whats up w/ gibson's qc/ set up's

gc ?

i went to gc w/ my student .. he wanted to by hiself a gibson for xmas ...... he went back and they returned his deposit .... he found a explorer at a mom/pop store ..... i stoped in there and played it last night .... verry nice playing guitar ..... we will pick it up this am ........... and he has a epiphone les paul that was perfect right out of the box ... i told him the epi was more guitar than he will ever need ..... but he wants a gibson
 
dave..... said:
i went to gc w/ my student .. he wanted to by hiself a gibson for xmas ...... he went back and they returned his deposit .... he found a explorer at a mom/pop store ..... i stoped in there and played it last night .... verry nice playing guitar ..... we will pick it up this am ........... and he has a epiphone les paul that was perfect right out of the box ... i told him the epi was more guitar than he will ever need ..... but he wants a gibson
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Aww, good ole' brand obsession.
 
i know

but yep he must have a gibson ....... i told him ... it wont make you play better ........ but he is stuck on getting a gibson
 
eyeteeth said:
If that's the style you want, forgo the Gibson... and get yourself a Heritage. Made by ex Gibson guys who stayed behind when Gibson closed the Kalamazoo plant and moved to Tennesee. Same price... excellent guitars.

http://www.heritageguitar.com/company/about_us.htm

You're not going to find these in a GC.
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I've given up on trying to convince people of the Heritage quality, but I'm happy to see someone else finally mention them. I bought a beautiful amber flamed maple 575 on ebay for 1200 about 2 years ago (a 2002 model), and it plays beautifully. Also owned a Les Paul style 150 for a while that played very well - great sound - but I never used it since I only really play jazzy and acoustic music.

In all honesty, I'm happy no one really knows these guitars - it means I can find them used for far cheaper than you would find, say, a used Gibson ES175 from the same time period, of the same build and wood/component quality.

As for brand obsession, its a fairly common thing, and I don't think you would end up winning in trying to convince him (or really anyone who has the bug) any different.
 
dave..... said:
but yep he must have a gibson ....... i told him ... it wont make you play better ........ but he is stuck on getting a gibson
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this is a fascinating human sheep brainwash subject... nothing bad. it just is I guess.

from a collectors=cash value, I understand it a lot.

from a player standpoint it's just pure gearaddict lust.

I would almost recommend he does get a Gibson if he's so obssessed with the logo, as a friend of my brothers just gave in and got an Epiphone instead of his gearlust Gibson and he's never been happy with it.....soon swapped out the perfectly good pickups with....guess?!....GIBSON pickups....
then the tuning pegs etc....

he'd been better swapping out the logo or something....but even then he would still be in turmoil that it wasn't a GIBSON...

really an interesting subject, imo... LOGO LUST.

another thing is money, I mean if we all had it...would there be Ford Escorts and cheap KIA's...or would everyone be driving Ferrari's?

It'll probably take another decade or so for several up and coming new BIG artists to be using Squiers and Epiphones...and then the old names will step up their quality again or lower the price.....or disappear like Harmony or other once infamous brands. Alesis comes to mind.
 
I'm sure there are some decent GC's out there, but the ones I frequent (and Sam Ash is the same thing BTW) have horribly set up guitars. On several occasions I've picked up a $2k+ guitar that was set up so badly I couldn't even play or tune it. I really can't imagine why anyone, no matter how badly they wanted it, would buy such a thing. If the previous post mentioned that GC wasn't allowed to set up guitars is true, then this explains everything.

I've been into a small mom & pop Gibson dealer (there aren't many of these left) and it was night and day. I wanted to buy every guitar they had.

GC is good for one thing - knowing exactly what you want (must be something that is a commodity and comes fresh in a box), and negotiating the lowest price. They're employees aren't paid well enough to be experts in anything, no different than any other big box chain.

+1 for Heritage quality, but they don't seem to know how to run a company there. I have an H-535 that is a beautifully built machine.
 
I think its mostly the customers that come in and #@$! around on all the guitars and don't treat them very nicely.
 
I don't give a damn how a Gibson is set up. I look at the finish, the detail of the fretwork, and what pickups the guitar is equiped with.
I don't care about the action, intonation, or neck bow...because...i'm going to set it like I like it if I buy the damn thing.

By the way, I think the build quality, the finish, the parts, and the fretwork on the new gibson les pauls is very good.
If the guitar is a very well crafted instrument, like a les paul, with top notch parts...who cares if the set up is not that good...IT CAN BE SET UP TO PLAY LIKE A DREAM!
That is a given.

I don't see how any guitar player would not learn how to set a guitar up. I guess I'm glad alot of guys are clueless about it though. You can get great deals from morons who say "this is a beautiful flamed top les paul custom and I paid $3500 for it a year ago but I'm selling it for $1000 because it dosen't "speak to me"
Translation: the guitar has not been set up properly and the guy thinks it's just a lemon that he must practically give away to some poor sucker to get out from under.
A setup turns a lemon into lemonaid.

