Gibson J15 - Review

[Jalex]

I'm happy with mine and I'm sure it will last just fine and give me years of enjoyment.

[cody78]

I have 3 Gibson acoustics; a Dove (which I mentioned earlier), J-185 and J-15 and to my ears the J-15 is right up there with my J-185 & Dove. Each sound different and have a unique sound all of their own, but they all play feel and sound great. The J-15 might not look quite as impressive as the Dove or J-185, but still is a beautiful instrument. I love the walnut and think the back looks great. At over £1000 it's hardly a budget instrument! Yes, it may be one of the cheapest Gibson acoustics, but it's still a professional guitar IMO.

 

No offense Hogeye, but the idea it will just fall apart very soon is as ridiculous as some of the other comments made, like the idea that the only good part is the neck. Maybe I should just smash the body and keep the neck?

[Murph]

I don't know much about the durability of the cutting and gluing, BUT...............

 

I DO know that Walnut is a beautiful American wood and while plentiful here in the U.S.A., it is a great tone-wood. I have a multi-laminated Walnut '79 SG that is a great sounding guitar.

 

I love those J-15's for the value and buyability and bet some of them sound exceptional.

 

[mojoworking]

And look at those other budget Gibsons that started out bottom of the range in the 50s & 60s:

 

Les Paul Junior

SG Junior

Melody Maker

Firebird I

 

All of them are hugely collectable vintage instruments today (well, maybe not the Melody Maker so much, but you get the idea)

[MountainPlayer]

But how do they sound and feel? That's the criteria I use when buying a guitar.

Ian

 

They have been almost universally reviewed by owners to sound, play and feel fantastic regardless of the troll posts to the contrary. The secret is to play and purchase what you like. My J-15 is just as nice as my other guitars.

[Mickthemiller]

One of the major uses of walnut is gun stocks. Now I could be wrong but wouldn't gun makers want to use a reliable timber that is not going to fall apart? All I read about walnut is that it is a durable timber and the reason it is inexpensive is because the trees are cropped for generations then replaced.

[rct]

And look at those other budget Gibsons that started out bottom of the range in the 50s & 60s:

 

Les Paul Junior

SG Junior

Melody Maker

Firebird I

 

All of them are hugely collectable vintage instruments today (well, maybe not the Melody Maker so much, but you get the idea)

 

Collectability has nothing whatsoever to do with how gooda guitar it was. Most of the time, most of the people that collect those guitars didn't have to use them back then. We couldn't wait to get a real guitar and didn't go back. Except Firebirds, I don't know why that is in the list it was not intended as a student guitar like MM and the Jrs.

 

rct

[Hogeye]

One of the major uses of walnut is gun stocks. Now I could be wrong but wouldn't gun makers want to use a reliable timber that is not going to fall apart? All I read about walnut is that it is a durable timber and the reason it is inexpensive is because the trees are cropped for generations then replaced.

 

 

 

I didn't make my self to clear when posting about the wood. The wood itself is just fine it's the way they cut the wood that is the problem. When you use smaller dimension wood to achieve the proper dimensions for a guitar back from the smaller less expensive logs they need to be flat sawn. This is not as good a cut as quarter sawn. Quarter sawing uses a lot bigger log and that makes it more expensive.

 

Everyone that knows anything about guitar construction will tell you this. As to gun stocks: Yes they are made from walnut. English Walnut. Not the species that Gibson is using on the J-15. English Walnut is a far superior wood and the gunstocks are never flat sawn they are always- ALWAYS quarter sawn. I'm surprised that someone from England doesn't know this.

 

In another thread there was a reference to Martin making a $12,000.00 guitar from Walnut. Well the answer is quite simple the use English Walnut and they quarter saw it. This is more expensive wood and the quarter saw cut also adds to the expense.

 

They call it a J-15 because it is 2/3 the quality of a J-45. If it was 1/2 as good it would be a J-22.5 wouldn't it.

 

In another thread someone asked what Ren thought of the guitar. These are but a few of his observations.

 

The J-15 is a passable entry level instrument. The price point is achieved by cutting some important corners. That is just fine with me. My problem is that some folks here are calling the guitar a Cadillac of guitars and as good or better than a J-45. It clearly is not. I stated some of the reasons. I guess that would qualify me as a troll. Honest information is not treated kindly here. Did I mention the J-15 has a great neck?

