

A 2018 range Les Paul can be had for as "low" as 540€.

A SG Standard for 1000€...

Good news, but i still consider them too expensive for their quality..

If they drop them further more, then i could think of adding a G to the PRS/HB collection!😀

[Deleted]

The only reason I am looking at other brands at the moment is HB introducing some guitars with that dreadful Blackwood fretboard otherwise I would not look at anything but HB for all my guitar needs. Need me self a P90 guitar and was stupid not to get that Sunburst while it still came with rosewood fretboard!

On Gibson; some say Joe Bonamassa will buy the name (him will be the new face of Gibson and stock holders will offer the money of course). Cleaver indeed!

[spacelord77]

May 7, 2018 19:17:25 GMT @chedapapa said:

The only reason I am looking at other brands at the moment is HB introducing some guitars with that dreadful Blackwood fretboard otherwise I would not look at anything but HB for all my guitar needs. Need me self a P90 guitar and was stupid not to get that Sunburst while it still came with rosewood fretboard!

On Gibson; some say Joe Bonamassa will buy the name (him will be the new face of Gibson and stock holders will offer the money of course). Cleaver indeed!

Agree on the HB guitars, they are all you need and specially with minor upgrades you get killer guitars for pennies!

I haven´t heard about JB buying Gibson, need to dig more into the subject!

Anyway, i hope Gibson realizes the core issue with their guitars, "MADE IN USA" is  far cry and does not sell anymore, Asian build quality is excellent these days and people are starting to realize how much "AIR" they are paying for big brands, just to have that name on the headstock, regardless of the instruments quality..

My most expensive guitar is my PRS Tremonti SE that i bought back in 2010 for 400€, all the rest have been under 250€, and my two go to guitars, the CST-24 & DC-Custom cost me 310€ all together, unbeatable value!

[Deleted]

[spacelord77]

May 7, 2018 19:44:08 GMT @chedapapa said:

Thanks for the video!

[salteedog]

He'll need very deep pockets. The Gibson guitar business is still generating cash. They are the market leader for premium electric guitars - owning 40% of the market for guitars priced over $2000 - selling 170,000 units a year.

Its all the consumer and non guitar related electronics businesses that are sinking the company.

I'm keeping my eyes peeled for their list of critical suppliers (one of the first jobs in Chapter 11 cases is to ensure those suppliers you depend on still keep getting paid..as they have the power to stop the business altogether). I expect Saein and Cort to feature in that list.

[rtm]

May 7, 2018 19:30:41 GMT spacelord77 said:

Anyway, i hope Gibson realizes the core issue with their guitars, "MADE IN USA" is  far cry and does not sell anymore

I agree, but that's as likely as Games Workshop realizing their physical stores are obsolete and will never be the IKEA of wargames they thought they'd be. Some companies are hellbent on running themselves into the ground.

[tarn]

when i told people 25 years ago that gibson quality was going backward, most didn't understand this.


because gibson was equal to say harley davidson these where american brands set in stone. 
and nothing could happen to them.

is only american consumarisme that keeps brands like this a float.



there's also a differance between 

chapter 11 and chapter 7 or 13

while chapter 11 is more of a turn the page kind of deal.

chapter 7 or 13 is more of a close the book deal

so chapter 11 doesn't mean that much at all, it does mean they got a lot of free publicity.

[salteedog]

I agree tarn that chapter 11 is unlikely to have a big impact as far as the consumer is concerned. It will most probably change the ownership structure and the management structure of the company though. (Creditors who lose money will make sure of that).

I've been through two chapter 11's in companies I worked for. I lost a fair chunk of my pension fund in one of them. It's an uncomfortable time for employees so good luck to those Gibson workers who are impacted.

[taurash]

Don't know why but I have never had the envy of buying a Gibson. It could be a matter of price if I wasn't attracted by ESP guitars that cost the same price. It could be the SC shape but I love this shape.

So why ? I guess it's the image of this brand. Too big, too statutory for my taste. I have basically the same problem with Fender, except the fact that I'm not a fan of their type of guitars.

But if the price falls really low, well maybe I may try one.

