@@F_I_J_I_W_A_T_E_R you dont have to charge them that often. they are totally fine for me I like them and dont understand the hate. But they shouldnt be forced on someone, you should choose.
@@gifty8657 Maybe mine had a bad battery then, it would die in a matter of days and a new one was expensive enough that I just went for manual tuners instead.
Could you please make a full blown audit on Gibson? Lawsuits, wages, work conditions, quality control, marketing…the whole shebang. Please KDH, the world needs this very much.
@@jameshughes6049 Because Audio Audit is the premiere series on this channel and Gibson is a prime candidate given its popularity and its extensive and messy history, especially in recent years
@@jameshughes6049 i dont think he said he needed it to be fair. he just asked didnt he. and 116 agreed with a thumbs up so hes not alone in his thinking. maybe get a life yourself. are you just a hurt gibson fanboy or could you possibly explain what is your problem with his suggestion? i bet you thumbs up your own comment mate. at least you agree with yourself hey pal.
Yeah, I would've rather see them in the hands of really poor kids that actually want to learn to play than for them to be demolished. I have no interest in such guitar, but I know a few kids whom would've felt blessed to have one of those.
@@sloppyprogrammer4373 In the words of John Stienbeck: “The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
As a biker this is the first thing that came to me mind. "It's all about that heritage, bro!" , "Yes, you pay extra compared to competition but you're buying a piece of history." , "SPIRIT OF USA!"
Watching that clip of those guitars getting crushed reminds me of this Grapes of Wrath quote: “The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
There is a certain logic to why they did that, and I believe it was to provide evidence of destruction, to enable a tax write-off or insurance claim. That being said, in Australia it is a tax deduction if you donate to a charity, and I'm sure that if Gibson used their heads (and hearts) they could've found a way to donate those guitars to some worthwhile organisations, and still recouped some of their manufacturing costs.
@@castleanthrax1833 A "Tax Write Off" is Never Logic , When destroying food or in this case guitars that could've been sold as nothing was wrong with them. It's Govt./Business Stupidity that's destroying the world.
@@michaellandreth1392 Do you know what 100% of nothing is? In business logic, a small percentage of something, is infinitely superior to 100% of nothing.
@@castleanthrax1833 Are you speaking of the food or the guitars. Let's look at both. So the "Farmer" goes to the Govt and says "I had to destroy X amount of Crops and or Livestock. Instead of donating it to or selling it at a super low price to the needy." And instead of the Govt saying "Well that was stupid don't be expecting anything from the Tax Payers" It say's Ok here's X amount of Tax Payer $. You don't see a problem with that ? I know Farmers are in it for the money. And not this Feed America BS I live in Farm country and the local radio station has the Farm Report/ Futures on everyday for months from today. Ok Gibson destroying the Guitars. Again they could've been donated to music programs , Dismantled and the Parts sold. Pickups , Tuners , Bridges/Saddles, Controls... or simply Sold ! Instead they go to the Govt and say "We drove Heavy Equipment over X # of Guitars instead of the other options I mentioned above. And you think it's a good thing to give them Tax Payer $$ for that ? It's that the Govt is willing to do that. Willing to entice businesses to do these things. That make it 100% Wrong
@@michaellandreth1392 Wrong? What did I say that was wrong? I don't recall saying what they did was a good thing, or that it made sense in any way (for the record, I don't think destroying those guitars made any sense, either economically, socially or any other "way"). I merely commented on the reason that I thought, as to why they destroyed all those guitars (and recorded the event). It would serve you well to actually read someone else's comments BEFORE you go ranting on like a madman.
@@RayC234ibson isn't Jack squat compared to Epiphone when Epiphone returned to top professional quality in 2019 that was the beginning of the end of Gibson..epiphone is king 🤴 now get use to it and over it..and if no Epiphone and Les Paul there would be no Gibson Les Paul's today Les Paul laid the foundation done for his solid body guitar Aka Les Paul in the Epiphone factory in 1940 long before McCarty and Gibson..
@@BlueberryStinkFinger62 I'm sorry did I touch a nerve? was I somehow defending Gibson and slighting Epiphone? I actually own 2 Epiphones and a Gibson. It was a joke as in the beenie would still be overpriced because it was "Inspired by Gibson" you know like the guitars because they are "Inspired by Gibson". Geez. But I gotta say, out of all the Guitars in my sonic arsenal I actually prefer The Loog that shit rocks!
I do think the Marshalls headphones and other collections are quite different from the Gibson's stuff here. Because for Marshall, their other products are either 1). Music related, or 2) affordable for most people to be a brand in pop culture, and most importantly, they still makes instrument amps and the quality has been remained consistently good. One extra bonus is, they don't sue anyone else using a gold/copper frontplate just because they can, nor implying people the nonsense of "if you don't play a Marshal, yOu ArE Not AuTheNtiC".
Marshall release plenty of crap and the quality isn't always great. They will slap the Marshall name on just about anything, some of it is cool, like the fridge...(badum tss). All of these bigger companies are doing basically the same thing, Gibson get the most stick for it. Quality has improved and I think the direction they are trying to go is pretty good. The lawsuits and the play authentic bs were terrible ideas though.
@@Panic42000😂man. I would direct you to trade mark law and How Gibson didn't protect their trademark with Dean for example but you don't care any about facts do you !?
LMAO. I remember Gibson forcing dealers to carry their swag. Shot glasses, lighters, hats. They thought they needed to market themselves like Harley Davidson. That crap got discounted 50% off and still didn't sell. Total joke.
From Leo: I lived in two different areas, there were 3 shops to buy gibsons, in each area. NONE of them sell gibsons anymore. They all said the gibson people became impossible to work with. These were all well established, quality stores with professional people. gibson is gibson's main problem.
@@barbmelle3136😂 who's Leo ? Yeah even Norman's rare trade guitar didn't carry new Gibson guitars because Gibson is so hard on their dealers. The only reason they carry Gibson today is because Mark Agnesi made a sweet deal for Norman.
From LeoM: gibson = "are you kidding me" The company is a long, long way from Orville Gibson's love for a quality instrument. I have not seen an ad from gibson in a long time that did not make me buy another brand. I had never considered a Dean before the famously offensive gibson threat. I bought one just to have it. Last month I saw a higher end Dean ICON. I noticed it was beautifully built, and it played great and sounds great. I now have that Dean guitar also. In addition, I don't feel like I had to compromise my self respect to purchase it either.
Gibson went downhil, since they fired Ted McCarty as CEO, back in the 70´s. Ironically, Paul Reed Smith hired him as a "special consultant", when he started PRS Guitars in the 80´s and according to him, he was instrumental in making PRS such a successful company. Hell, PRS has one of their most high-end models, named after him.
A guy I know has bought his THIRD Custom Shop Les Paul last week, so I don’t think that a leather jacket for 1500 euros will be too much of a stretch for that particular kind of sucker. Those guys would put another 500 on top of it if it comes “relic’d” (aka used, in jacket terms)
Same tactic and customer base as the Harley Davidson brand. Boomers with disposable income wanting to cosplay the outlaw/rockstar “lifestyle”. It seems to have worked for Harley Davidson but it will be interesting to see how it pans out when the target consumer base dwindles.
Blues lawyers and biker lawyers are going to have a hard time deciding if they want to wear their Gibson leather jacket or their Harley Davidson leather jacket.
Smashing all those guitars instead of pushing them to schools or charity was just the cherry on the cake. If you ever searched for a reason to hate Gibson..that's it.
@@doublewhopper67 It is different smashing or recycling mobile phones (parts that are not natural to begin with) and destroy guitars which you consumed a LOT of wood to construct in the first place....When is environmental sustainability? And yeah, as @narc440 mentioned, it is NOT ok.
The only vertically integrated company I can think of that also happens to make (some excellent) guitars, is Yamaha. Yamaha makes 1000s of products across dozens, if not hundreds of industries.
@@hbdz99 a mix of the right time, writing relationship, and pure talent. glad to have met the man, even if it was briefly. changed my life with his music
Johnny Marr is associated with lots of guitars including a Gibson es 355 that was purchased for him when the Smiths signed with Sire Records. However now he has his own signature Fender Jaguar which is cheaper than a Gibson Les Paul Standard or ES 335.
My only Gibson is an '06 Faded Cherry V. It was reasonably priced (I forget exactly, but something like $500-$600). It was the first electric I bought and is still my favorite. Current prices (new) are not worth it. Period.