[RockabillyHell]

I didn't make my self to clear when posting about the wood. The wood itself is just fine it's the way they cut the wood that is the problem. When you use smaller dimension wood to achieve the proper dimensions for a guitar back from the smaller less expensive logs they need to be flat sawn. This is not as good a cut as quarter sawn. Quarter sawing uses a lot bigger log and that makes it more expensive.

 

Everyone that knows anything about guitar construction will tell you this. As to gun stocks: Yes they are made from walnut. English Walnut. Not the species that Gibson is using on the J-15. English Walnut is a far superior wood and the gunstocks are never flat sawn they are always- ALWAYS quarter sawn. I'm surprised that someone from England doesn't know this.

 

In another thread there was a reference to Martin making a $12,000.00 guitar from Walnut. Well the answer is quite simple the use English Walnut and they quarter saw it. This is more expensive wood and the quarter saw cut also adds to the expense.

 

They call it a J-15 because it is 2/3 the quality of a J-45. If it was 1/2 as good it would be a J-22.5 wouldn't it.

 

In another thread someone asked what Ren thought of the guitar. These are but a few of his observations.

 

The J-15 is a passable entry level instrument. The price point is achieved by cutting some important corners. That is just fine with me. My problem is that some folks here are calling the guitar a Cadillac of guitars and as good or better than a J-45. It clearly is not. I stated some of the reasons. I guess that would qualify me as a troll. Honest information is not treated kindly here. Did I mention the J-15 has a great neck?

I've had My J-15 for almost two years. I haven't properly humidified it(I really should) The humidity in my house is 20%. It hasn't fallen apart and it shows absolutely no indication of not being properly humidified. A couple of times I banged it with my heavy brass belt buckle, Not a ding on it. The walnut used is fine quality. You mentioned the tuners? What's wrong with them? They're well made and do what they're supposed to do which is accurately tune the guitar. You seem hooked on "more expensive better" "less expensive bad, inferior" people tend to do that to make themselves feel about their own stuff. I bought the J-15 because it sounded better to me that the other guitars in the shop that I played, including other Gibson's. I once owned a Martin cherry SWD which was a fantastic guitar. Is cherry an "inferior wood"? Saying that a J15 is an entry level guitar is incorrect and getting caught up in "this is the only way to cut wood" seems silly. And the price point is due to to curent supply and sustainability.

[cody78]

 

My problem is that some folks here are calling the guitar a Cadillac of guitars and as good or better than a J-45. It clearly is not.

 

If a player loves a certain instrument such as a J-15 and feels it's their favourite, then to that person the guitar is equally as good as a J-45 if not better.

 

Some cheap guitars play and sound great. You don't need a high end instrument to sound great. I play a lot of jazz with Gibson archtops and your comments remind me of some of the traditional jazz idiots who claim laminated guitars are garbage and solid is the only way to go. What a load of rubbish! That's why many of the greats used laminated ES 175's and similar models. I have a solid wood L5CES and also a laminated ES-5 & ES-175 and neither is better or worse, they are just different, similar to your J-15 vs. J-45 argument.

 

Hogeye, I wonder how good of a player you are? Some people posting comments about instruments being 'inferior' tend to not be very good players to begin with and seem more concerned with every little detail of an instrument's build yet can barely play themselves. If you can only play 3 chords and have done for years, it doesn't matter what guitar you play as you are never going to be Segovia! I studied music for 7 years and own my high end Dove and L-5, but also have a number of cheaper instruments such as an Epi Broadway, an Epi AJ200e and even an Epi LP Special. They all play and sound just fine to me and I love them all expensive or cheap! I recently did a wedding gig with my Epiphone ES-175 as I didn't want to take my Gibson 175 and it went well. Which proves at the end of the day... who cares?

 

Besides, J-45's are clearly crummy instruments because they don't cost as much as J-200's and therefore have cheaper construction methods and materials used. Nonsense! J-200's suck because they don't cost as much as Martin D-45's! Nonsense...and so it keeps going. I better start saving for a Gibson Citation at £15,000 plus, because obviously that's the only guitar a real player should use!

[Hogeye]

I've had My J-15 for almost two years. I haven't properly humidified it(I really should) The humidity in my house is 20%. It hasn't fallen apart and it shows absolutely no indication of not being properly humidified. A couple of times I banged it with my heavy brass belt buckle, Not a ding on it. The walnut used is fine quality. You mentioned the tuners? What's wrong with them? They're well made and do what they're supposed to do which is accurately tune the guitar. You seem hooked on "more expensive better" "less expensive bad, inferior" people tend to do that to make themselves feel about their own stuff. I bought the J-15 because it sounded better to me that the other guitars in the shop that I played, including other Gibson's. I once owned a Martin cherry SWD which was a fantastic guitar. Is cherry an "inferior wood"? Saying that a J15 is an entry level guitar is incorrect and getting caught up in "this is the only way to cut wood" seems silly. And the price point is due to to curent supply and sustainability.

