Gibson Exposed
Just Who is Gibson Anyway?
Gibson Guitar Company has long been associated with high
quality and beautiful looking guitars. Gibson has never been known for
innovation in the electric guitar world. They are more of a traditional type of
company. After all a Les Paul guitar is not rocket science, It is simply a Lloyd
Loar design jazz guitar that has been made smaller and solid. They didn't even
bother to change the neck joint.
Today Gibson is part of a giant conglomerate that used to be
called CMI or Consolidated Musical Instruments For years CMI has
dominated the music world with lines like, Epiphone, Tobias, Steinberger,
Gibson, Spector, Kramer, Mapex, Pearl, Photon, Dobro, Flatiron, Ramirez,
Baldwin, Oberheim and others that I can't think of right now.
Several years ago CMI changed it's name to Gibson, Why?
Because Gibson was their most recognizable trade name. As I said earlier Gibson
was associated with quality and nostalgia so they became a target for corporate
raiders. Remember the real Gibson company, Today they are known as
Heritage. Many people at Heritage built much better guitars than Gibson.
Today however Heritage has been delivering very poor quality products and makes
a habit of lying to their customers repeatedly about delivery dates. The quality
has fallen off to the same level as Gibson and I no longer recommend either
company.
John Q. Public thinks that when he buys a Gibson he is buying
into some mystical operation. I think that John Q. Public assumes he is joining
an elite group of "in the know" musicians that are quality conscious and
investment savvy. NOT! I used to work for Gibson and
while it is not necessarily a poorly made guitar it is designed in the stone age.
I could go on for hours about the grade of woods and the overall quality. PRS
blew Gibson back to the starting gate in 1985 when they came out with the Custom
24. Today PRS barely can hold it's own against such builders as, Rick Turner , JET, Rick Gledura, Gary Jacobs,
Joe Veillette and others.
It aggravates me no end that some corporation can come
along and buy the Gibson name. Just because Gibson was a purchased entity the quality
changed almost immediately.
Disclaimer:
This list has been compiled by looking through catalogs and
my own actual experiences, where I have viewed the particular artist actually
using the instrument. If you look through all my endorser lists you will see
artists whose names appear attached to several different brands. Understand that
in some cases the artist in question either actually uses both brands or maybe
he likes one brand but gets paid lots of money by a different brand therefore he
uses both.
Unfortunately there are a lot of unscrupulous people out
there, people who would pretend that they like one brand more than another
because it benefits them financially. Young minds today are so gullible that
they will believe what ever they hear and see on MTV. Most of the magazines will
not expose these companies because they are always afraid of losing advertising
accounts.
In my opinion...
I believe that a guitarist should use a little common sense
in making a decision to buy a guitar. I believe that most guitars on the market
are well constructed and play well. (even the ones made by the big corporations)
I strongly suggest that guitarists should OPEN their minds to accepting the
smaller companies that still hand-build they are basically the innovators of the
industry.
Ed Roman
There
are Endorsers and there are Users
There is
a very big difference between the two