A private equity fund owns Gibson now, bailed them out of bankruptcy using the age old strategy of adding debt and pairing back, but still mysteriously owing more debt than it did while in arrears. I could probably write a really bad treatise on private equity takeovers or leverage buyouts coming in strong to appear like saviors, then stripping the company of the essential meat and bones that made the company good at what it does....resulting in the company being a professional hellscape as a career option and not very good at what it was previously good at. Harley Davidson is a great example that mirrors Gibson's demographic, pricing, failure + private equity buyout, then decades long continuation of debt burden and life support with mind boggling pricing + brand management. Theres something cool to both Harley Davidson and Gibson, but its best suited to be cut off of the diseased corporate body and sold to a smaller company that can faithfully make the thing without...needing to sell you a 500 dollar sweater. It is not wasted on me, incidentally, that Gibson and Harley Davidson actually collaborated together in the past, btw.
Great advice at the end. I do have to say, I got my first real Les Paul Standard last year. It was a 2022 60s model. The instrument was flawless. And i checked everything from fret-ends to router fuzz in the control cavity and sawdust in the pickup routes. The finish was perfect as well. This may be due to the double QC you get when buying from Sweetwater - (Gibson qc followed by SW qc). Fortunately, the piss poor quality of the 2010s seems to have been addressed. I am very happy with my LP - and I am a Fender honk through and through. I'm happy to see Gibson trying their hand at branding random crap as long as it keeps them from trying from making drastic changes to the Mesa line or entering into the modeling world.... just what we don't need more of.
I have 2 Gibbys and have only one complaint, they’re too expensive. Yes, they feel better. Yes, they should hold value better. Yes, they look nice and sound great. But I could find a comparable instrument for much less. I just can’t help drinking the koolaid I guess.
Modelling is here to stay. You personally, may not want to use it, but there is nothing wrong with it and it is extremely useful, especially if you don't want to haul around an amp and cab that weighs more than you do.
The only one's that are real are the Epiphone and Gibson..Epiphone and Les Paul laid the foundation of the solid body in 1940 eventually 11 years later turned into the Gibson Les Paul in the Epiphone factory long before McCarty and Gibson got involved with anything with Les Paul also now that Epiphone has been returned to top professional quality 4 years ago the Gibson standard Les Paul or the Gibson modern figured Sgs are not a better quality of build as the 2021 Epiphone custom Koa Les Paul and the Epiphone 2021 Modern figured sg..that was said by a 44 year luthier..
Couldn't agree more dude, been saying for a long time that the big G are more interested in the Lifestyle Brand idea than the musical instrument idea. I mean when they started selling guitars with "experiences" like the Kirk Hammett Greeny they just showed how out of touch they really are. Oh and they're also a publishing company... of course they are!
well marshall did it and is still crushing it with sub-par consumer electronics branded "marshall". they make way more with their garbage headphones and speakers manufactured in the same nameless OEM factory in china as anker and all the "brands" akin to that. Arguably Marshall has the very same problem with being its own worst competetor in a shrinking market. Could have worked and I wouldn't even have cared IF they would have managed to at least still do okay-ish guitars all the while employing actual craftsmen in actual US factories. However, the people building your sub-par 2000 bucks guitars are payed shitty, treated horribly and have such a huge turnover that they basically barely get more than a few months to a year experience in the process. Gibson being a shit as employer AS WELL as as really crappy manufaturer is maybe the most damning thing for me.
They seem to think that any association with "Gibson" makes a discount store product suddenly become a premium product, so they can charge accordingly.
Gibson is trying to follow in the Harley-Davidson footsteps but I'm trying to get H-D to follow the Gibson Custom Shop and re-issue the bikes that made them famous...lol
"Oh, like harley davidson." Was the first thing I thought. I grew up in the garage, sitting on my dad's 79' shovelhead. To see harley making something like that again.. would be awesome.
@@countzero5150 that's exactly what I'm talkin' bout...lol A brand new Limited Edition 2024 H-D '79 Shovelhead! And a 60's Panhead And a 50's Knucklehead With a period correct aftermarket parts department to customize your skoot...lol They can put emission on them to pass EPA, the old engines aren't the giant engines of today. I bet they'd sell them faster than they could make them but time is running out...lol
He'll probably spill some super glue on whatever half baked merch he's hocking for big G (if you don't get the reference, he used super glue to "fix" the nut on a 60s SG and it was a mess, then he quietly edited that part out of the video awhile later)
@@IanThatMetalBassist Trogly's DIY fixes are terrible, the one that got me was the time he used Blue Masking Tape to raise a nut on a Les Paul, you could see it sticking out the side! 😂I've gone off his since the whole Established titles nonsense, plus there's only so many times you can watch a video about a Les Paul! Plus the way he short changed that family for that SG was scandalous, I was so happy when he got stung with the Dead PAF! Serves him rim right! 😂
@@S-T-E-V-E lest we forget the wonderful time he got a bunch of guitars stolen off him by a guy he is still using to do luthier work. love that guy they should steal more guitars from him
Went to the Nashville store almost a year ago. I was blown away by $60 t-shirts and $40 caps. However if you went into the little Kramer room ball caps were about $20ish. Lol
I really had hope for Gibson in 2019 when they restructured. Now it seems like that never happened and it's just more of the same. At least the guitars were 60% cheaper when HJ ran the show.
I mean... I guess we have a pretty standard product with the 50s and 60s, and I definitely love the new Classics... but yeah, no renovation or steps to address BASIC ISSUES like the harsh neck angle, I feel like they will go bankrupt within 10 years; no one cares about this whole influencer push just another something I thought of: Gibson could absolutely keep their new guitar line (so as to not upset the snobs who want everything exactly like 70 year old spec for some reason) and then have an updated modern series of les paul standards that fix a lot of issues and change up the spec (neck angle specifically) so that people will feel confident in buying quite an expensive instrument.
And we'd see some different finishes every now and then too from the Henry J era too. Like I love cherry SGs as much as everybody else, but I think the original lineup and modern lineup this version of Gibson has now has run stale.
@@serenitatis2191 I feel the exact same way. I'm not a Gibson hater by any means, love their guitars and I own other guitars that may be "better" or what have you. But I would like to see a bit more options in finishes to their lineups or maybe reissue some older models that are not getting enough love from this ownership but are going up in value in the used Vintage market. Like I would love to see another L6s or a proper Les Paul Double Cut Special. The thing is they don't have to entirely shift production to those models either maybe do a run of them for a year or so then change it up. Or at least the finishes. They could even use their own in-house custom colors instead of experimenting with different colors. We need more Pelham Blue, or Polaris white for the USA Lineup, not just their Custom Shop.
Just found this but it is quite relevant to an ongoing discussion we have had working tours around Europe the last six months. It became quite obvious seeing so many bands and conversations at festivals backstage and touring in that we never see Gibson guitars being used by younger bands especially. Spotting rare Gibsons has been a thing for a long time but today it has become spot a Gibson. You've certainly made a great vid on the cringe of merchandise and how the brand shooting itself in the foot publicly helps understand why. Great vid.
It will be fun to play "Spot the Shull"....I mean, "Spot the Shill" when the various Guitar Channels "just so happen" to be wearing "Very cool, new, and Authentic(tm) Gibson clothes" with tons of very natural bots....I mean, "Commenters" asking where they can get the same, and for ONLY $150!!!! Wow! What and amazing and Authentic(tm) deal! I think I'll get two!
7:12 keep in mind, you're looking at XS sizes, it wouldn't surprise me if they are charging a bit more for larger sized garments. If you want to see a scam just look at nightshift they make band hoodies and hats.
I just bought an SG. But not a Gibson SG. I bought an Epiphone. Not because I couldn't afford the Gibson, it would have been a bit of a stretch but I could have done it. No, I bought the Epiphone because it was tremendous value for the money compared to a similar Gibson. Also, Epiphone had it with P90s while I couldn't find the corresponding Gibson (not easily). I bought the SG because mine "disappeared" in 1979 when I went to do my military service in Italy. I gave it to a friend and both disappeared. Gibson's market is similar to the Harley Davidson market: the nostalgia market. People my age or older, with boatloads of money, that want to relive their youth.
