Gibson realises it made a terrible mistake

awfurby · Post by **awfurby** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:07 pm

And is canning robotune and lowering prices.

dezb1 · Post by **dezb1** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:12 pm

That means the 2015 models will all be sought after collectors pieces in years to come...

ultratwin · Post by **ultratwin** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:41 pm

None of this affects me or my preferences, but mo powah to those who need to buy a new Gibson, er...when it's new.

We all know how HenryJ refuses to listen to people. At least he likes numbers and has a keen eye to monitor how they change year by year.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:47 pm

dezb1 wrote:That means the 2015 models will all be sought after collectors pieces in years to come...

Ha, I suppose it means they'll be cheaper for a few years though, as long as they're seen as wrong'uns.

awfurby · Post by **awfurby** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:48 pm

I wonder if they'll be cheap enough to be modding platforms...

ultratwin · Post by **ultratwin** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 12:10 am

I guess if one really needs a new Gibson to satiate the need to mod? When Johnny Emo washed his side-greased hair and went to college about 5 - 6 years ago it seemed like the number of very affordable Epi G400 and Gibbo Standard SGs on the used market avenged sevenfold increased ten fold. Not that the SG is the best modding platform or anything, butcha never know...

Reverb Article wrote:The Les Paul Standard is reported to carry a new price of $2799 while a new SG Standard will list for $1199.

O joy.

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 8:51 am

I've absolutely loved the recent spate of Gibson SGs and Les Pauls in the tribute series. The black rubbed finish Les Paul without binding, black witch-hat knobs and ceramic "Dirty Fingers" pickups really tempted me for ages. Proper guitars for proper guitarists. Then, yeah, they kept sticking those fucking robot tuners on some of the models too, because they're idiots.

Like this here:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/gibson_sgm_2014_vps.htm

I'm like, holy shit, a Gibson for under Â£500! Oh, robot tuners. Fuck my ass.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 8:55 am

I feel bad for people who shelled out big money for a Gibbo recently. An acquaintance of mine recently bought his dream guitar (Silverburst LP Custom) and it cost a whopping 3K. I wonder if it'll be significantly cheaper to buy one now.

Tho judging by the Standard and SG prices mentioned probably not.

The front of my local guitar shop is full of discounted Gibsons at the moment. I don't think the prices have dropped enough yet to start shifting them though. The LP Jnr is most tempting tempting at Â£450, closely followed by the 50's Tribute LP at Â£500+. However with secondhand prices for these and the superior LP Studio/SG Special floating around the Â£3-400 mark they're a far more sensible purchase.

With the amount of new stock Gibson pushes on shops I don't now how they're supposed to manage this mess.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 8:59 am

ekwatts wrote:I've absolutely loved the recent spate of Gibson SGs and Les Pauls in the tribute series. The black rubbed finish Les Paul without binding, black witch-hat knobs and ceramic "Dirty Fingers" pickups really tempted me for ages. Proper guitars for proper guitarists. Then, yeah, they kept sticking those fucking robot tuners on some of the models too, because they're idiots.

Like this here:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/gibson_sgm_2014_vps.htm

I'm like, holy shit, a Gibson for under Â£500! Oh, robot tuners. Fuck my ass.

You can buy the version of this without all the stuff people don't like (robot tuners, 12th fret logo) from the shop floor for Â£20 more. They need to drop the price on these a bit more.

I have one of those LP tributes with the DF pups. Great guitar for downtuning. The pickups sound better if you turn em down a bit.

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:04 am

Thomas wrote:
ekwatts wrote:I've absolutely loved the recent spate of Gibson SGs and Les Pauls in the tribute series. The black rubbed finish Les Paul without binding, black witch-hat knobs and ceramic "Dirty Fingers" pickups really tempted me for ages. Proper guitars for proper guitarists. Then, yeah, they kept sticking those fucking robot tuners on some of the models too, because they're idiots.

Like this here:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/gibson_sgm_2014_vps.htm

I'm like, holy shit, a Gibson for under Â£500! Oh, robot tuners. Fuck my ass.
You can buy the version of this without all the stuff people don't like (robot tuners, 12th fret logo) from the shop floor for Â£20 more. They need to drop the price on these a bit more.