About HB guitars, well I'm in a hurry with trying their new models. I'm also in a hurry with Solar Guitars to be available on Thomann, they really seem to be like the HB : worth much more than their price

EDiT : I have a clue about why I don't like Gibson or Fender or even PRS. I've just been on Thomann to see if I could find some good deal. And I saw some freakin 8000€ and even more guitars. Beyond the fact that I can not afford such a high cost guitar, it sounds totally overrated to me. I mean : what are they made of carbon fiber ? Frets and tuners maee of pure 24cts gold ?

[spacelord77]

May 8, 2018 20:10:25 GMT taurash said:

Don't know why but I have never had the envy of buying a Gibson. It could be a matter of price if I wasn't attracted by ESP guitars that cost the same price. It could be the SC shape but I love this shape.

So why ? I guess it's the image of this brand. Too big, too statutory for my taste. I have basically the same problem with Fender, except the fact that I'm not a fan of their type of guitars.

But if the price falls really low, well maybe I may try one.

About HB guitars, well I'm in a hurry with trying their new models. I'm also in a hurry with Solar Guitars to be available on Thomann, they really seem to be like the HB : worth much more than their price

EDiT : I have a clue about why I don't like Gibson or Fender or even PRS. I've just been on Thomann to see if I could find some good deal. And I saw some freakin 8000€ and even more guitars. Beyond the fact that I can not afford such a high cost guitar, it sounds totally overrated to me. I mean : what are they made of carbon fiber ? Frets and tuners maee of pure 24cts gold ?

Fully Agree on this one! 
I just cant understand their prices even on the basic STANDARD models, why should i pay 2000€ for a Les Paul or an SG, does it record itself? Does it write killer music with me just sitting and watching it? i mean, my old and faithful Nissan car cost me 600€ 3 years a go, and thats a tool i use daily to do a 70 km commute to work.. So why would i spend 2000€ on a guitar? That money would bye me 3 good cars + a nice HB guitar !!

[taurash]

May 9, 2018 6:28:17 GMT spacelord77 said:

May 8, 2018 20:10:25 GMT taurash said:

Don't know why but I have never had the envy of buying a Gibson. It could be a matter of price if I wasn't attracted by ESP guitars that cost the same price. It could be the SC shape but I love this shape.

So why ? I guess it's the image of this brand. Too big, too statutory for my taste. I have basically the same problem with Fender, except the fact that I'm not a fan of their type of guitars.

But if the price falls really low, well maybe I may try one.

About HB guitars, well I'm in a hurry with trying their new models. I'm also in a hurry with Solar Guitars to be available on Thomann, they really seem to be like the HB : worth much more than their price

EDiT : I have a clue about why I don't like Gibson or Fender or even PRS. I've just been on Thomann to see if I could find some good deal. And I saw some freakin 8000€ and even more guitars. Beyond the fact that I can not afford such a high cost guitar, it sounds totally overrated to me. I mean : what are they made of carbon fiber ? Frets and tuners maee of pure 24cts gold ?

Fully Agree on this one! 
I just cant understand their prices even on the basic STANDARD models, why should i pay 2000€ for a Les Paul or an SG, does it record itself? Does it write killer music with me just sitting and watching it? i mean, my old and faithful Nissan car cost me 600€ 3 years a go, and thats a tool i use daily to do a 70 km commute to work.. So why would i spend 2000€ on a guitar? That money would bye me 3 good cars + a nice HB guitar !!

You're completely right, spacelord77 , a 2000 and plus guitar basically does the same job as a 200€ guitar

