PrairieDog

Sorry, then I was confused too why you would say that most folks here aren’t buying new. I think that is a pretty sweeping generalization, and plenty of people off the forum are plunking down for new Gibsons and they search here too, that’s I how found the place. Kind of a strange thing to say? Are you saying that ordering a special color does not cost some degree more than the same model off the line? If that’s true, then I’m starting to count my pennies… I have ideas.

I believe Dave meant the expense related to ordering a M2M just for the special color is pretty steep. And I have noticed that a lot of folks in this forum at least do tend to lean to the used/vintage buys. I know I’m not likely to buy new any more. I’m too old, hence don’t have enough time to wait for them to open up.

Hey, just thinking, that one looks in perfect shape, if the sound isn’t improved with it off, no reason you couldn’t just reattach that one. I would think it would be just a spray of a reversible/archival type of clear adhesive. Or, better, again, ask the real pros at Gibson, chuckle. “I’m not a luthier, I just play one on the net.” 😎

Most people aren’t still driving their 69 Galaxies. Gibson is well aware they built guitars that people are still curating a hundred years later, and they know there is a thriving trade in vintage instruments that need replacement cases. They are missing a large market opportunity in not offering a hybrid predesigned/M2M case service. Square cases with foam inserts that would fit the specs of the most common vintage guitars.

Re the dampening, let us know? I agree that is a pretty heavy slice of plastic for the top to have been wrestling against. Here’s to 7 years of newly freed up tone!? (but hey, watch the pickguard, it’s going commando! 😆)

Whoa dude!! Okay that is some serious “film.” I wonder if it had one of those “clear coat” protectors intended to shield the pick guard while playing (sort of the place mat over the table cloth arrangement) Meaning you could scuff up that clear bit and then take it off to expose a pristine pg when you went to sell it? It came off so clean I can’t imagine it wasn’t meant to come off at some point, but yeah. I’d still maybe give Gibson a call and ask “Was this supposed to happen?” 😄You may still get a new PG out of it. Your forehead is safe from any more of my “helpful” hints re the pickup other than the discussion last week about some velcro or something coming loose that holds the units in place that you can just stick back down. 😉

Okay, I can’t tell from the pics, so pardon me asking the obvious simply out of due diligence (since it has been known to have happened before) are you sure it’s not just the cling protector that never got peeled off? So okay, assuming you are not smacking your face with your palm right now, I’m assuming you want tips about how to replace it? if you do a search, I saw a post a while back where someone described how to get the pick guard off. I really think Gibson should do it under warranty though, but I understand that’s a hassle.

And I bet everyone else thought it was great! Audience ears hear differently that we hear ourselves. They aren’t comparing the inside/outside voice we invariably do. What people impart to our voices, and hear, is the “confidence” that we can sing the song. That makes a good singer. A croaker like Dylan belting out “times they are a’changing” will always be a better received performance than a wall-flower haltingly and timidly whispering, “Whiskey in the Jar.”

I’m in the same boat, looking for a case for my 1910 L1 archtop. It’s such an odd size, the only thing I’ve found is to have one custom made, which will cost nearly as much as the guitar. Until I free up the funds, fingers crossed the conditions will stay right in the music room to keep it safe in the ill-fitting 1930s chipboard it came with.

Bob Dylan sure did okay with whining 😄

Nod, I hear you. The thing that got me over my self-consciousness was when I stopped paying attention to the over processed commercial arena, and started listening to more obscure artists in the folk/roots genre. I realized that a “good voice” doesn’t have to be American Idol power-ballad perfect, but the honest and natural expression of the singer. When I first heard Nancy Griffith sing I thought I was going to crawl out of my skin, with the weird cadences and intonations and closed off delivery. Now I get it, it’s *her* voice, and there are no gatekeepers. She sings honestly and there nothing “wrong” with it. I joined a trad signing meetup in the before times. While none of the geezers croaking out The Blackest Crow were going to fill an arena, I grew attached to and appreciate the differences in the personal delivery of each of our own songs.

Oh yeah, it’s strange, but you get used to it. The effects used on a projected voice are helping replace the natural resonances your ears are hearing from both outside and inside your skull. We all have sort of a natural “reverb” built in. Relaxing the vocal path and opening the throat as you sing helps get closer to replicating the sound you hear in your head by allowing the “reverb” to be projected. But as many multi-platinum singers have proved, there is nothing wrong with using the gifts that electronics has given us to doctor things up, chuckle. Except pitch-tuning. I would like to see pitch tuning cast into the bowels of hell. There is no reason someone should be rewarded with a million bucks if they can’t be bothered to learn to sing on key like we all did in the olden days.

Well? You get it yet? Don’t leave us hanging! 😄

I was a bright kid, had a copy of Winnie the Pooh in Latin I would compare to the English version. Was made to take french lessons in elementary school, took spanish in Jr. high, Started german but dropped it instantaneously. Never got competency in any language to pass the College requirement. That damn conjugating and trying to remember the gender of tables tripped me up every time. So, desperate to get the credits I needed, I signed up for Chinese. I figured it was so hard the bar would be set low, and I would really have to “work” at it, which usually meant at least a passing grade for me. Fish to water! The language makes total sense…you just add in different words/letters in the right places in the sentence to change tenses/genders/negatives. “Hao” = good “Bu Hao” = bad. Easy peasy. (Okay there are also needed tone marks but I can’t add them here.) If you are at all musical, the tones are no problem, it’s like singing. The characters are icons, so once you memorize the logic of the different elements you can usually parse out what the word might be. In context in the sentence and you can usually deduce what it means if you don’t recognize it right off. Switched majors from philosophy to Chinese for a while and ended up with a Chinese minor. That was fun. I’ve lost most of it of course now, but I can still say “hello” and beg for change, if I ever find myself needy in Beijing…

I expect SW was hand measuring an existing guitar. Or it was a typo. Anyway, it’s a vendor making the observation, not the builder Gibson, so I don’t think it counts as a real change in specs. I could easily see there being a 1000th diff just in the manufacturing of the nut. it is so minute as to be immaterial to the width of the neck. I’m always even surprised people even care about the real spec’d diffs in nuts that only amount to a handful of hundredths.