I have one of those LP tributes with the DF pups. Great guitar for downtuning. The pickups sound better if you turn em down a bit.

It became a regular occurrence going up to PMT to play the brown one they had in every weekend. Fucking blinding guitar, probably one of the single most fun guitars I'd ever played. I always wanted to give it a good down-tuning to C or something but never had the guts to try it in the shop. It did basically one thing but did it so fucking nicely.

Not really sure how I ended up not having one, to be honest. What colour is the one you have in the shop?

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:19 am

I saw it in Guitar Guitar yesterday for Â£499 (and they're usually the most expensive shop). It was the standard brown one.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:20 am

They crop up often on the FB guitar selling groups. Usually around Â£3-350. BTW I was talking about the SG you linked to on Thomannnnn. Not the LP version.

Post by **Doog** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:42 am

I'd totally use the robot tuners.. but I'm guessing there's zero 'override' option?

Kinda wanna try them out, would make Casa Bonita-ing a lot easier..

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:53 am

Yeah the Gibson G-force (i shit you not) can be used manually too.

It's crazy that they were putting these on sub Â£500 guitars, they cost about Â£220 on their own. I know a dude on FB that's selling a set if you'd like me to put you in touch with him? I think he had em listed at Â£120...

He may be open to trading them for something.

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 11:03 am

My only concern with this robot stuff is spares 20+ years down the line. You know, when I'm 84 and can't bake my own silicon chips or store a 4x12 in my sheltered housing. And I'm so deaf and my hands so arthritic I can't tune it myself.

NickD · Post by **NickD** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 11:22 am

Thomas wrote:I feel bad for people who shelled out big money for a Gibbo recently. An acquaintance of mine recently bought his dream guitar (Silverburst LP Custom) and it cost a whopping 3K. I wonder if it'll be significantly cheaper to buy one now.

I don't think custom shop stuff is dropping in price TBH. The 2015 custom shop range was so expensive, almost no shops took any stock and the 2014 stock is almost all gone now. They didn't fuck them up as badly as the main 2015 range either, no robot tuners and no change in the neck profiles.

71Smallbox · Post by **71Smallbox** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 1:12 pm

If I were really looking for a Gibson, I would buy secondhand. You can pick up a better made, better spec instrument for far less. Even if you take the robot tuners off, you still have super cheap prefab PCB under the hood of these new Gibsons.

singlepup · Post by **singlepup** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 5:00 pm

I was at Los Angeles International Airport a few weeks ago with my Jag-Stang in a gig bag, neck off.

A young guy (about 20) comes up to me and says, "looks like you got half a guitar there??"

I respond, "no it's a full guitar but in 2 pieces. I took the neck off so I could carry it on the plane."

He says, "neck off? How did you take the neck off? What about the electronics?"

I reply, "you mean 'robo-tuners' ? This guitar doesn't have any robo-tuners..."

To which he asks, "well then how do you tune it?"

Made more sense when I found out he was a drummer. Not much more, though.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 5:19 pm

71Smallbox wrote:If I were really looking for a Gibson, I would buy secondhand. You can pick up a better made, better spec instrument for far less. Even if you take the robot tuners off, you still have super cheap prefab PCB under the hood of these new Gibsons.

I thought they'd ditched the PCB innards too. One of mine has it (the 70s tribute) I was originally intending to rip it out but it's not caused any issues so I've left it alone for now.

71Smallbox · Post by **71Smallbox** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 5:35 pm

Thomas wrote:
71Smallbox wrote:If I were really looking for a Gibson, I would buy secondhand. You can pick up a better made, better spec instrument for far less. Even if you take the robot tuners off, you still have super cheap prefab PCB under the hood of these new Gibsons.
I thought they'd ditched the PCB innards too. One of mine has it (the 70s tribute) I was originally intending to rip it out but it's not caused any issues so I've left it alone for now.

Maybe that ended on the 2014 models? dunno, but people were severly pissed when they went to do pickup upgrades and saw that shit.