I will even go a bit further.
When I bought my first electric, some 20 years ago, I went to some cheap guitar. Looked good but played bad. Strings were miles away from the neck, electronic started buzzing after just one year and well, nice piece of garbage !
I changed it but still went in the same range of prices and experienced several issues with other models. On one of them the strings were not aligned with the neck, so I could not use the 6th string.
So, when I had enough money, I decided to buy a top of the line guitar. It was an ESP Eclipse, the 1st generation of it. And hell yeah, that was a huge instrument ! 1300€ at that time, but I thought it was worth it.
I bought two other high cost - well, hi-cost for me - guitars in the early 2000's, they were 2 ibanez. Once again, no issue.
Then I stopper music for around 10 years, because living in a flat and playing metal didn't work well together, and when I bought my home, I started again. 
After a few weeks of playing, I realized my amp sounded old school (Vox VT120, with tons of emulated sound. I had paid it 1150€ back in 2002). I started searching for a new amp and realized that many of them, still with emulated sounds, were not that expensive. I bought a 400€ blackstar ID60TVP and I truly love it. 
In a need for new sounds, I started searching for ESPs, cos' I had heard that Ibanez had quality issues even on their Prestige lines. I discovered 2 things :
1- ESP guitars are 2000€ (and my wife looked at me with owl eyes, so I knew for sure I wouldn't buy an ESP any more.)
2- ESP had a brand called LTD, that built almost the same models but in factories located in south Korea or Indonesia. 

I had put in my mind the fact that a good guitar is necessarily 1000€. And low cost stuffs are just pieces of garbage. I let you guys imagine what I thought when I discovered the brand Harley Benton on Thomann's website 

So I used my birthdays and Christmas excuse to buy a LTD M1001 ans then a LTD EC-1000. Then I bought a 7 places stand to regroup all my guitars and find I still had some room. I don't have the 1998 Eclispe anymore, so I had 3 empty spaces. And I needed a 7 strings guitar.
I first went to another 1000+ guitar, A Schecter Jeff Loomis signature. Great ! But the width in bridge position was a bit too large for my hands, so I couldn't stuff the 7th string while playing the 1st one. And I felt guilty spending that much money for a guitar I knew I wouldn't use every day. I sent it back and ordered another Schecter, the Demon 7, for 516€. I thought to myself I was taking a huge risk going to such a low cost guitar, but I had 14 days to try it and discover every possible issue. 
And you know what ? It was great ! Almost as great as the Jeff Loomis signature. Sounds different, but sounds really good anyway. I kept it and smiled. This was my 2017 discovery : low cost guitars are worth it ! 

2 more spaces in my stand. I had decided of a 1100€ budget for the 7 strings. 600€ left. Ok ! Fine !!! So what low cost guitars could I buy ?
I started reading customer's opinions about this trange named brand... Harley Benton... The guitar department of Harley Davidson ? 
I tried several HBs and kept the SC Custom, my beloved SC custom. 200€ ! It plays as well as my 1000€ EC 1000 !!!
And the 7th one is a LTD MH-100. A 300€ LTD guitar that I can't let rest for more than one night

The moral of this story is quite simple : there are very few differences between 1000€ guitars and 300 guitars.
Wood types are not the exact same. Yes, but can you hear it ? Can anyone of us really hear the difference between the mahogany used on a SC custom and the mahogany used on a LTD EC-1000 ? Well I'm unable to.
Pieces of equipment are different. Really bottom of the line guitars have stock pickups, stock tuners, stock bridges, generally made with bad steel in bad factories. The MH-100 has LTD tuners, LTD bridge, ESP pickups... But they are pretty good, though not as much as branded stuffs.
But let's imagine I want my MH-100 equipped with top of the line pieces of equipment.
Grover tuners : 50€
TOM Pros Tune-o-matic bridge : 129
Seymour Duncan Distorsion pups : 111€
And let's imagine I'm a very clumsy guy with two left hands configured in right hands by my sick brain and I have to pay someone to assemble those pieces on my guitar : my luthier asks 58€.
Total : 348€ + 299€ (price of the MH-100) ) 647€. Way cheaper than a LTD MH-1001 for the same equipment.

So now, I'm done with 1000€ guitars. I was ill but I got healed, thanks to Schecter and Harley Benton. Very good wallet doctors

[blindwilly3fingers]

May 8, 2018 10:35:54 GMT tarn said:

when i told people 25 years ago that gibson quality was going backward, most didn't understand this.


because gibson was equal to say harley davidson these where american brands set in stone. 
and nothing could happen to them.

is only american consumarisme that keeps brands like this a float.



there's also a differance between 

chapter 11 and chapter 7 or 13

while chapter 11 is more of a turn the page kind of deal.

chapter 7 or 13 is more of a close the book deal

so chapter 11 doesn't mean that much at all, it does mean they got a lot of free publicity.