Always a bit of a bummer though when you get slapped back to reality when you think you’ve found a score, sorry dude. Something even better is coming along. Usually works that way with the bullets I’ve dodged.

Nod, you were asking about the price difference between the two models and if there would be a tonal difference. The shape is more than aesthetics. That was what I was replying to. Given they are both sitka/walnut, they may sound fairly similar, or at least not as different as a standard J 45 and Hummingbird might, maybe just some more oomph in the square shoulder G.

The prices are different because they are different builds, based off different standard guitars. You can read the specs on the Gibson website. One has electronics the other doesn’t, etc. They are both economical level guitars, modeled after their namesakes, just not with the same woods/appointments/finish, so expect them to have a sort of shadowy resemblance to a hummingbird or a j-45, just perhaps not the full voice, if that makes sense. Because of the different shapes, square shoulders have more “space” for the air to move around in. Squares sometimes are described as being a bit boomier than slopes. So there will be a tonal difference. But how/whether it matters is really subjective. I have both styles, but there are so many other variables, like tone woods, etc, all I know is each brings their own voices to the party. I have a J-45 Studio which is also sitka/walnut, like the Gs. It’s brighter than a J-45 standard because of the walnut, and it is a tad thinner but it still has a nice full tone that I like. Again, you just gotta play ‘em, one will sing to you more than the other. Folks here might be able to provide recommendations if you mentioned what sort of tone you are searching for.

Thanks for that info!

Posted in Philly and Atlanta? as they said in that one movie, “Run away! Run away!”

Hmmmm…. I’d proceed with extreme caution. I don’t use Craigslist, but how are you supposed to get in touch with them? There is no contact info? Usually there is some id or something, isn’t there? And Crypto is still a red flag for me. Anyway, besides that, the pickguard looks mighty sketchy, like it might be breaking down/disintegrating already. And the Dove inlay is missing? I’d call Gibson and just see if they have a record of that serial number. I see that is says “Second” which means it presumably left the shop with some issue, but why is the SN not on the label? the label also looks poorly glued which could mean it got wet at some point? Or was just slapped on. These are also all tells of a fake. The Second stamp is a good way to explain away anything that doesn’t look “right.” “Oh, it came like that….” Also, I hate to malign the school system down there, but you know wrong spellings and bad punctuation are typical of scam posts/emails. And Those super zoomed in pics look like some sort of industrial space rather than a private home. I would ask for more pics, like a close up of the pick guard and other areas that aren’t already posted to see if they can supply them. And then there is the 1970s factor… maybe it’s a gem because it’s supposed to be custom shop, but it was a rough decade for Gibson. Good luck. I hope I’m just being overly cynical…but nothing else, even if it is legit, that pick guard will have to go. You can tell it is already into the finish.

Paraloid/B-72? Cool stuff. We use it in our lab.

That was great! Always enjoy hearing you play, and that is a great song. Better half is the reso player but only has square-necks and wants a round neck now. We really like the sound of a tricone and there happens to be two Mules in town right now. What are the chances? So we got to actually compare for once. The one at Willies ran circles around the one at the GC, and was cheaper. Still, the thing about the Mule is they use a standard sized, round plate, which means good parts of the three cones are trapped under the body and muted. The triangle plate design makes much more sense with tricones. It does give Mule that kinda a chunky suppressed sound that some folks like. We decided we are more into the warmer/open side. So, for about the about the same money, I think we will keep looking for a deal on a wood body National M1. Since we are nothing but part-time players no matter what we pick up it’s all about just having fun with sounds for right now. And, after collecting stuff to hang on the walls for so many years, it’s much more rewarding to have art we can play with 😄 Oops, just got an update that the GC Mule has left the building… glad it found a home.

Nod, it’s just the “one you can get in a few days” can end up coming from another GC, i.e., this one. And then there were the poor used ones who just ended up in a very bad place. I doubt they have a stack of opened Martins to pop out of the back. I get there is “demo” damage (I don’t mind a nice discount for a small “ding”) but then there is just willful, wasteful, neglect. Buy another three or four 100.00 humidifiers and keep ‘em filled until you can get a qualified HVAC guy there to fix it. “Oh, we call, but they say it is fine” is not an answer when it obviously is not “fine.” If nothing else, it is hitting their bottom line. It looked so schlocky it made every instrument there suspect, even a steel resonator. They partly lost the $4,000 dollar sale because looking around at all the damaged goods, we couldn’t trust there wasn’t going to be something wrong with the Mule. And the other guy, who was shopping, everything he tried sounded like crap because they were all so stiff and dry. So right there, in 15 minutes, two good potential sales walked out. It was like trying to shop in a guitar graveyard. Just sad.

Yes. The only quibble I have is not a ziplock, that will trap the gasses, furthering the damage and the bag will eventually burst. tissue paper in a ventilated box, in a well-ventilated area will allow the gasses to dissipate naturally and not cause more damage. Just keep it well away from close contact with any other items. It’s probably too far gone to even be stabilized, but I’d have the luthier decide before chucking it. Museums might try to soak/encase celluloid in another stable acrylic matrix, to stop the reaction. but that is usually done when there is only a little decay.