This is the exact opposite kind of thing they need to be doing right now. They have a really serious issue going on currently. Younger generations view Gibson as their Grandpa's guitar brand. I saw Mimi from Mimi sounds on the pedal pawn podcast a few weeks ago. During the podcast she was talking about having finally bought her dream guitar, a PRS studio. The host asked her if she would buy a Gibson and her response was basically "I wouldn't be caught dead with a Gibson." To me, that signals a serious situation for Gibson. They need to modernize fast or they are potentially going to disappear. They need to figure out a way to get in with the younger generation of guitar players but instead they are doing stupid shit like this. They have priced themselves out of the younger generation's market too. Whatever though, if they go out of business my guitars will be worth more lol!
You're completely right. As poor as Fender guitars' quality control is nowadays for the money they're charging they at least have the sense to spotlight current artists who are using their equipment. With Gibson I can't think of a prominent player who isn't at least middle aged.
They are so ugly to be honest. All these people obsessing over Gibson make me laugh. I don't care what brand a guitar is tbh as long as it looks and sounds good.
completely agreed, although that gives me hope that in fifty years time when Gibson has gone under and the brand only has intangible value, that it will be resurrected as a small luthier school or something
More is fine when done right. This isn't what I would consider right. Pretty much every company has branded attire, they just don't charge an arm and a leg for it.
2007. I started repairing guitars around 2009, and 07 was the year they started it's precipitous decline in quality. The sad part about this is that that was also around the time they brought back some long dormant build processes like the long tenon, and newer but none the less equally good moves like asymmetric profiles and the here then gone 30/60 neck profiles they used on ES339s (still IMO the perfect in-between profile size). So there's a few years there where you can find some decent guitars. They came back in 2018 promising a return to what made them great; it's 2023 and I'm still waiting for that to come to fruition. I will point out that it seems their Les Pauls actually dropped in price, I remember Standards being like $2700 in 08/09, and it's around the same of not a little less, even with inflation. The Mesa Boogie Mark VII looks cool.
At this point, I am willing to build a workshop and learn some guitar tech so that I can mod my own guitar rather than pay Gibson or Fender a single penny. They are like the Adobe of guitar world. Never pay a dime to these goons.
So the hummingbirds are actually the design used on the acoustic hummingbird pickguards. Source: I make them sometimes Fun fact! The company I work for is trying to sell shirts for hundreds and thousands of dollars, but in over a year of working here, I've received two company t-shirts. So that's fun.
Went to gibson Nashville, could definitely tell that people like me absolutely do not belong there. All the people working there were watching my friend and I like hawks. All the guitars (except for epiphones) were all locked up, no cables for amp tryouts, no guitar picks etc etc
Blooz Dentist goes great with a Harley 🤣 When corporate investors are happy to rinse every penny they can out of a brand. If not careful the Gibson clientele will literally die out quite soon and the following generations will see it as a tacky lifestyle brand. PS love my 1995 Gibson but if I'm not careful might soon have to put on an epiphone decal on there in case someone approaches me after the gig asking about the cost of a molar extraction.
I have like the opposite evil origin story to KDH. I saw an episode of metalocalypse one time when I was like 13, loved the music and the look of Skwisgaar's explorer. Shortly after, I got my very own epiphone explorer an I've been making music ever since
Giving credit to HJ , those were pretty great and I should have bought one back then, HJ did put a lot of ideas on the table with a lot of new models and "upgrades" , I think that was kinda the thing he didn't have his finger on the trends in modern guitars as some ideas were good like the smart wood and the ash bodies but some were really bad like the robot tuners and firebird x
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I’m old school. I love the style of the ‘58 V. Not the ‘67 or 80s one. Except the V2. Some of those are fantastic looking.
I've never cared for the V, though I sorta changed my mind a little that time I got the chance to play Jimi's Black Angel (yes, the *actual* guitar). Not plugged in, but still - what a thrill! Especially as a left handed player.
So many stories spread from the guitar crushing clip. At the time it was commonly accepted that they were damaged in floods that occurred at the time and were water damaged making them no good for sale...
@Richard Harrold weird I have them on 4 guitars and they work great. Especially my Robot V which is a 10/10 guitar… and my Goldtop Less Plus P90 with min-e-tune. 🤔
I think the problem was people felt like they should have been an add on option instead of the option being the standard tuners. A lot of the models at the time were only offered with the tuners which presumably drove the price up , bad marketing indeed
they were a good idea but only if they only had them on the cheaper models and made them easier to remove without messing with the finish and also included regular tuners to swap out easily.
Its funny, that the second picture on Google of "Billy Reid" is the Assistant Coach of the Chelsea London Football team... Supreme actually used the rarity to sell the stuff over price which is a totally different story than this is. Well Gibson could try to do the same tho.
2006 Epi Les Paul Elitest Custom. Probably the best 'Gibson' I will ever play or own. Built in Japan at the Fujigen factory specifically configured to make these guitars and NOTHING ELSE. I have friends who have dropped a LOT of money on an R8 or the VOS ones, and they are furious when they play mine.
The biggest mistake Gibson ever made imo was not branding those Gibson Japan and giving them the Gibson headstock. Outstanding guitars, but I do believe that they didn't last because they tried to sell them as an expensive Epiphone rather than an affordable Gibson. It's possible they would have taken sales from the parent brand, but they'd have also pulled in sales from a lot of the lookalike competition. Also, official or not, by changing the headstock shape on the Epiphone (c/f what Fender did with Squier), they automatically reduced how close it was to the real thing. If an Epiphone was immediately much more like a Gibson, that surely would make them more competitive against like for like guitars? Those Elite / Elitists, though, were absolutely phenomenal instruments, and deserved a much better chance than being hemmed in the way they were by the marketing. I wonder if Gibson will ever change tack like this the way Fender have? It's very clear that the Fender Player series now takes the position in the range that the American Standards did when I bought one way back in the 90s.
Little brother, wtf is right. I'm a retired session cat. And I'm old AF(60s). I worked for 30 years in L.A. I can vouch for two things:1. Nobody had heard of beato😂(still don't🤣🤣🤣) 2. You couldn't give a gibson LP away to a pro. The tuning stability wasn't there then like it's not there now. At 5k a day lockout pricing one had to get in and get it done. My first producer was billy Joel's old guitarist don evans. If I told you what guitars people ACTUALLY used to get tone back then you simply wouldn't believe me. Marketing is an mfer if you're young and don't know anything. I grew up almost living at Norm's, I got to learn at the knee of Skunk Baxter about gear. Fuck wasting your money on stupid shit. An expensive gtr in the living room is an entirely different animal than a reliable studio grade gtr. They're different things. You should see what Ry records with. The acoustic I played on hundreds of sessions was a 150 dollar fender that went to tape better than a 10k martin. I know, I know, "what's tape?"😂🤣🤣 love your show, you give an old man hope👌👍🤘
I was at a big box guitar store and there was an older cat tearing it up. Just rocking Van Halen and Ratt like he's possessed. He was masterfully shredding a Squire bullet, no problemo!
I love how many people were genuinely inspired to play guitar by the movie School Of Rock. It's such a fantastic movie, and I've always been proud of being born a week before the movie came out and literally growing up my whole life with it.
My decade’s version of that is Led Zeppelin’s “The Song RemIns the Same” movie. I jonesed for a Les Paul after seeing that. Now I own one…and hardly play it. (Cue sad trombone)
I think the key difference is Marshall still focuses on the player. The other stuff is just other stuff. Cool stuff tho. Like a half stack fridge. But the point is i can go to a guitar store and buy a pretty good Marshall amp for a reasonable price.
imho, this is what happens when business people take over a company that was founded to produce works of art for artists to work their craft... but that scene of the guitars being crushed literally makes my stomach turn 🤢
If you separate all that nonsense from their instruments there is still a lot of joy to be had from SOME of their products. I've a few of their guitars that I love. I don't pay much attention to what silly nonsense they're up to these days, it doesn't make my guitars sound any different or any less enjoyable to play.
I guess we could have seen it coming when a fashion guy was put in charge, but like you mention, Henry was a "guitar guy" and he started the whole idea. The worst part of it is how tone deaf they seem in a time when so many people are financially hurting to be asking $4k for an article of clothing.
if the builders ever walked out together and started their own big company it’d be over for gibson. i’m sure corporate has ways to bully them out of it and have before
I like KDH. I subscribe to KDH. I respect KDH for his fearless willingness to ruffle feathers. And I watch all his videos. But we may want to consider the possibility that sneering at a sweater because it could make the wearer look like the late Mr. Rogers carries little weight when it comes from a grown man with hair hanging to his navel wearing an orange hoodie emblazoned with what appears to be one of the dwarfs from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." But, hey, maybe it's just me.
