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If Gibson Were Gone..............


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I have always been on the Fender side of the fence but Gibson has more iconic guitar designs than any company in the history of the electric guitar. I am not a fan of Henry J (though he had a good run) he is dragging the company down! I think it is time he sold the company to someone who will pump so new blood into it, starting with the simple issue of taking care of the QC department. Neither Gibson or Fender have come up with any new designs for 50 plus years, but really do not have to though it would be nice. But Gibsons Quality issue on high end guitars have become a joke for more than a decade now. No one should be laying out 2K to 4K for a guitar and have any issues, as you have other companies producing $500 models with better QC. This is not the 50's, 60's, or even the 70's when both were the big two headed monster! There are more companies and builders right now than at any point in history and the guitar building industry is fiercely competitive. If Gibson does not right the ship it could very well go under, which would be a shame.

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I'd be unhappy to see Gibson go. I really love the current LP standards, and I'd like to grab another one sometime. If there was no Gibson, I'd just get something else. No shortage of guitars out there, that is for sure. I'm of the opinion that when Gibson is on their game, they can make a phenomenal guitar, and those guitars are as good as what is out there. You all can argue about what percentage of production that type of guitar is, but it isn't 100%, and it isn't zero. I'm not going to argue about how the company is run, as I honestly don't really care that much about such things.

 

As to the question of if it would make a difference if Gibson were gone, sure, I think it would. Gibson has made many iconic guitars over the years, and clearly has had a big impact on music as we know it, the design and look of guitars, and so on. Doesn't mean other brands are not important, as they clearly are, but one cannot simply erase Gibson from the history of modern music, no matter how bad one may want to do so.

 

As always, just my two cents.

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Some Les Pauls are amazing. Fewer of them these days are being made by Gibson. Both of these are well known in the guitar world.

 

 

Only Gibson Guitar Corp. manufacture Les Paul guitars.

 

You can beat around the bush all you like but it this is unlikely to change any time soon.

 

I've taken the time to play several new LP's in the last few years and have been impressed by all of them.

 

The Gibson bashing here by the OP looks more like an unwillingness to pay the going rate for a brand new Gibson Les Paul guitar.

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Only Gibson Guitar Corp. manufacture Les Paul guitars.


You can beat around the bush all you like but it this is unlikely to change any time soon.

 

 

agreed

 

 

I've taken the time to play several new LP's in the last few years and have been unimpressed by all of them.


The Gibson bashing here is more like a desire to spend thousands on a guitar that's better than "good enough."

 

 

fixed.

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Only Gibson Guitar Corp. manufacture Les Paul guitars.


You can beat around the bush all you like but it this is unlikely to change any time soon.


I've taken the time to play several new LP's in the last few years and have been impressed by all of them.


The Gibson bashing here by the OP looks more like an unwillingness to pay the going rate for a brand new Gibson Les Paul guitar.

 

 

I've really liked the new Gibsons Ive played as well. The two I own, an R8 and a 2010 Explorer, are outstanding instruments.

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I've owned epiphones and gibsons, fenders and squiers, rickenbackers, first acts, and a few random no-names and I always end up eventually selling everything but have always held onto my gibsons.

 

I just recently bought a les Paul junior and the thing plays flawlessly. I tried out other Gibson les pauls, both used and new, and I just never understand all the hate for gibson.

 

Is it just that people don't want to admit that they can't afford $2000 guitars, so they'd rather "hate them" just like its cool to hate the government? Or are the people who hate Gibson here actually people that have owned and have personal horror stories on why they suck?

 

I can't afford $2000 guitars but the few high end Gibson I've played have been A LOT better than my cheapies.

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I pretty much agree with this, but not exactly as implied. Cameras
per se
were not Kodak's business. Kodak's top technical people were chemists, because Kodak was basically in the business of inventing, developing, and marketing ever-superior film emulsions. I know they made enormous efforts to develop film emultions that would work even in the cold and vacuum of space, for use in spy satellites. Their library of patents, doubtless hundreds of thousands of them, mostly dealt with chemistry, film substrates, and emulsions.


Even today, Kodak is far and away in the lead, in the field of film and film emulsion technology. It's not that they didn't keep up, by any means. Nor is it the case that Kodak was unaware of what was happening in the world of photography - they could see that the future was digital and electronic. But if you're tied to the tracks, knowing a train is coming isn't very helpful. A camera consists of a box, a lens, and a medium to capture an image. Kodak wasn't really in the box or lens business; this was farmed out or purchased from those who DID specialize in boxes and lenses.


Unfortunately, buying all three components from others, and then hiring someone to assemble them and yet others to support them, isn't a viable business model. Kodak's "value added" was the film only - and film went away. So Kodak is joining the companies who made the world's very best cathode ray tubes, for example. Kodak's specialty died a natural death. "Keeping up" with digital photography would have required being in a different field to begin with.

 

 

+1

Too many people blame Kodak for its problems, but asking them to go from being a chemical company to an electronics company is equivalent to asking Gibson to go from being an instrument manufacturer to a television manufacturer.

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If Gibson disappeared, the biggest problem wouldn't be the name disappearing. It would simply fall into the hands of some investment firm that would use the name to turn out crap chinese products. Polaroid, Harmony, Emerson, Westinghouse, Jensen, RCA, and many more iconic brands have already been down that road.

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I would be sad if Gibson disappeared. They certainly have been doing some silly things. But when they get it right, they get it really right.

 

It would certainly make a substantial impact on the guitar industry if they were gone. Their market share is still massive.

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Call them what you want, Les Paul or Les Paul style. Lots of companies make them. To say otherwise is really a moot point in practical terms.

 

 

Only Gibson (and it's wholly owned licensee Epiphone) can call a guitar a "Les Paul", however,

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Only Gibson (and it's wholly owned licensee Epiphone) can call a guitar a "Les Paul", however,

 

 

Honestly? What-{censored}in'-ever.

 

This is pointless hair splitting and a childish red herring.

 

Besides, Gibson's trademark, as all U.S. trademarks, is only legally-binding in the United States. And since Lester Polsfuss lived and died in New York state, his estate/family has no legal claim to the rights of his image or name like they would had he died in California (there is no Bela Lugosi Law in NY, quite the opposite actually, such posthumous privacy rights are outlawed). Still, as I noted before, we live in an era where intellectual property is worth far more than actual product quality or quantity. Gibson is massive brand equity, and if Henry J. ever fell on hard times, the Gibson brand would be bought up before the lights could be turned off, either by a competitor or a private investment firm, and probably for equal to, or less than, what AOL paid for the Huntington Post, which produces no physical product.

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I don't think anyone would really care if Debbie Gibson were gone.


I mean, she had a couple hits in the 80's, not really my thing, but still, it has been so long, I don't think anyone would really miss her.

 

But she's kinda hot these days, even though she now prefers "Deborah" to "Debbie". :idk:

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