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Another noob question because I haven't had any experience with Gibson stuff--what are the main reasons Gibson catches a lot of hell on here?

From what I've parsed, they're more expensive when it comes to their standard stuff vs. Fender, they make some questionable choices for signature guitars (as in musicians), and they make Idiocracy guitars like the Thunderbird X.

Anything else?

Terrible neck design. Of which I've been a victim. They lack a volute at the headstock end of the neck and with a softer wood neck (mahogany) this makes them prone to snaps there. It really is a shame, they do produce some nice guitars but not ones that I would ever take on tour or on a plane for fear of £250 everytime the neck needs fixing (which in my case costed me more that the travel for some touring anyway).

Plus side - they sound lovely. And nothing sounds quite the same. Just fragile as fuck.

What Rhys said. Neck width is occasionally a complaint from me too... though sometimes their width is to their advantage.

For me the price to value ratio is just way off and is my main complaint with Gibsons. Yes, they can sound divine, but, you can find guitars that sound just as good and play just as well (if not better) for much less.

Don't forget flame maple all over the goddamn place! That shit is tacky

all look same

Well. om a website dedicated to mainly Fender short scale guitars it just to be expected a bit.

Mainly as mentioned...

Over priced
Easy to break (and expensive to fix, not including the loss in value if you have to have them repaired...unlike if you swap a strat or tele neck)
Better options for the money

Also, you can take a singel coil guitar, good pups and amp, and get 95% of the way to a gibson sound. Def close enough for live though maybe not recording. There is nothign you can do to get the chimey clean tone of a fender guitar out of a Gibson. The humbuckers just can not do it and sound good at it. So, if you are into nice bight clean tones, a Gibson can not come near as close to a fender tone.

Fender style guitar=

cheaper in general (even more so when you add in CV's etc)
Less likely to break
cheaper/easier to fix if they do
better quality for the money
more versatile

Most of the hate is totally misguided IMO. Gibson has plenty of affordable Made in the USA models.

ALso when you compare them to equivalent Fender models they are the same price if not less.

- Way overpriced.
- R&D department that rivals Fender for failing to come up with anything worthwhile. Though whereas Fender are uninspiring in their lack of creativity Gibson at least seem to try new things even if they don't make any sense.
- Incredibly inconsistent quality even among the 'vintage' guitars. The attention to details varies wildly. Rough fret edges abound.
- Their budget line sells itself on the brand name alone, there really isn't much quality in anything of their lower end. People seem to think a $500 Gibson is cheap but it's about $250 overpriced when you compare the quality to other guitars in that price range.

There's no doubt that they make some fantastic guitars from time to time. There are also probably some fairly reliable years and models as far as quality goes but I've no idea where the good stuff is.

A good Gibson is a great guitar, but the bad ones are horrendous for the money. With so many great copies available if I was looking for a high end Gibson style guitar I would look for a different brand name.

James wrote:A good Gibson is a great guitar, but the bad ones are horrendous for the money. With so many great copies available if I was looking for a high end Gibson style guitar I would look for a different brand name.

This sums it up for me.

My only other hang up is perhaps due to cost, a lot of Gibson players i have met are snobby. Not the companies fault i know but all the same.

Also to clarify, the hate threads/comments from me is basically lulz. They've made some unbeatable stuff, its undeniable.

My only real problem is the 12" raidus they love so much. My goth LP was an outstanding guitar... but you could land a jet on that neck.

ends said it all, I barely get on with the modern fender scale.
I also don't dig humbuckers. I'd hit the hell out of their p90 SG though.

I think it's kind of Gibson's 'classic furniture'-style craftsmanship, for want of a better phrase - more traditional brand, their guitar construction is more labour intensive (which, together with the fact they're 30% more expensive than their Fender counterparts makes quality control issues more keenly felt) versus Fender's jet age manufacturing process - more mass produced and utilitarian, more of a working guitar than something to be be treated like a classic instrument.

I like both: I play them very differently, which always strikes me (I dig in more on Fenders, and am more precise on Gibsons, although my Jazzmaster and Junior turn this on its head). If I had to choose, I'd choose Fender. But fuck you if you'd make me choose.

endsjustifymeans wrote:My only real problem is the 12" raidus they love so much. My goth LP was an outstanding guitar... but you could land a jet on that neck.

I think you're getting fretboard radius and fretboard width a bit confused: assuming both necks are the same width, there'd actually be (slightly) more fretboard real estate on the 7.25" neck.

Aye, that. Whichever measurement it is that makes the necks as wide and flat as a soccer pitch. Sorry.

It's the "width" that makes a neck feel wide. The radius makes it feel "radius-y" - you might like to think of this as "rounded" or "flat".

n00b.

No hate here but Gibsons have set necks and humbuckers and I'm pretty much into snappy Fenders at the moment. Also...