If Gibson , not Epiphone, would make a line of more affordable, good playing base models of their popular guitars, they might make better profits. I've been playing for years and recently picked up a Harley Benton for just that reason.
The thing is it's always been this way. When it comes to guitars like Gibson's especially the higher-end line. It was always a big investment. In fact it was always such a big investment that I never knew anyone growing up that actually owned a Gibson. If somebody can't afford to Gibson or doesn't want to afford a Gibson that's why the Epiphone line exists. I do see what you're saying though the prices have gotten ridiculously out of control
@@beefnacos6258 dude, I know this is a late reply, but let me share this with you. The Epiphone Guitar Co. was bought, I think back in the 50s or early 60s. Epiphone made a certain semi hollow guitar that was killing it. John Lennon and others used it religiously and Gibson had to have a piece of that pie. Fast forward to today, and Epiphone has became a shadow of its former glory as a lower end Gibson. Gibson still makes many of their guitars with the old processes they pioneered (commendable) but fail to often times produce quality mass produced instruments like Fender, Ibanez, ESP, and other competing brands. They have the money to implement processes to accomplish such things, but they don't. They're Gibson, and people still build all their guitars. Sorry this was so long.
Gibson is now the Harley Davidson of guitars. Nice expensive product but subpar quality. Their business survives on apparel purchases and licensing deals.
EXACTLY ! @poltergeist3194... another great American company being run into the ground for a few decades now. Had relatives that worked for HD Shame the shitty road HD decided to take ! (Like Gibson) Glad I don't own either
I love gibson guitars and only play gibson but I hate the influences they use. Its always slash and jimmy page and random boomer country stars. No one cares about these old men anymore.
It's pretty much inevitable that companies such as Gibson must diversify away from electric guitars. They have never solely been a guitar company. Originally, they made a variety of instruments - mandolins, guitars, banjos, etc. They still do, but their electric guitars (particularly the Les Paul) are what they are best known for in the mass market. I own an F5L mandolin from the 1980s, which was claimed to be an exact remake of the original Lloyd Loar F5 from the 1920s. Mine, which is from the first batch, is pretty good, but certainly not the equal of the couple of Loars (there are only a few hundred of those in the world) I've actually played. However, it's certainly good enough for me and I haven't felt the desire to upgrade it in the 20 years I've owned it. Your point about their major competitor being themselves is well made and I think the reason why Gibson cannot make enough money from guitars. Owning a Gibson has always been something people aspire to. So it follows that a Gibson is likely to be the last guitar many people buy, just as my F5 was and is likely to remain the last mandolin I bought. Like most people, I worked my way up to being able to own it - started on a cheapie, saved a bit, sold it and bought something slightly nicer, rinse and repeat (combined with my income increasing as I got older) and eventually I had the instrument I had always wanted. I'm sure guitar players do the same to end up with their Les Pauls, 335s and similar. So a Gibson is for many a one-off purchase - the final guitar they will buy. Obviously, pros and wealthy amateurs will continue to upgrade, but crucially, many of them will look to vintage, rather than new as an improvement. And are there enough of them to keep Gibson in business? Gibson tries to attract those buyers via its "guaranteed-to-be-exactly-as-built-in-59" traditional Les Paul, etc. Good luck to them, but I doubt they will sell enough of them. They cannot go too far down market and offer budget instruments, for fear of cheapening the aspirational image of the brand, so jackets, shirts, jumpers and cuddly toys it is. I won't buy them, but if they keep Gibson afloat, I'm happy for them to flog them. Caveat emptor and all that. I'd certainly rather the fashion crazy bought them instead of the other over-priced designer tat that's out there. Better that than no more Gibsons. Sorry to go on.
The best part about the robot tuners is that they automatically make the guitar cheaper and they're easy to swap out for hipshots.
Or any Gibson Les Paul made in 2015! 😂
i think i am the only person in the world that likes those robot tuners :D maybe i'm just lazy
@@DjCzubaka I like the idea, but I don't like having to worry about my tuners being charged.
@@F_I_J_I_W_A_T_E_R you dont have to charge them that often. they are totally fine for me I like them and dont understand the hate. But they shouldnt be forced on someone, you should choose.
@@gifty8657 Maybe mine had a bad battery then, it would die in a matter of days and a new one was expensive enough that I just went for manual tuners instead.
Could you please make a full blown audit on Gibson?
Lawsuits, wages, work conditions, quality control, marketing…the whole shebang.
Please KDH, the world needs this very much.
35+ likes would suggest that this is a mandatory KDH request.
Yes that would be very interesting
@ Flow Ryan....why do you need an audit of Gibson?? Get a life.
@@jameshughes6049 Because Audio Audit is the premiere series on this channel and Gibson is a prime candidate given its popularity and its extensive and messy history, especially in recent years
@@jameshughes6049 i dont think he said he needed it to be fair. he just asked didnt he. and 116 agreed with a thumbs up so hes not alone in his thinking. maybe get a life yourself. are you just a hurt gibson fanboy or could you possibly explain what is your problem with his suggestion? i bet you thumbs up your own comment mate. at least you agree with yourself hey pal.
It's still so hard to watch all those guitars get smashed.
Yeah, I would've rather see them in the hands of really poor kids that actually want to learn to play than for them to be demolished. I have no interest in such guitar, but I know a few kids whom would've felt blessed to have one of those.
Better for corpo to waste resources than give them with no profit
@@sloppyprogrammer4373 In the words of John Stienbeck:
“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
Yeah that was very scummy to do. Instead of donating them or some.
A disgusting display of corpo GREED!
Gibson is just the Harley Davidson of the guitar world
I was about to comment that when I saw yours
As a biker this is the first thing that came to me mind.
"It's all about that heritage, bro!" , "Yes, you pay extra compared to competition but you're buying a piece of history." , "SPIRIT OF USA!"
@@tsunx4blog that's why I bought a shadow lol.
You are correct....and this strategy will fail.
...except even worse QA
Watching that clip of those guitars getting crushed reminds me of this Grapes of Wrath quote:
“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
There is a certain logic to why they did that, and I believe it was to provide evidence of destruction, to enable a tax write-off or insurance claim. That being said, in Australia it is a tax deduction if you donate to a charity, and I'm sure that if Gibson used their heads (and hearts) they could've found a way to donate those guitars to some worthwhile organisations, and still recouped some of their manufacturing costs.
@@castleanthrax1833 A "Tax Write Off" is Never Logic , When destroying food or in this case guitars that could've been sold as nothing was wrong with them. It's Govt./Business Stupidity that's destroying the world.
@@michaellandreth1392 Do you know what 100% of nothing is? In business logic, a small percentage of something, is infinitely superior to 100% of nothing.
@@castleanthrax1833 Are you speaking of the food or the guitars. Let's look at both. So the "Farmer" goes to the Govt and says "I had to destroy X amount of Crops and or Livestock. Instead of donating it to or selling it at a super low price to the needy." And instead of the Govt saying "Well that was stupid don't be expecting anything from the Tax Payers" It say's Ok here's X amount of Tax Payer $. You don't see a problem with that ? I know Farmers are in it for the money. And not this Feed America BS I live in Farm country and the local radio station has the Farm Report/ Futures on everyday for months from today. Ok Gibson destroying the Guitars. Again they could've been donated to music programs , Dismantled and the Parts sold. Pickups , Tuners , Bridges/Saddles, Controls... or simply Sold ! Instead they go to the Govt and say "We drove Heavy Equipment over X # of Guitars instead of the other options I mentioned above. And you think it's a good thing to give them Tax Payer $$ for that ? It's that the Govt is willing to do that. Willing to entice businesses to do these things. That make it 100% Wrong
@@michaellandreth1392 Wrong? What did I say that was wrong? I don't recall saying what they did was a good thing, or that it made sense in any way (for the record, I don't think destroying those guitars made any sense, either economically, socially or any other "way"). I merely commented on the reason that I thought, as to why they destroyed all those guitars (and recorded the event). It would serve you well to actually read someone else's comments BEFORE you go ranting on like a madman.
I'm waiting for the Epiphone Beenie. It's just as good for 1/4 the price.