I think you hit the nail on the head with the American brands bit. You will pay top dollar for a name across all retail whether its guitars, clothes, food whatever. As already said a lot of it is produced in the same factories. Unfortunately will live in a media/advertising world where we are conditioned what to spend our money on. I also think there is a snobbery involved. Gibson is made in USA that's the hype, now I'm not saying they are not very good instruments far from it. Gibson own Epiphone as budget brand which are built in the far east. I don't believe Gibson can be manufactured outside the USA because they lose the status and the reason to charge what the currently do. I know a couple of people (wealthy admittedly) that own Gibson and Fender guitars, they are not guitar players but have them as decor and conversation pieces! They are basically in competition using them as bragging rights with each other! From a personal point of view I'd love a top of the range guitar but I'd be s**t scared ot scratching it. I suppose if you can afford it why not?

I think most people on here seem to be sensible and buy guitars to play and modify to there personal liking. And I believe if majority of you had a top of the range Gibson you would change the pups or alter the wiring?

I also think I've lost the plot what I was trying to say, I'll get me coat!

[salteedog]

I know plenty musicians who wouldn't look sideways at a cheap instrument (or anything that isn't Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker or Gretsch*). Some of it comes from their experiences in the past with beginner instruments of the 70s and 80s (and remember those days when only experts knew about set-ups and most players were afraid of their life to even touch the truss-rod!). For years Fender and Gibson were the only brands you could trust I suppose.

* In fact I know one guy who considers Gretsch a cheap brand.

[spacelord77]

May 9, 2018 9:49:12 GMT taurash said:

May 9, 2018 6:28:17 GMT spacelord77 said:

Fully Agree on this one! 
I just cant understand their prices even on the basic STANDARD models, why should i pay 2000€ for a Les Paul or an SG, does it record itself? Does it write killer music with me just sitting and watching it? i mean, my old and faithful Nissan car cost me 600€ 3 years a go, and thats a tool i use daily to do a 70 km commute to work.. So why would i spend 2000€ on a guitar? That money would bye me 3 good cars + a nice HB guitar !!

You're completely right, spacelord77 , a 2000 and plus guitar basically does the same job as a 200€ guitar

I will even go a bit further.
When I bought my first electric, some 20 years ago, I went to some cheap guitar. Looked good but played bad. Strings were miles away from the neck, electronic started buzzing after just one year and well, nice piece of garbage !
I changed it but still went in the same range of prices and experienced several issues with other models. On one of them the strings were not aligned with the neck, so I could not use the 6th string.
So, when I had enough money, I decided to buy a top of the line guitar. It was an ESP Eclipse, the 1st generation of it. And hell yeah, that was a huge instrument ! 1300€ at that time, but I thought it was worth it.
I bought two other high cost - well, hi-cost for me - guitars in the early 2000's, they were 2 ibanez. Once again, no issue.
Then I stopper music for around 10 years, because living in a flat and playing metal didn't work well together, and when I bought my home, I started again. 
After a few weeks of playing, I realized my amp sounded old school (Vox VT120, with tons of emulated sound. I had paid it 1150€ back in 2002). I started searching for a new amp and realized that many of them, still with emulated sounds, were not that expensive. I bought a 400€ blackstar ID60TVP and I truly love it. 
In a need for new sounds, I started searching for ESPs, cos' I had heard that Ibanez had quality issues even on their Prestige lines. I discovered 2 things :
1- ESP guitars are 2000€ (and my wife looked at me with owl eyes, so I knew for sure I wouldn't buy an ESP any more.)
2- ESP had a brand called LTD, that built almost the same models but in factories located in south Korea or Indonesia. 

I had put in my mind the fact that a good guitar is necessarily 1000€. And low cost stuffs are just pieces of garbage. I let you guys imagine what I thought when I discovered the brand Harley Benton on Thomann's website 

So I used my birthdays and Christmas excuse to buy a LTD M1001 ans then a LTD EC-1000. Then I bought a 7 places stand to regroup all my guitars and find I still had some room. I don't have the 1998 Eclispe anymore, so I had 3 empty spaces. And I needed a 7 strings guitar.
I first went to another 1000+ guitar, A Schecter Jeff Loomis signature. Great ! But the width in bridge position was a bit too large for my hands, so I couldn't stuff the 7th string while playing the 1st one. And I felt guilty spending that much money for a guitar I knew I wouldn't use every day. I sent it back and ordered another Schecter, the Demon 7, for 516€. I thought to myself I was taking a huge risk going to such a low cost guitar, but I had 14 days to try it and discover every possible issue. 
And you know what ? It was great ! Almost as great as the Jeff Loomis signature. Sounds different, but sounds really good anyway. I kept it and smiled. This was my 2017 discovery : low cost guitars are worth it ! 