It would drive me crazy if I couldn't set up a guitar they way I like it set up.

No guitar I have ever picked up off a music store shelf was set up perfectly for my taste.


The problem with GC Gibsons may be that they HAVE been set up...by the "expert" wannabe salesmen at GC.:D
 
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I don't care where you buy a guitar, I'd recommend budgeting enough for a good setup as soon as you get it. There are some stores that will include this in the price of the guitars, but not all of them, and not every store which does so actually has a competent repair person. Factories simply can not setup guitars properly, partially because they don't know who is going to be buying the guitar, and partially because the setup is going to change depending on what the climate is like in the city where the guitar is being sold. Getting it done by a professional once you buy a guitar is always the way to go.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light said:
I don't care where you buy a guitar, I'd recommend budgeting enough for a good setup as soon as you get it. There are some stores that will include this in the price of the guitars, but not all of them, and not every store which does so actually has a competent repair person. Factories simply can not setup guitars properly, partially because they don't know who is going to be buying the guitar, and partially because the setup is going to change depending on what the climate is like in the city where the guitar is being sold. Getting it done by a professional once you buy a guitar is always the way to go.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
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How much should one budget for a professional setup?
 
Many Ma & Pa stores include doing an initial setup. I just bought a cheap $100 acoustic for my son. (first... see if he likes it) I had to have it ordered, when I went to pick it, I had to wait a bit because they were still finishing the setup on it.

On a $100 guitar... they did a setup. Played nice when they were done. Sure... big chain store buying power might save you a few $$$, but do you know what are you losing?
 
eyeteeth said:
Many Ma & Pa stores include doing an initial setup. I just bought a cheap $100 acoustic for my son. (first... see if he likes it) I had to have it ordered, when I went to pick it, I had to wait a bit because they were still finishing the setup on it.

On a $100 guitar... they did a setup. Played nice when they were done. Sure... big chain store buying power might save you a few $$$, but do you know what are you losing?
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I have one guy doing nothing but setups for stores. A decent store will respond if you ask them to do work on a guitar before you take it home. He works the hours that I need him to he's, a retired tech and a good one.
 
eyeteeth said:
Many Ma & Pa stores include doing an initial setup.
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there don't seem to be many Ma and Pa's left around Dallas? seems locals are doing this but how many strangers are you going to leave your guitar with that don't have a shop?:confused:


setup story
bought 2qty US Fender Strat's in 2000, one was from MArs closeout and it sucked, but was really cheap $500 w/case..Texas Specials....but the setup was fhkd.

The other was from BrookMays, the tech kept it for a day and it was the best guitar I'd ever played. He set it up, and damn, still the best playing I ever had so far. however I'm really enjoying this Squier 51 surprise buy...such a cool guitar, but if that setup was a 10, then this "51" is a 8.5 and I do basic stuff myself now.

I agree everyone should learn a few basics, like a kid learning how to put oil, gas, air in a car.

admitting my own ignorance, I never knew or cared about setups & specs really...... so like many players JimiStone mentioned,

I'd just grab a guitar off the shelf or floor and see if it "felt" good.....
years later I realize it was a neck width, a radius, setup of saddle etc.

for Guitar Center there's no way they can keep up with semi truck loads dumping the new batch of instruments, WalMart, BestBuy, Target too all selling more and more guitar stuff.....

so Guitar Center wouldn't even have time to do all the guitars, electrics, acoustics...damn? can you imagine all the setups...and then here'd come another semitruck load of the next batch!

not to mention the mass amount of gear-monkeys roughing and abusing the guitars.....

the other day a $3400 LP was left leaning against a wall, on the floor because the sales dewds were too busy to get it from him .......and the mass amounts of dented and nicked guitars on the wall and floor,
its obvious GC has customer abusers....so does WalMArt, and its the same type thing.
 
COOLCAT said:
the other day a $3400 LP was left leaning against a wall, on the floor because the sales dewds were too busy to get it from him .......and the mass amounts of dented and nicked guitars on the wall and floor,
its obvious GC has customer abusers....so does WalMArt, and its the same type thing.
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That's because GC lets the same wankers come in everyday, day after day after day...they probably average 6 guitars a day each...endless noodling.

These morons have no intention whatsoever of buying a guitar...they are just good at making used ones out of brand new ones.
 
Obviously a guitar is not likely to be set up exactly to your liking on the shelf. The point is that they are often so bad that it's impossible to evaluate. For me the sound is pretty damn important and they all sound just a bit different from each other. If the strings are 1/2" off the frets (yes, I've seen this), then I'm not going spend $2k on faith that it will be my dream guitar when set up. I need that "This is IT" feeling. There is no shortage of guitars to choose from in life.

The other reason not to just take them off the truck and stick them on the shelf is that this precipitates threads like this where people question Gibson's quality.

GC does high volume on cheapies, but not high volume on $2k guitars. My guess is they'd do a little better with a little more effort.

OTOH, I've never claimed to be a typical customer. Maybe people just see the pretty colors and turn over their credit cards.
 
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