 

All this great advice from a guy that doesn't even take the time to properly care for his guitar. Hmmmm?

[Hogeye]

If a player loves a certain instrument such as a J-15 and feels it's their favourite, then to that person the guitar is equally as good as a J-45 if not better.

 

Some cheap guitars play and sound great. You don't need a high end instrument to sound great. I play a lot of jazz with Gibson archtops and your comments remind me of some of the traditional jazz idiots who claim laminated guitars are garbage and solid is the only way to go. What a load of rubbish! That's why many of the greats used laminated ES 175's and similar models. I have a solid wood L5CES and also a laminated ES-5 & ES-175 and neither is better or worse, they are just different, similar to your J-15 vs. J-45 argument.

 

Hogeye, I wonder how good of a player you are? Some people posting comments about instruments being 'inferior' tend to not be very good players to begin with and seem more concerned with every little detail of an instrument's build yet can barely play themselves. If you can only play 3 chords and have done for years, it doesn't matter what guitar you play as you are never going to be Segovia! I studied music for 7 years and own my high end Dove and L-5, but also have a number of cheaper instruments such as an Epi Broadway, an Epi AJ200e and even an Epi LP Special. They all play and sound just fine to me and I love them all expensive or cheap! I recently did a wedding gig with my Epiphone ES-175 as I didn't want to take my Gibson 175 and it went well. Which proves at the end of the day... who cares?

 

Besides, J-45's are clearly crummy instruments because they don't cost as much as J-200's and therefore have cheaper construction methods and materials used. Nonsense! J-200's suck because they don't cost as much as Martin D-45's! Nonsense...and so it keeps going. I better start saving for a Gibson Citation at £15,000 plus, because obviously that's the only guitar a real player should use!

 

 

So now that logic and knowledge have failed you feel the need to attack me personally? Pitiful.

[cody78]

So now that logic and knowledge have failed you feel the need to attack me personally? Pitiful.

 

Well, posting negative comments to lot of people who love their J-15's and basically saying they are garbage 'just on step above firewood' isn't a particularly nice thing to do either.

 

I don't go over to the Epi forum and tell people their Epi LP Juniors are garbage because they cost £99 and are made with very cheap materials. Partly, because that isn't cool and also because some of those Epi Juniors are a lot of fun to play and do sound good for the money.

[Jalex]

Mr Hogeye, even you have to admit this is some pretty attractive firewood

[Dotneck]

d getting caught up in "this is the only way to cut wood" seems silly.

 

It might seem silly to you but it doesn't seem silly to me.

 

Quarter sawn wood is more stable and looks better when finished. Its also more expensive. Plain sawing a log yields more lumber per log. When you're looking for a way to make a product less expensive is to use less expensive components. Walnuts are also less expensive than rosewoods and mahogany these days.

 

So we end up with a guitar that is at a price point that is in reach for lots of folks.

 

Just because its less expensive doesn't mean folks don't like it. Lots of people love their walnut guitars. I also have a little walnut end table next to my recliner. Love it and its a beautiful thing.

 

I do, however, like mahogany better.

[RockabillyHell]

All this great advice from a guy that doesn't even take the time to properly care for his guitar. Hmmmm?

It's clear now that your objective is to bash what you personally consider to be "inferior" Your opinions are noted, but still just "opinions. The fact is that price has little or no relevance once you get beyond certain features. A few years ago I had a short-scale Gibson IR AJ that I traded in for a solid wood hog Seagull and cash some back. The Seagull was the better guitar to my ears. The AJ cost three times as much but wasn't for me.

[Dotneck]

here is a quarter sawn walnut guitar back...

 

 

[RockabillyHell]

here is a quarter sawn walnut guitar back...

 

 

Nice looking piece of wood. Is it 'better"? That's subjective and I'm glad that I'm not hung up on "I gotta have that because of what others say and think" I wouldn't trade in my j-15 for anything else. It's a fine guitar tonally and in build quality. It is not an entry level guitar.