🤣🤣😂😅
Unless it's an "Inspired by Gibson" beenie
@@RayC234ibson isn't Jack squat compared to Epiphone when Epiphone returned to top professional quality in 2019 that was the beginning of the end of Gibson..epiphone is king 🤴 now get use to it and over it..and if no Epiphone and Les Paul there would be no Gibson Les Paul's today Les Paul laid the foundation done for his solid body guitar Aka Les Paul in the Epiphone factory in 1940 long before McCarty and Gibson..
@@BlueberryStinkFinger62 I'm sorry did I touch a nerve? was I somehow defending Gibson and slighting Epiphone? I actually own 2 Epiphones and a Gibson. It was a joke as in the beenie would still be overpriced because it was "Inspired by Gibson" you know like the guitars because they are "Inspired by Gibson". Geez. But I gotta say, out of all the Guitars in my sonic arsenal I actually prefer The Loog that shit rocks!
@@BlueberryStinkFinger62 ngl though Epiphone is still pretty bad compared to Schecter and Jackson nowadays
I do think the Marshalls headphones and other collections are quite different from the Gibson's stuff here. Because for Marshall, their other products are either 1). Music related, or 2) affordable for most people to be a brand in pop culture, and most importantly, they still makes instrument amps and the quality has been remained consistently good. One extra bonus is, they don't sue anyone else using a gold/copper frontplate just because they can, nor implying people the nonsense of "if you don't play a Marshal, yOu ArE Not AuTheNtiC".
Marshall release plenty of crap and the quality isn't always great. They will slap the Marshall name on just about anything, some of it is cool, like the fridge...(badum tss).
All of these bigger companies are doing basically the same thing, Gibson get the most stick for it. Quality has improved and I think the direction they are trying to go is pretty good.
The lawsuits and the play authentic bs were terrible ideas though.
They sue people because they straight up steal their designs and you know it.
Exactly! I mean diversification
@@Panic42000😂man. I would direct you to trade mark law and How Gibson didn't protect their trademark with Dean for example but you don't care any about facts do you !?
LMAO. I remember Gibson forcing dealers to carry their swag. Shot glasses, lighters, hats. They thought they needed to market themselves like Harley Davidson. That crap got discounted 50% off and still didn't sell. Total joke.
From Leo: I lived in two different areas, there were 3 shops to buy gibsons, in each area. NONE of them sell gibsons anymore. They all said the gibson people became impossible to work with. These were all well established, quality stores with professional people. gibson is gibson's main problem.
@@barbmelle3136😂 who's Leo ?
Yeah even Norman's rare trade guitar didn't carry new Gibson guitars because Gibson is so hard on their dealers. The only reason they carry Gibson today is because Mark Agnesi made a sweet deal for Norman.
Saw my first "V" in 1973 when Wishbone Ash hit the stage with one, It was Cool.
From LeoM: gibson = "are you kidding me" The company is a long, long way from Orville Gibson's love for a quality instrument. I have not seen an ad from gibson in a long time that did not make me buy another brand. I had never considered a Dean before the famously offensive gibson threat. I bought one just to have it. Last month I saw a higher end Dean ICON. I noticed it was beautifully built, and it played great and sounds great. I now have that Dean guitar also. In addition, I don't feel like I had to compromise my self respect to purchase it either.
Gibson went downhil, since they fired Ted McCarty as CEO, back in the 70´s.
Ironically, Paul Reed Smith hired him as a "special consultant", when he started PRS Guitars in the 80´s and according to him, he was instrumental in making PRS such a successful company.
Hell, PRS has one of their most high-end models, named after him.
Being born and raised in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania I find your Mr. Rodgers joke funny af
A guy I know has bought his THIRD Custom Shop Les Paul last week, so I don’t think that a leather jacket for 1500 euros will be too much of a stretch for that particular kind of sucker. Those guys would put another 500 on top of it if it comes “relic’d” (aka used, in jacket terms)
I love my black torn jeans and les paul customs 💅
@@ashleyjohansson230 but are your jeans gibson branded? if not, move along peasant 😂
Same tactic and customer base as the Harley Davidson brand. Boomers with disposable income wanting to cosplay the outlaw/rockstar “lifestyle”. It seems to have worked for Harley Davidson but it will be interesting to see how it pans out when the target consumer base dwindles.
I really should abandon my scruples and sell overpriced bullshit to rubes.
Damn, being principled doesn't pay.
Blues lawyers and biker lawyers are going to have a hard time deciding if they want to wear their Gibson leather jacket or their Harley Davidson leather jacket.
You're a wizard at lead playing, man
the sound of all those firebird x guitars breaking will be a sound i will never be able to unhear, absolutely traumatizing
it was a bad guitar
I've always had a soft spot on my head! and for Teles
Smashing all those guitars instead of pushing them to schools or charity was just the cherry on the cake. If you ever searched for a reason to hate Gibson..that's it.
@@doublewhopper67 Does that make it ok for gibson to do it then???
Yeah but they didn’t have to
@@doublewhopper67 It is different smashing or recycling mobile phones (parts that are not natural to begin with) and destroy guitars which you consumed a LOT of wood to construct in the first place....When is environmental sustainability? And yeah, as @narc440 mentioned, it is NOT ok.
The only vertically integrated company I can think of that also happens to make (some excellent) guitars, is Yamaha.
Yamaha makes 1000s of products across dozens, if not hundreds of industries.
Peavey used to be that way.😔
I love my Yamaha XSR900
@@adiohead That is a nice ride. It's a shame they don't make cars as well. Some of their concepts look amazing.
@@peachmelba1000 I think that they used to do the high performance engines for Toyota cars.
@@mygreatbigfoot1679 Last I heard they still do for Lexus, Lotus, etc.
I have a Marshall fridge and it's great, I use the hum to tune my Les Paul Studio to!
lol 🤣
😆
Would not have expected Johnny Marr to own that V
love Johnny Marr
@@serenitatis2191 possibly the greatest of all time. how he wrote music like that so young is insane
@@hbdz99 a mix of the right time, writing relationship, and pure talent. glad to have met the man, even if it was briefly. changed my life with his music
Johnny Marr is associated with lots of guitars including a Gibson es 355 that was purchased for him when the Smiths signed with Sire Records. However now he has his own signature Fender Jaguar which is cheaper than a Gibson Les Paul Standard or ES 335.
@@georgecaplan11 he played an SG for a while in the 00s I believe
My only Gibson is an '06 Faded Cherry V. It was reasonably priced (I forget exactly, but something like $500-$600). It was the first electric I bought and is still my favorite. Current prices (new) are not worth it. Period.
I had an '06 Faded Cherry V that I stupidly sold, it was really a great guitar.
@@t3hgir I feel for you. 😔
Yeah I was looking up MSRP on some of those guitars only to realize today they are robbing us
Will hardly get over my exact same V that I sold in 2016 for peanuts compared to today's asking price 😢
Hey, it is not just clothing, it is Tonecloth™and you will definitely get better TONE by wearing it when playing your Gibson™ $2800 USD Les Paul!
😆
A private equity fund owns Gibson now, bailed them out of bankruptcy using the age old strategy of adding debt and pairing back, but still mysteriously owing more debt than it did while in arrears. I could probably write a really bad treatise on private equity takeovers or leverage buyouts coming in strong to appear like saviors, then stripping the company of the essential meat and bones that made the company good at what it does....resulting in the company being a professional hellscape as a career option and not very good at what it was previously good at. Harley Davidson is a great example that mirrors Gibson's demographic, pricing, failure + private equity buyout, then decades long continuation of debt burden and life support with mind boggling pricing + brand management. Theres something cool to both Harley Davidson and Gibson, but its best suited to be cut off of the diseased corporate body and sold to a smaller company that can faithfully make the thing without...needing to sell you a 500 dollar sweater. It is not wasted on me, incidentally, that Gibson and Harley Davidson actually collaborated together in the past, btw.
Watching those Firebird Xs getting crush still breaks my heart.
Great advice at the end. I do have to say, I got my first real Les Paul Standard last year. It was a 2022 60s model. The instrument was flawless. And i checked everything from fret-ends to router fuzz in the control cavity and sawdust in the pickup routes. The finish was perfect as well. This may be due to the double QC you get when buying from Sweetwater - (Gibson qc followed by SW qc). Fortunately, the piss poor quality of the 2010s seems to have been addressed. I am very happy with my LP - and I am a Fender honk through and through.
