N(Chibson)D

[Bucksstudent]

There're a few players out there that contend Gibson isn't Gibson anymore since they're no longer owned by the founding company or located in the same city. They get the most profit from making guitars that are based on a design that's probably over half a century old. When they try to do something different like robot guitars or similar, we laugh at them and just tell them to keep making Les Pauls.

 

I love my Epiphones. Any player who owns several obviously has an affinity for Gibson's budget brand. I don't like my Les Paul because it's an approximation of a Gibson, but rather because it's an excellent guitar.

 

And it is pretty black and white: bootleg Gibsons are bad business. However, I won't put down anyone for buying one because they're not likely to buy a Gibson.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

 

I love my Epiphones. Any player who owns several obviously has an affinity for Gibson's budget brand. I don't like my Les Paul because it's an approximation of a Gibson, but rather because it's an excellent guitar..

 

I think I'd have to say that ultimately irregardless of everything else, ethics, cost, trademarks etc., the validity of the existence of any musical instrument is the music it makes, and the inspiration it gives to it's player, and on that basis, I can only agree with you

[speakerjones]

I'm sure you're completely innocent of buying Chinese sweatshop products and therefore completely justified in talking down to me like I'm the one employing children and making them sleep on floors. There are certain products that I need to get by in my job and day to day life. Where I have a reasonable choice, I buy American, or used. My hobby, music, is where I spend quite a bit of my disposable income. I almost always buy used when it comes to guitar gear and drums, however when I do buy new, it's almost always American. . The exception would probably be my MacBook, which I bought new, and is the only laptop that really worked for what I needed to do. Sorry sweatshop kids that our corporations take advantage of your corrupt system. Gotta have my ProTools. Oh yeah, I have little girls too. They like toys. Toys are invariably made in China. Again, I do my best here, but I'm not going punish my kids because China can't get their {censored} together on human rights standards. Welcome to the global economy. It sucks. So maybe I'm a horrible human being, but at least I don't support counterfeiting ALONG with the other atrocities that are being committed overseas.

[Grant Harding]

I wasn't attacking you or suggesting that I'm the ethical purchase messia. I'm also not talking about working conditions or labour costs. This is about global copyright fraud.

[speakerjones]

Sorry koiwoi, I was responding to Ratae, not you. I think we're pretty much on the same page...

[esphil]

Its cool to see so much lively discussion on the topic. I called up a tech who is one of the best in this part of the state and told him about the guitar last week. I finally met up with him at his shop and he wanted to first see the guitar to see what can be done. He was actually rather shocked at how nice it was especially for the price. The frets have high points along a number of them and some of the frets I mentioned in the first post but he was confident he can turn it into a really nice playing guitar, I gave him free reign to do what he needs to do even if some frets had to be replaced which he said wasn't necessary. The guitar will be with him for a week.

 

I see some discussion talking about how I'm supporting these types of operatings. I'm not suggesting that anyone buy one of these. In fact if anything it may turn people away from buying one seeing what I'm doing to the guitar and the costs, so it may have a reverse affect of what you may think.

 

Its been a while since I had a Les Paul, one of my favorite les pauls was actually a purple EC-1000 that played great. I could have actually bought a EC-1000 for less than I'm putting into this guitar, but this guitar is really customized for my liking. I love blue guitars and wanted to actually make one for myself with this same scheme. The crazy part is how much cheaper this entire guitar I purchased is compared to a painted body from warmoth, iirc the body I wanted was going to run me $500 alone with a similiar paint to go with a neck I already had.

 

So here is a breakdown if someone wants to know my costs so far, I already had some GC to Musiciansfriend and other places so my parts out of pocket are pretty low.

 

Guitar: $260 shipped

Hardware(Hipshot locking tuners, tusq nut, roller bridge) $110

Humbuckers(Tonezone/Airnorton in gold) $180

Setup with fret work $70

 

So all in all $620, I still may order some more parts for new pots, switches. Oh and I also got a custom trussrod cover made. Out of the box at least for my guitar I didn't really find it playable, I am pretty picky. So if anything someone reads this they realize they could have a off the shelf guitar for less. For me every part with the body and hardware is customized to the look I wanted. If I bought something off shelf and added the parts it would be much more, so this was a cheap base for me to start with. I still consider that a bargain compared to some Kiesel guitars I've had made. I purchased a number of Gibsons during deals in the last few years posted on this forum at MF for less, so its really what you want. I do miss the Midtown I sold, that was a really sweet guitar. I've always been a bargain hunter for anything, if there are more Gibsons in the future I find good deals to me on I'll buy them, having a "knockoff" isn't going to stop me from buying brand names. This guitar could have said Donkey on the headstock for all I care. Some of the guys on youtube have invested over 1k into some of the knockoffs to get them up to the way they want them and they are happy with it.

[Grant Harding]

Those are USA counterfeits. Totally legit.

 

I'm also not a big fan of the way Gibson takes credit for his tone indirectly, but it's hard to blame them. I think his #1 was created with the intention of making a great guitar, rather than the black market mass forgers that only care about the look and have no post sales relationship.

[Grant Harding]

Yours are not in scope of this at all. You're making a small number of top end custom instruments, which could never be classified as counterfeit or forgery. Gibson could probably take you to court and get you to stop like they did with Tom Anderson over his Bulldog model (now Bobcat due to required shape changes). It wouldn't be worth it for them though.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

Check back in three years time

 

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