2 more spaces in my stand. I had decided of a 1100€ budget for the 7 strings. 600€ left. Ok ! Fine !!! So what low cost guitars could I buy ?
I started reading customer's opinions about this trange named brand... Harley Benton... The guitar department of Harley Davidson ? 
I tried several HBs and kept the SC Custom, my beloved SC custom. 200€ ! It plays as well as my 1000€ EC 1000 !!!
And the 7th one is a LTD MH-100. A 300€ LTD guitar that I can't let rest for more than one night

The moral of this story is quite simple : there are very few differences between 1000€ guitars and 300 guitars.
Wood types are not the exact same. Yes, but can you hear it ? Can anyone of us really hear the difference between the mahogany used on a SC custom and the mahogany used on a LTD EC-1000 ? Well I'm unable to.
Pieces of equipment are different. Really bottom of the line guitars have stock pickups, stock tuners, stock bridges, generally made with bad steel in bad factories. The MH-100 has LTD tuners, LTD bridge, ESP pickups... But they are pretty good, though not as much as branded stuffs.
But let's imagine I want my MH-100 equipped with top of the line pieces of equipment.
Grover tuners : 50€
TOM Pros Tune-o-matic bridge : 129
Seymour Duncan Distorsion pups : 111€
And let's imagine I'm a very clumsy guy with two left hands configured in right hands by my sick brain and I have to pay someone to assemble those pieces on my guitar : my luthier asks 58€.
Total : 348€ + 299€ (price of the MH-100) ) 647€. Way cheaper than a LTD MH-1001 for the same equipment.

So now, I'm done with 1000€ guitars. I was ill but I got healed, thanks to Schecter and Harley Benton. Very good wallet doctors

Taurash, that was very well put!

I have never spent more than 400€ on a guitar, my PRS Tremonti SE which i managed to get for a low price back in 2010, i have money to spend on things, but per my car example, i like to spend the minimum  amount possible on a thing that does the job!

I learned a similar story as you some 15 years ago, but with drum sets, i had been playing a Pearl export series cheapish set form 1995 (i was 18 back then and had basically no money. My mom bought it for me for my 18 yrs birthday) i used the same kit for touring, recording, rehearsing until around 2004, by then i had a job, stable income and some savings... I decided to treat my self with a high end Tama Starclassic drum set, i had go the down payment road with it since it cost 2500€.. Every month that i was paying for that drum set, i felt like "Is this worth it? does that drum set sound so special?", then i once went to a friends rehearsal room and there was that 600€ YAMAHA STAGE CUSTOM set that sounded just amazing!

While on my way home, i kept thinking if the Tama set was really worth the money i actually do not even fully have?
Next morning i put it on sale, and to my best of surprises, some one offered me a trade, a YAMAHA STAGE CUSTOM + 1500€ for the TAMA.
I immediately accepted the offer, paid the left of the down payments and never looked back to a high priced instrument.. 

As a matter of fact, i even sold my back then 3 years old car, and bought an old, cheap Honda Accord that served me many years without any problems!

Now i have a cheap and reliable old car, a paid apartment, 4 guitars (cost me all together 770€, less than one ****illy faded Les Paul or SG) and a nice Yamaha RBX170 Exotic wood Bass for recording (150€ from outlet) etc. and zero debt.

  
Have i missed something after downscaling? Absolutely not, and i have more money than ever before!

High Price nor Brand do not determine the goodness of a product, and as you mentioned in your post, i bet the LTD EC-1000 and the HB SC-Custom are made from the same woods, in the same factory and by the same people! All the HB Custom line instrument are to say 95% surely from the ESP LTD factory!!