american cheez

you're asking alot

you referring to me? i deny being smart, AND being a troll. i do have a tendency to rant, one of my few shortcomings. i don't see how i can be a troll defending a brand on it's very own own enthusiast forum. i would think that should work the other way. those bad-mouthing the brand should be the ones considered trolls. do you think anyone in gibson's management would feel differently than what i stated in my post? do you distrust the company who makes the guitars you love so much as to believe they deliberately send a less than perfect product out the door to specific retailers? that certainly would not line up with their publicly published policy which clearly states any guitars unable to be repaired after QC evaluation are destroyed. there are no factory seconds from gibson. lastly, if a guitar is made correctly according to factory spec, where you buy it matters very little in terms of what you get. the heritage cherry sunburst guitar you might buy at your local guitar store is no different than one you buy 1000 miles away from amazon.com or wherever. there may be minute differences in set up, but those are things purposely made to be user adjustable. no one tries before they buy from sweetwater or musician's friend, and yet they sell truckloads of guitars with regularity. while i don't actually know this, i'd be willing to bet that no one working for sweetwater or musician's friend spends their day doing set-ups on sold instruments. whatever you get is a combination of what the factory did, and weather conditions during shipping and warehousing. that said, i realize some people are ridiculously picky, and will return a guitar because they discovered an orange peel section in the neck joint that is as wide as a hair.

like many people on many forums, you guys go out of your way to avoid logic and rational thinking. all of you seem to believe in the jukebox hero guitar, and can't seem to understand that a guitar is a tool made of wood and plastic and metal. there is no magic in the guitar. none at all. do you guys not know how a factory even works? they make money by getting product out the door, period, the end. there is no QC guy looking over guitars and directing less than perfect ones to a pile marked for best buy. a guitar passes QC or it doesn't. there is no more to it than that. i personally know at least a dozen people who have scored insane deals on gibson guitars sold at best buy. guess what? they bought fine guitars at discount prices! ZOMG!!!!!!! i know guys who bought 2014 studio pros that retailed for $1500 can, at best buy for $500+ in early 2016. brand spanking new, perfectly good guitars for almost 70% discount. even if you opened the box and there were no pick ups and tuners on it, you still made out like a bandit. guess what? they were perfect. another thing is the tired old song and dance guys love to spew about not buying a guitar they haven't played. dumb, dumb, dumb, 100x. you get a guitar that isn't right, you take it back and get another. screwed up instruments are rare, anecdotal internet not withstanding. for every internet horror story, i can trot out ones to show otherwise. i in fact bought my current LP sight unseen from a box store. (long & mquade) i ordered it and had it delivered to my house. i never saw it till i opened the box. i got a beautiful guitar that plays great and sounds wonderful. it was not random chance. stop believing in magic.

been playing mostly originals here lately. at the end of feb i'm recording in a world famous studio. i need to get my sh*t together so i can be less annoying to the guy manning the board. but don't be impressed, cause i'm paying for it, (albeit a greatly reduced fee through a mutual friend) and the music is not for distribution.

https://youtu.be/Uds7g3M-4lQ

alot of folks used to believe that adding mass at the headstock increased sustain. people used to bolt giant brass weights up there, made for exactly that purpose. i don't know one way or the other if it's true, but i notice no one's doing it these days. however, i did add a set of gold locking sperzels and a roller nut to a strat once, the tone did seem to darken. i loved it, and thought it was a giant improvement.

wow! that's gorgeous! i have the same guitar, i'm sorely tempted to mod minethe same way, now that i've seen the pics!

i dunno, but when i look at the over all picture, i still see it as a branding thing mostly. almost all the sub $1000 guitars are gone from the line up. 30% price increase across the board. the available guitars have been culled and simplified significantly. years ago i saw the interview where henry j responded to a question about gibson's pricing and he stated simply that his data showed that sales increased when prices went up. he created some formula that he uses to keep sales at a certain level. he said then that when he came on board gibson was hurting. part of what turned them around was their branding. they evoke nostalgia, and boutiquey-ness. exclusivity. class. it's kinda the same reason people seem to love relics so much. he doesn't care about music in the slightest. he doesn't care about the customer in the slightest. he's a ceo. for him it's all numbers and shareholders to answer to, etc. time will tell if it was a bold stroke of genius or an overzealous cash grab. the thin with the tuners and zero nut thing, i think is them trying to move things forward, technologically. how do you be old-school with out being stodgy, cumbersome, slow? maybe one might try taking the guitar to a new place with the help of new technology. that seems to be the road they are taking/attempting. i have to say, for me, i am disappointed to learn those tuners don't work. the idea is a good one, despite what many people think. i had every intention of buying a set for my strat. but if it doesn't work, then it's crap. surely gibson know this. yet they are forcing them on people and upcharging them for it to boot. that's just typical corporate greed, ubiquitous these days. if the zero nut thing works or not i don't know. if it does, than it's a good thing, that needs to be executed in a more attractive fashion. we'll see if the buyer's pockets are as deep as henry predicts they are. i don't think they are but i've been wrong before.

cool guitar, but cooler still, guitar face.

agree with the others. that's sweeter than a peach

hey all. i just bought this 2014 studio pro. i'm really diggin it i also own a 2006 strat