- Les Pauls weigh a ton
- SGs are neck heavy (I know a suede strap will cure that but it's still a fair criticism)
- Archtops are too big for me

I can get behind Juniors though.

Also, let it be known that I absolutely love how Gibsons look and SGs are one of the prettiest guitar designs ever.

benecol wrote:It's the "width" that makes a neck feel wide. The radius makes it feel "radius-y" - you might like to think of this as "rounded" or "flat".

n00b.

When my fingers heal I'm going to buy a ladder and choke slam you.

I thought the larger the radius the flatter the fingerboard and thus the wider the neck? As in my Mustang (7.25") has a slightly curved fretboard but is super thin, my Telecaster (9.5") has a slight flat freboard and is a bit wider, and my Les Paul (12") was flat as Kansas and 2 miles wide.

I really am a guitar n00b though, so I fully believe I was incorrect in that assumption.

I've always been a fender fan if you like, however some time ago i had the loan of a beat up, really rough looking gibson sg junior (mid '60's) which had a single dog ear p90.
It was and still is the most comfortable guitar i've ever played.

George wrote:- Some SGs are neck heavy

Fix'd

endsjustifymeans wrote:I thought the larger the radius the flatter the fingerboard and thus the wider the neck? As in my Mustang (7.25") has a slightly curved fretboard but is super thin, my Telecaster (9.5") has a slight flat freboard and is a bit wider, and my Les Paul (12") was flat as Kansas and 2 miles wide.

You're half right, in that the larger the radius, the flatter the fingerboard, but this has no bearing on the actual width of the neck - in Fender terms, you can get a 7.25" radius A neck (narrowest, like Rob's recent acquisition), B neck (like most Fenders) through to D neck (widest - although most of this extra width will be at the nut, since Fender neck pocket design means pretty much all necks are the same width at the neck pocket) - they'll all have the same radius, but will be different widths. To make things even more confusing, the same width neck (lets say a standard Fender B) with a lower radius (like you prefer) will actually have a (slightly) larger surface area than one with a higher radius.

Some Gibsons do have wide necks, mind - it's why I like them.

The reason I've historically preferred Fenders to Gibsons is that my mate Jon had a LP, I had a strat, he liked the JAMC, I liked the Pixies, etc etc.

endsjustifymeans wrote:

benecol wrote:It's the "width" that makes a neck feel wide. The radius makes it feel "radius-y" - you might like to think of this as "rounded" or "flat".

n00b.

When my fingers heal I'm going to buy a ladder and choke slam you.

I thought the larger the radius the flatter the fingerboard and thus the wider the neck? As in my Mustang (7.25") has a slightly curved fretboard but is super thin, my Telecaster (9.5") has a slight flat freboard and is a bit wider, and my Les Paul (12") was flat as Kansas and 2 miles wide.

I really am a guitar n00b though, so I fully believe I was incorrect in that assumption.

Gibson width is the killer. You can have thin (measure at the nut) 12" radius neck that will be piss easy to play -- most Ibanez RAWK machines for instance from the late '80s

Or you could have a wedge (wideass at the nut) of a 7.25" radius that would be a swine to play.

think we had a similar convo in one of Honeyiscool's threads recently


never owned a Gibson, but had an Epiphone SG once, SG-1 I think in black. Couldnt play it, too wide. swapped it for an amp.

benecol wrote:

George wrote:- Some SGs are neck heavy

Fix'd

endsjustifymeans wrote:I thought the larger the radius the flatter the fingerboard and thus the wider the neck? As in my Mustang (7.25") has a slightly curved fretboard but is super thin, my Telecaster (9.5") has a slight flat freboard and is a bit wider, and my Les Paul (12") was flat as Kansas and 2 miles wide.

You're half right, in that the larger the radius, the flatter the fingerboard, but this has no bearing on the actual width of the neck - in Fender terms, you can get a 7.25" radius A neck (narrowest, like Rob's recent acquisition), B neck (like most Fenders) through to D neck (widest - although most of this extra width will be at the nut, since Fender neck pocket design means pretty much all necks are the same width at the neck pocket) - they'll all have the same radius, but will be different widths. To make things even more confusing, the same width neck (lets say a standard Fender B) with a lower radius (like you prefer) will actually have a (slightly) larger surface area than one with a higher radius.

Some Gibsons do have wide necks, mind - it's why I like them.

The reason I've historically preferred Fenders to Gibsons is that my mate Jon had a LP, I had a strat, he liked the JAMC, I liked the Pixies, etc etc.

Got it... thus explaining my Jag... which has a Fender modern raidus (which I don't mind soooo much on my tele), but is as wide around as a baseball bat.

Thanks Dr. Benecol.

rps-10 wrote:
think we had a similar convo in one of Honeyiscool's threads recently

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