6 discontinued Les Pauls (gibbys)

[Prospero]

I don't mind a little innovation. I understand the nostalgic appeal of vintage guitars from the 50's (and a large part of Gibson's plan should be to continue to produce these instruments) but there's nothing wrong with trying to move the ball forward.

 

If guitarists in the 50's reacted like they react today, you'd have had an outcry over the introduction of solid-bodies, or humbuckers, or any other similar innovation. Les Paul would've been lynched.

 

I like my Godins specifically because they move the ball forward. They're a company that has consciously kept production in Canada and the US, and continue to innovate and look at where the guitar is going, while still offering some basic models. It takes a lot of balls to decide not to go the Asian route, and to more or less abandon the vintage-obsessed market in favour of the cutting-edge.

 

Epiphone is another that seems to want to innovate too, and would do great if given half a chance. You can see that with the Ultra II and, to a lesser extent, the Prophesies. Rather than give us 20 different variations of the same Chinese-made Les Paul at increasingly higher prices, Epiphone could offer guitars with more innovative features.

 

Having said all that, Gibson (along with Fender/Gretsch and, Rickenbacker) owe their continued success to the vintage-minded players. Those of us who want a Gibson want it to be like the original. We want a '54 Custom, a '59 Standard, a '58 Explorer, a '61 SG, etc. We don't want an '08 Robot.

 

I don't mind the '08 Standard because that's Gibson moving the ball forward a little. So long as a "Classic", "Traditional", "Original" whatever-they-want-to-call-it model made the same way they did in '59 continues to exist alongside that Standard.

 

The SG line is a good analogue. You can buy an SG Standard. But if that doesn't do it for you, you also have the option of buying a '61 Reissue SG.

 

Granted Gibson does give you the further option of just buying Custom Shop VOS models if you really are a stickler for the way things used to be.

 

Essentially it's all about the up-sell. Keep making authenticity a premium until some idiot actually pays $8000 for a Johnny Winter Firebird that has been authentically pre-trashed.

[charlie brown]

Innovation, is one thing, but making the same model, over and over, with just different "window dressing,"

is rediculous. Fender and some others do the same thing...How many "Strats" do you really need? People

are going to "mod" or alter them, to their own tastes anyway. So, "old fashioned" as I may be....

(I am "old" after all...LOL!)...I have never understood this need to have mulitple versions of the same guitar.

That's not "innovation" (to me, at least). That's all I'm talking about, really. Real innovation, is fine!

But as to trying to be all things, to everyone....Leave it up to the buyer, to do what HE/SHE wants.

Again, just my Humble Opinion. Other's may (will) differ, no doubt.

 

CB

[JefferySmith]

Remember when there was a strat, a jazzmaster, and a jaquar? If you wanted them in something other than sunburst, that was pretty much a special order.