[rct]

[MissouriPicker]

Yep, young'uns, the winter of 2016 was the worst in history. Me and your maw fig'erd we was finished. It's nuth'in short of a miracle that we's here today. The huge piles of kindlin' we'd stored-up were burn't and gone by February and the coldest blast of Old Man Winter's breath was yet to come. For sure, it looked like we were goners. Thank God and Gibson for the J15.

[SmokeyGhost]

Yep, young'uns, the winter of 2016 was the worst in history. Me and your maw fig'erd we was finished. It's nuth'in short of a miracle that we's here today. The huge piles of kindlin' we'd stored-up were burn't and gone by February and the coldest blast of Old Man Winter's breath was yet to come. For sure, it looked like we were goners. Thank God and Gibson for the J15.

 

And you played your J-45 as you watched them burn.

[MissouriPicker]

And you played your J-45 as you watched them burn.

 

Nope.....that fancy sawed-wood on the J45 froze solid and when one of the kids pissed on it, it shattered into thousands of little pieces.

[SmokeyGhost]

Nope.....that fancy sawed-wood on the J45 froze solid and when one of the kids pissed on it, it shattered into thousands of little pieces.

 

I consider myself fortunate to live where I do as I have access to much in the way of music of varying styles.

 

Late last year I attended a recital arranged by a music teacher for his students. It was a fabulous time with the teacher grabbing his guitar and joining in, encouraging his charges with "A first time public performance by [name] and wasn't it splendid!" It was a fun two hours.

 

I know the guitars used by the performers varied from $300 gits to $9,000 gits. In the after-performance gathering not once was mention made of the guitars. It was all about playing.

 

And, in my view, that's how it should be. The guitar is secondary. It matters not whether it is a Yamaha FG720S, a J-15, a J-45 or a custom made by Graham Caldersmith.

 

You buy guitars you can afford (hopefully) and which you love to play.

[Avery]

Hogeye, I respect your knowledge and your perspective, even though I think I disagree.

 

First, many super fancy guitars have grain runout on the tops. Now, I don't know much about carpentry and wood, but from I've read, this is an avoidable problem: If you split the wood instead of sawing it this is not a problem. http://www.lutherie.net/frankford.runout.html

 

And yet Martin, Gibson, and Taylor don't try avoiding this. Probably because they are not boutique builders and don't want to take the time to avoid this. Tops with runout are more fragile than those without and yet many elite guitars have runout, and don't wind up imploding.

 

Now, regarding your main point i.e. the fragility of flat-sawn wood. It's hard for me to imagine that flat-sawn wood is more fragile than Brazilian Rosewood, which from what I've read, is fragile and susceptible to cracking: http://www.guitarnation.com/articles/calkin.htm

Brazilian is still the most desirable tonewood despite this.

 

Also, I think there is a very fine line between a workhorse and a budget guitar. Doubtless, there are some shortcomings strictly due to cutting costs that one finds in a J-45. The flubber pickguard is there too, there's a whole bunch of tusq instead of bone. It's got the Grovers that a lot of people don't like. (Is the problem you mentioned only with mini Grovers or all Grovers?). And yet it sounds great, and has become an icon.

 

I don't know as much as you do, and you seem to see the flat-sawn nature as unforgivable. Maybe you are right. But I think that when we buy a Gibson, even a J200 there will be some shortcoming vis-a-vis the craftsmanship that you don't get in, say, a Santa Cruz or a Goodall.

 

I think it is called the J-15 not because it's 1/3 of the J-45, but because it costs $1500. Kind of like a 21st century workhorse, a subtle nod to the J-45 and J-50 that cost 45 and 50 dollars.

 

In the above article about tonewoods, the author is fond of English Walnut, but he is also quite fond of the walnut one gets on the West Coast in the U.S.A.

[cody78]

Nice looking piece of wood. Is it 'better"? That's subjective and I'm glad that I'm not hung up on "I gotta have that because of what others say and think" I wouldn't trade in my j-15 for anything else. It's a fine guitar tonally and in build quality. It is not an entry level guitar.

 

Well said I 100% agree with you.

 

Yep, young'uns, the winter of 2016 was the worst in history. Me and your maw fig'erd we was finished. It's nuth'in short of a miracle that we's here today. The huge piles of kindlin' we'd stored-up were burn't and gone by February and the coldest blast of Old Man Winter's breath was yet to come. For sure, it looked like we were goners. Thank God and Gibson for the J15.

 

Now that's funny! I'm glad your J-15 saved you