I'm happy to see Gibson trying their hand at branding random crap as long as it keeps them from trying from making drastic changes to the Mesa line or entering into the modeling world.... just what we don't need more of.
Lucky you. I've had a few Gibson guitars and all of them have had some minor (mostly finish) issues.
I have 2 Gibbys and have only one complaint, they’re too expensive. Yes, they feel better. Yes, they should hold value better. Yes, they look nice and sound great. But I could find a comparable instrument for much less. I just can’t help drinking the koolaid I guess.
Mine is perfect as well. 2020 les Paul classic. Amazing guitar.
Modelling is here to stay. You personally, may not want to use it, but there is nothing wrong with it and it is extremely useful, especially if you don't want to haul around an amp and cab that weighs more than you do.
The only one's that are real are the Epiphone and Gibson..Epiphone and Les Paul laid the foundation of the solid body in 1940 eventually 11 years later turned into the Gibson Les Paul in the Epiphone factory long before McCarty and Gibson got involved with anything with Les Paul also now that Epiphone has been returned to top professional quality 4 years ago the Gibson standard Les Paul or the Gibson modern figured Sgs are not a better quality of build as the 2021 Epiphone custom Koa Les Paul and the Epiphone 2021 Modern figured sg..that was said by a 44 year luthier..
I love how 90% of the Billy Reid stuff has nothing to do with guitars or gibson
The entire collection features designs based on the Hummingbird’s scratch plate
Couldn't agree more dude, been saying for a long time that the big G are more interested in the Lifestyle Brand idea than the musical instrument idea. I mean when they started selling guitars with "experiences" like the Kirk Hammett Greeny they just showed how out of touch they really are. Oh and they're also a publishing company... of course they are!
well marshall did it and is still crushing it with sub-par consumer electronics branded "marshall". they make way more with their garbage headphones and speakers manufactured in the same nameless OEM factory in china as anker and all the "brands" akin to that. Arguably Marshall has the very same problem with being its own worst competetor in a shrinking market.
Could have worked and I wouldn't even have cared IF they would have managed to at least still do okay-ish guitars all the while employing actual craftsmen in actual US factories. However, the people building your sub-par 2000 bucks guitars are payed shitty, treated horribly and have such a huge turnover that they basically barely get more than a few months to a year experience in the process. Gibson being a shit as employer AS WELL as as really crappy manufaturer is maybe the most damning thing for me.
They seem to think that any association with "Gibson" makes a discount store product suddenly become a premium product, so they can charge accordingly.
As a Gibson player, I just wanted a basic Gibson shirt, but I’m not paying their ridiculous prices for shirts and hoodies.
Basic Gibson shirt. $22.00. 🤷
i love their tank tops
@@dirtyworks8084 totally normal pricing huh?
Gibson is trying to follow in the Harley-Davidson footsteps but I'm trying to get H-D to follow the Gibson Custom Shop and re-issue the bikes that made them famous...lol
"Oh, like harley davidson." Was the first thing I thought.
I grew up in the garage, sitting on my dad's 79' shovelhead. To see harley making something like that again.. would be awesome.
@@countzero5150 that's exactly what I'm talkin' bout...lol
A brand new Limited Edition 2024 H-D '79 Shovelhead!
And a 60's Panhead
And a 50's Knucklehead
With a period correct aftermarket parts department to customize your skoot...lol
They can put emission on them to pass EPA, the old engines aren't the giant engines of today.
I bet they'd sell them faster than they could make them but time is running out...lol
Any bets as to whether or not Trogly is gonna be sporting some of these threads?
He will 100% be shilling this tripe by tomorrow. He's utterly shameless and transparent.
He'll probably spill some super glue on whatever half baked merch he's hocking for big G
(if you don't get the reference, he used super glue to "fix" the nut on a 60s SG and it was a mess, then he quietly edited that part out of the video awhile later)
@@IanThatMetalBassist Trogly's DIY fixes are terrible, the one that got me was the time he used Blue Masking Tape to raise a nut on a Les Paul, you could see it sticking out the side! 😂I've gone off his since the whole Established titles nonsense, plus there's only so many times you can watch a video about a Les Paul! Plus the way he short changed that family for that SG was scandalous, I was so happy when he got stung with the Dead PAF! Serves him rim right! 😂
@@S-T-E-V-E That fucker is so scandalous that I feel no sympathy anytime he gets bamboozled.
@@S-T-E-V-E lest we forget the wonderful time he got a bunch of guitars stolen off him by a guy he is still using to do luthier work. love that guy they should steal more guitars from him
I got a Gibson beanie off of Amazon, about 10 years ago, for around $20. I thought that was overpriced.
Went to the Nashville store almost a year ago. I was blown away by $60 t-shirts and $40 caps. However if you went into the little Kramer room ball caps were about $20ish. Lol
Should be 5 dollars for a hat and 10 for a shirt. It would be in my perfect world at least.
the marshall amp fridge goes hard
*Rob Chapman has left the chat relieved*
Everytime I watch that backhoe driving over those Firebirds a little piece of me dies inside
Hey you can get a hat to memorialize your gibson headstock after it snaps off.
😅
I really had hope for Gibson in 2019 when they restructured. Now it seems like that never happened and it's just more of the same. At least the guitars were 60% cheaper when HJ ran the show.
I mean... I guess we have a pretty standard product with the 50s and 60s, and I definitely love the new Classics... but yeah, no renovation or steps to address BASIC ISSUES like the harsh neck angle, I feel like they will go bankrupt within 10 years; no one cares about this whole influencer push
just another something I thought of: Gibson could absolutely keep their new guitar line (so as to not upset the snobs who want everything exactly like 70 year old spec for some reason) and then have an updated modern series of les paul standards that fix a lot of issues and change up the spec (neck angle specifically) so that people will feel confident in buying quite an expensive instrument.
And we'd see some different finishes every now and then too from the Henry J era too. Like I love cherry SGs as much as everybody else, but I think the original lineup and modern lineup this version of Gibson has now has run stale.
@@AntmanFelix I just would like to see a standard in ebony finish that's not a stupid exclusive item 😭
@@serenitatis2191 I feel the exact same way. I'm not a Gibson hater by any means, love their guitars and I own other guitars that may be "better" or what have you. But I would like to see a bit more options in finishes to their lineups or maybe reissue some older models that are not getting enough love from this ownership but are going up in value in the used Vintage market. Like I would love to see another L6s or a proper Les Paul Double Cut Special. The thing is they don't have to entirely shift production to those models either maybe do a run of them for a year or so then change it up. Or at least the finishes. They could even use their own in-house custom colors instead of experimenting with different colors. We need more Pelham Blue, or Polaris white for the USA Lineup, not just their Custom Shop.
@@serenitatis2191 When you say "neck angle", do you mean neck angle, or headstock angle?
Just info. The "Hummingbird" refers to the Hummingbird acoustic guitar by Gibson
Nice to see you can play( Warm Fuzzy ), I will always defend the Marshall amp fridge, looks cool in the rehearsal space
crushing those guitars was brutal to watch
Just found this but it is quite relevant to an ongoing discussion we have had working tours around Europe the last six months. It became quite obvious seeing so many bands and conversations at festivals backstage and touring in that we never see Gibson guitars being used by younger bands especially. Spotting rare Gibsons has been a thing for a long time but today it has become spot a Gibson. You've certainly made a great vid on the cringe of merchandise and how the brand shooting itself in the foot publicly helps understand why. Great vid.
Kinda want that Marshall fridge...
It will be fun to play "Spot the Shull"....I mean, "Spot the Shill" when the various Guitar Channels "just so happen" to be wearing "Very cool, new, and Authentic(tm) Gibson clothes" with tons of very natural bots....I mean, "Commenters" asking where they can get the same, and for ONLY $150!!!! Wow! What and amazing and Authentic(tm) deal! I think I'll get two!
😂 I mean, Rhett shill comes to mind😂
I could buy an aran sweater, made in Ireland, merano wool, £80.
7:12 keep in mind, you're looking at XS sizes, it wouldn't surprise me if they are charging a bit more for larger sized garments. If you want to see a scam just look at nightshift they make band hoodies and hats.
I just bought an SG. But not a Gibson SG. I bought an Epiphone. Not because I couldn't afford the Gibson, it would have been a bit of a stretch but I could have done it. No, I bought the Epiphone because it was tremendous value for the money compared to a similar Gibson. Also, Epiphone had it with P90s while I couldn't find the corresponding Gibson (not easily).
I bought the SG because mine "disappeared" in 1979 when I went to do my military service in Italy. I gave it to a friend and both disappeared.
Gibson's market is similar to the Harley Davidson market: the nostalgia market. People my age or older, with boatloads of money, that want to relive their youth.
I needed this video to understand the madness that is modern Gibson. Well done
Outstanding! Great (and accurate) point of view on the current situation with Gibson's direction and marketing.
This is the exact opposite kind of thing they need to be doing right now. They have a really serious issue going on currently. Younger generations view Gibson as their Grandpa's guitar brand. I saw Mimi from Mimi sounds on the pedal pawn podcast a few weeks ago. During the podcast she was talking about having finally bought her dream guitar, a PRS studio. The host asked her if she would buy a Gibson and her response was basically "I wouldn't be caught dead with a Gibson." To me, that signals a serious situation for Gibson. They need to modernize fast or they are potentially going to disappear. They need to figure out a way to get in with the younger generation of guitar players but instead they are doing stupid shit like this. They have priced themselves out of the younger generation's market too. Whatever though, if they go out of business my guitars will be worth more lol!
You're completely right.
As poor as Fender guitars' quality control is nowadays for the money they're charging they at least have the sense to spotlight current artists who are using their equipment.
With Gibson I can't think of a prominent player who isn't at least middle aged.
They are so ugly to be honest. All these people obsessing over Gibson make me laugh. I don't care what brand a guitar is tbh as long as it looks and sounds good.
completely agreed, although that gives me hope that in fifty years time when Gibson has gone under and the brand only has intangible value, that it will be resurrected as a small luthier school or something
I remember thinking those robot tuners were the coolest shit in the world back in the day
They should just take a lesson in humility and build good instruments... Nothing more, nothing less
That would he a good start. Get your core business sorted then worry about the other “stuff”
More is fine when done right. This isn't what I would consider right. Pretty much every company has branded attire, they just don't charge an arm and a leg for it.
2007. I started repairing guitars around 2009, and 07 was the year they started it's precipitous decline in quality. The sad part about this is that that was also around the time they brought back some long dormant build processes like the long tenon, and newer but none the less equally good moves like asymmetric profiles and the here then gone 30/60 neck profiles they used on ES339s (still IMO the perfect in-between profile size). So there's a few years there where you can find some decent guitars.
They came back in 2018 promising a return to what made them great; it's 2023 and I'm still waiting for that to come to fruition.
I will point out that it seems their Les Pauls actually dropped in price, I remember Standards being like $2700 in 08/09, and it's around the same of not a little less, even with inflation.
The Mesa Boogie Mark VII looks cool.
At this point, I am willing to build a workshop and learn some guitar tech so that I can mod my own guitar rather than pay Gibson or Fender a single penny. They are like the Adobe of guitar world. Never pay a dime to these goons.
So the hummingbirds are actually the design used on the acoustic hummingbird pickguards.
Source: I make them sometimes
Fun fact! The company I work for is trying to sell shirts for hundreds and thousands of dollars, but in over a year of working here, I've received two company t-shirts. So that's fun.
Here's an opportunity for Gibson to go full Bonamassa on the merch! You know you need some Gibson branded pencil sharpeners and letter openers!
Went to gibson Nashville, could definitely tell that people like me absolutely do not belong there. All the people working there were watching my friend and I like hawks. All the guitars (except for epiphones) were all locked up, no cables for amp tryouts, no guitar picks etc etc
Blooz Dentist goes great with a Harley 🤣 When corporate investors are happy to rinse every penny they can out of a brand. If not careful the Gibson clientele will literally die out quite soon and the following generations will see it as a tacky lifestyle brand.
PS love my 1995 Gibson but if I'm not careful might soon have to put on an epiphone decal on there in case someone approaches me after the gig asking about the cost of a molar extraction.
Right! 😂
I have like the opposite evil origin story to KDH. I saw an episode of metalocalypse one time when I was like 13, loved the music and the look of Skwisgaar's explorer. Shortly after, I got my very own epiphone explorer an I've been making music ever since
Some of the best guitars that Juskiewicz did was the Smartwood series!
Giving credit to HJ , those were pretty great and I should have bought one back then, HJ did put a lot of ideas on the table with a lot of new models and "upgrades" , I think that was kinda the thing he didn't have his finger on the trends in modern guitars as some ideas were good like the smart wood and the ash bodies but some were really bad like the robot tuners and firebird x
I’m old school. I love the style of the ‘58 V. Not the ‘67 or 80s one. Except the V2. Some of those are fantastic looking.
I've never cared for the V, though I sorta changed my mind a little that time I got the chance to play Jimi's Black Angel (yes, the *actual* guitar). Not plugged in, but still - what a thrill! Especially as a left handed player.
Gibson is going for a new motto when it comes to their merch. "A fool and his money are soon parted".
So many stories spread from the guitar crushing clip. At the time it was commonly accepted that they were damaged in floods that occurred at the time and were water damaged making them no good for sale...
Robot tuners are amazing. Just badly marketed.
I love the G Force tuners on my 2015 Les Paul DeLuxe, love swapping tunings mid song
@Richard Harrold weird I have them on 4 guitars and they work great. Especially my Robot V which is a 10/10 guitar… and my Goldtop Less Plus P90 with min-e-tune. 🤔
Glad you like them. I had them on a Les Paul and they were literal trash. Never got the guitar in tune once.
@Richard Harrold they worked great, the problem is people don’t like change and didn’t want to learn how to use them
I think the problem was people felt like they should have been an add on option instead of the option being the standard tuners. A lot of the models at the time were only offered with the tuners which presumably drove the price up , bad marketing indeed
they were a good idea but only if they only had them on the cheaper models and made them easier to remove without messing with the finish and also included regular tuners to swap out easily.
Its funny, that the second picture on Google of "Billy Reid" is the Assistant Coach of the Chelsea London Football team...
Supreme actually used the rarity to sell the stuff over price which is a totally different story than this is. Well Gibson could try to do the same tho.
Greed is real.
2006 Epi Les Paul Elitest Custom. Probably the best 'Gibson' I will ever play or own. Built in Japan at the Fujigen factory specifically configured to make these guitars and NOTHING ELSE. I have friends who have dropped a LOT of money on an R8 or the VOS ones, and they are furious when they play mine.
The biggest mistake Gibson ever made imo was not branding those Gibson Japan and giving them the Gibson headstock. Outstanding guitars, but I do believe that they didn't last because they tried to sell them as an expensive Epiphone rather than an affordable Gibson. It's possible they would have taken sales from the parent brand, but they'd have also pulled in sales from a lot of the lookalike competition. Also, official or not, by changing the headstock shape on the Epiphone (c/f what Fender did with Squier), they automatically reduced how close it was to the real thing. If an Epiphone was immediately much more like a Gibson, that surely would make them more competitive against like for like guitars?
Those Elite / Elitists, though, were absolutely phenomenal instruments, and deserved a much better chance than being hemmed in the way they were by the marketing. I wonder if Gibson will ever change tack like this the way Fender have? It's very clear that the Fender Player series now takes the position in the range that the American Standards did when I bought one way back in the 90s.
@@MrEdwardmarlowe ... their biggest mistake was not putting the Gibson name or design of the headstock??? SMH
The Q.C. has improved drastically and at the end of the day... they're in it for the same reason as every other (guitar) company. To make MONEY! 😉
0.25 has been deposited into your account.
Your last name must be fitting. 😑
@@dirtyworks8084 yeah dude I'm a bird.
Tiny pecker?
@@alioth2021 🤣🤣🤣💀
I’m thinking of that guy in the charity shop on Little Britain now, after looking at those clothes!
“Um, Excuse me. Did somebody die in this?”
This 'award winning' spiel: They never state what awards they are, or whether they're worth winning in the first place.
Doing a Warmoth King V project. It has a Warmoth "fat back" neck with headstock tilt back. It is cheaper for me than getting a gibson.
Little brother, wtf is right. I'm a retired session cat. And I'm old AF(60s). I worked for 30 years in L.A. I can vouch for two things:1. Nobody had heard of beato😂(still don't🤣🤣🤣) 2. You couldn't give a gibson LP away to a pro. The tuning stability wasn't there then like it's not there now. At 5k a day lockout pricing one had to get in and get it done. My first producer was billy Joel's old guitarist don evans. If I told you what guitars people ACTUALLY used to get tone back then you simply wouldn't believe me. Marketing is an mfer if you're young and don't know anything. I grew up almost living at Norm's, I got to learn at the knee of Skunk Baxter about gear. Fuck wasting your money on stupid shit. An expensive gtr in the living room is an entirely different animal than a reliable studio grade gtr. They're different things. You should see what Ry records with. The acoustic I played on hundreds of sessions was a 150 dollar fender that went to tape better than a 10k martin. I know, I know, "what's tape?"😂🤣🤣 love your show, you give an old man hope👌👍🤘
AMEN!
Right on man!
I was at a big box guitar store and there was an older cat tearing it up. Just rocking Van Halen and Ratt like he's possessed. He was masterfully shredding a Squire bullet, no problemo!
@@Mike28625 utterly and completely. It's not the hammer that'd being swung, it's the cat that's swinging it.🤘🎸🎶
Nice Post
Further proof that they are the Harley Davidson of guitars. Yesterday's technology at tomorrow's prices.
Love your content, great to watch or listen to while I practice
Quick joke: Gibson existing in 10 years time
thanks for the video, they are always informative and reasonable.
I love how many people were genuinely inspired to play guitar by the movie School Of Rock. It's such a fantastic movie, and I've always been proud of being born a week before the movie came out and literally growing up my whole life with it.
My decade’s version of that is Led Zeppelin’s “The Song RemIns the Same” movie. I jonesed for a Les Paul after seeing that. Now I own one…and hardly play it. (Cue sad trombone)
I think the key difference is Marshall still focuses on the player. The other stuff is just other stuff. Cool stuff tho. Like a half stack fridge. But the point is i can go to a guitar store and buy a pretty good Marshall amp for a reasonable price.
I’ve always been proud to be a Gibson (really epiphone player) now I’m a proud Fender player 😂
I like both.
No PRS?
@@oofballz4328 one day
imho, this is what happens when business people take over a company that was founded to produce works of art for artists to work their craft...
but that scene of the guitars being crushed literally makes my stomach turn 🤢
All those guitars destroyed should have been given away for free.
Maybe guitar brands to put out other crazy cross overs.
Fender gucci - caster.
Gretsch white futon
Schecter hell - raisins
Paul Reed Spliff
If you separate all that nonsense from their instruments there is still a lot of joy to be had from SOME of their products. I've a few of their guitars that I love. I don't pay much attention to what silly nonsense they're up to these days, it doesn't make my guitars sound any different or any less enjoyable to play.
Meanwhile fender is making a killing with those $10 Target shirts lol
They have become a joke. They are not a lifestyle company and need to wake up.
Thank the lord for KDH ❤️🇮🇪
I guess we could have seen it coming when a fashion guy was put in charge, but like you mention, Henry was a "guitar guy" and he started the whole idea. The worst part of it is how tone deaf they seem in a time when so many people are financially hurting to be asking $4k for an article of clothing.
if youre financially hurting, you shouldn’t be buying a guitar at all. much less a brand new one from gibson 😂😂😂
They’re targeting the wealthy, not everyday people
if the builders ever walked out together and started their own big company it’d be over for gibson.
i’m sure corporate has ways to bully them out of it and have before
For 500 dollars you can buy a great Ibanez guitar.
Funny, I was just thinking of Ferrari when you mentioned them (about half of their sales revenue comes from merchandise, not cars).
I wonder... will the jumper get finish checking if you go from cold to hot too quickly?
I like KDH. I subscribe to KDH. I respect KDH for his fearless willingness to ruffle feathers. And I watch all his videos. But we may want to consider the possibility that sneering at a sweater because it could make the wearer look like the late Mr. Rogers carries little weight when it comes from a grown man with hair hanging to his navel wearing an orange hoodie emblazoned with what appears to be one of the dwarfs from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." But, hey, maybe it's just me.
If Gibson , not Epiphone, would make a line of more affordable, good playing base models of their popular guitars, they might make better profits. I've been playing for years and recently picked up a Harley Benton for just that reason.
The thing is it's always been this way. When it comes to guitars like Gibson's especially the higher-end line. It was always a big investment. In fact it was always such a big investment that I never knew anyone growing up that actually owned a Gibson. If somebody can't afford to Gibson or doesn't want to afford a Gibson that's why the Epiphone line exists. I do see what you're saying though the prices have gotten ridiculously out of control
@@beefnacos6258 dude, I know this is a late reply, but let me share this with you. The Epiphone Guitar Co. was bought, I think back in the 50s or early 60s. Epiphone made a certain semi hollow guitar that was killing it. John Lennon and others used it religiously and Gibson had to have a piece of that pie. Fast forward to today, and Epiphone has became a shadow of its former glory as a lower end Gibson. Gibson still makes many of their guitars with the old processes they pioneered (commendable) but fail to often times produce quality mass produced instruments like Fender, Ibanez, ESP, and other competing brands. They have the money to implement processes to accomplish such things, but they don't. They're Gibson, and people still build all their guitars. Sorry this was so long.
one i really like was when ibanez came out with the ibanez jem swirl they made a cool shirt and jersey
It's been years since I've seen it for the first time, but watching those guitars get mindlessly destroyed still upsets me.
I wont lie. I wish ESP made a shirt like that purple skull. I would 100 percent buy it
The current state of Gibson makes me sad. But on the other hand, they deserve everything they get.
Absolutely crazy but guitar wise new Gibson's are some of the best I've ever played despite all the haters. V's included.
Gibson is now the Harley Davidson of guitars. Nice expensive product but subpar quality. Their business survives on apparel purchases and licensing deals.
Anybody who wants to have fun riding a motorbike wont buy a HD ever in his life :-)))
EXACTLY !
@poltergeist3194... another great American company being run into the ground for a few decades now. Had relatives that worked for HD Shame the shitty road HD decided to take ! (Like Gibson) Glad I don't own either
I love gibson guitars and only play gibson but I hate the influences they use. Its always slash and jimmy page and random boomer country stars. No one cares about these old men anymore.
I worked at a Harey dealership some years back. Holy shit. You could not be more right with that comparison.
@@ashleyjohansson230 well looking at the music charts today, it’s understandable why no one cares about those guys anymore
It's pretty much inevitable that companies such as Gibson must diversify away from electric guitars. They have never solely been a guitar company. Originally, they made a variety of instruments - mandolins, guitars, banjos, etc. They still do, but their electric guitars (particularly the Les Paul) are what they are best known for in the mass market. I own an F5L mandolin from the 1980s, which was claimed to be an exact remake of the original Lloyd Loar F5 from the 1920s. Mine, which is from the first batch, is pretty good, but certainly not the equal of the couple of Loars (there are only a few hundred of those in the world) I've actually played. However, it's certainly good enough for me and I haven't felt the desire to upgrade it in the 20 years I've owned it.
Your point about their major competitor being themselves is well made and I think the reason why Gibson cannot make enough money from guitars. Owning a Gibson has always been something people aspire to. So it follows that a Gibson is likely to be the last guitar many people buy, just as my F5 was and is likely to remain the last mandolin I bought. Like most people, I worked my way up to being able to own it - started on a cheapie, saved a bit, sold it and bought something slightly nicer, rinse and repeat (combined with my income increasing as I got older) and eventually I had the instrument I had always wanted. I'm sure guitar players do the same to end up with their Les Pauls, 335s and similar. So a Gibson is for many a one-off purchase - the final guitar they will buy. Obviously, pros and wealthy amateurs will continue to upgrade, but crucially, many of them will look to vintage, rather than new as an improvement. And are there enough of them to keep Gibson in business?
Gibson tries to attract those buyers via its "guaranteed-to-be-exactly-as-built-in-59" traditional Les Paul, etc. Good luck to them, but I doubt they will sell enough of them. They cannot go too far down market and offer budget instruments, for fear of cheapening the aspirational image of the brand, so jackets, shirts, jumpers and cuddly toys it is. I won't buy them, but if they keep Gibson afloat, I'm happy for them to flog them. Caveat emptor and all that. I'd certainly rather the fashion crazy bought them instead of the other over-priced designer tat that's out there. Better that than no more Gibsons. Sorry to go on.
Wonder if the sleeves fall off the jacket if you drop it.