Fender and Gibson, the cost is it worth it...Discuss amongst the group.

[Tweaky]

I've never liked flat necks on anything other than a Classical guitar.....I still have a Love / Hate relationship with my Gibson 78 ES-347

Those Ibanez, ultra thin necked things that people like VIA & Satriani use just leave me cold.

I made the mistake of buying a replacement Strat neck from a Chinese based Ebay seller..it was cheap.
When it arrived it seemed good enough, I ended up having to make a ultra thin neck shim to get the reliref correct, but no big problem.
That's until I started playing it....I hated it, the fingerboard radius was measured at 14"...which is basically flat, and the same as my Gibson Hummingbird...OK on the Acoustic, but just felt SO wrong on the Frankienstrat.
So I bought another Jap made Vintage 7 1/2" Radius neck.... from ACE Guitars in VIC [not easy to source a 7 1/2" radius neck -try it]
http://www.aceguitarparts.aceguitars.com.au/

A LOT BETTER Guitar now

[Simon Barden]

The Ibanez speed neck shape has changed over the years. They were pretty extreme to start with. The one on my '08 RG is a bit thinner (front to back) than I'm used to, but makes up for it with thicker shoulders. Probably my least comfortable neck is the one on my Warmoth parts Tele. It's got their 12"-18" compound radius, but it just feels awkward and despite the flatter radius on the higher frets, I still can't get a decent low action on it. I'm going to have to get the fret file out as it must have some high frets; but with stainless frets, it's going to be hard work. Or I might just buy another neck for it. Or I may just get rid of it. I really don't like the colour and the neck leaves me cold. So to keep it I'd have to refinish it and either do work on the neck or swap it out.

[Raz]

I owned 1 Gibson since I started playing some years back. Was a Faded Explorer (thus rather budget-ish model). Personally? It was a great guitar. However so was the Dean "Angel of Deth" I owned. Or the Jackson Demmelition. Some of my favorite guitars I've ever owned were Made in Korea.
I'd almost equate it to a placebo effect. Tell someone they're playing a $2,000+ (USD) piece of equipment, they might be more impressed with it JUST because they believe it.
There's confirmation bias as well. Most people hear "Made in China" and expect garbage. Hand someone a guitar with that stamped on the headstock (even if it's a fake stamp and the guitar is really MiK or MiJ), and they're going to subconsciously find faults because of said bias. Same in respect to a Made in the US Gibby or Fender, just the other side of the coin. It won't be the guitar being poorly constructed, it'll be the fault of weather while being shipped, poor setup by an underpaid lazy employee, etc.

The name has notoriety, power, and it sells. I won't say that people shouldn't, because that's up to them. However, for me, 2-3k USD is way too far out of my price range, and I'm not that great a musician, for it to be considered necessary. Fun idea? Hell yeah. Practical? No. Not for me.

[Simon Barden]

There's certainly no need to move to a premium brand like there once was to get a good playable instrument. A friend of mine was commenting the other day that an awful lot of up-and-coming, or even reasonably famous new bands were playing with their own non-premium instruments, and road-reliable but maybe not the most tonefull amps, where as a few years ago, they would have had endorsement deals with the major manufacturers and been touring with top flight kit. It's more a sign of the greatly reduced amount of money in the industry than anything else, but it also shows people that you don't have to use the premium brands if you don't want to.

[wazkelly]

Just need a signal good enough for the front of house guys to work with as most on stage sound is only for your own benefit.

That being said, it is an absolute blast playing some good axes through a high end amp but with all the budget priced gear with amp simulation available for less than $500 your money is better spent on finding an axe that plays & feels well foremost and secondly sounds good too however downstream signal processors can also help compensate budget priced guitars to some extent.

[Zandit75]

I'm going to wade into this discussion with only reading a portion of it unfortunately.
My comments are not based on anyone else's comments, just purely my observation over the weekend from visiting a prominent music store in Melbourne.
The window was filled with numerous guitars, most LP's from Gibson and Epiphone. I must say I was very disappointed with the look of these guitars, one of which was over $4k!!
I'll admit, I didn't touch any of them, and didn't ask for a closer look, but compared to the quality builds I have seen here, this super expensive Gibson looked ugly! The knobs on the tuning machines looked like cheap plastic, and the burst(Red/Yellow/White I think) looked tacky, and cheaply finished off.
Looking through the rest of the store I didn't find a single standout guitar that grabbed me visually enough that I wanted a closer look.
I''m wondering where the price tag comes from.

[Simon Barden]

Had an interesting conversation in a music shop today. Apparently Gibson are in a very shaky financial state. The music shop has just stopped being a Gibson dealer because they could no longer ask Gibson for what they wanted to sell - they had to take what they were given. Previously to be able to get the guitars they wanted to sell, they had to take £35k/A$57k per month of Gibson products (and obviously sell them at a higher price). This is just one shop, not a chain. So rather than simply take what Gibson gave them - what Gibson thought they should sell rather than what they knew they could sell - they've dropped Gibson altogether.

Apart from some poor management of guitar designs (feedback on their new products from NAMM seem to be rather negative by all accounts), the company had been and still is involved in a large number of acquisitions of other companies, often just to simply close them down shortly afterwards and loose vast sums of money in the process. Whilst some of these companies were guitar related, most haven't been, and the general reaction of the people working for the taken-over companies has been to leave and take their expertise with them, making them unviable businesses.

[corsair]

There's certainly no need to move to a premium brand like there once was to get a good playable instrument.

Couldn't agree more. I traded a Fender Telecaster - which had been extensively 'modified' - on a new Vantage VA900 in 1980 and never looked at another guitar until the late 2000s, when I became more aware of the Matsumoku factory offerings of the 80s and started a small collection. That Japanese Vantage was played without backup for over 20 years in all kinds of venues and apart from having the frets dressed 4 times - they are now as low as a snakes navel - has never had any work done. The gold plated trim is as tatty as all hell, particularly the volume knob, because of years of blood, swear and tears but it still plays like a peach!
However, the comments from unenlightened band members and audience members alike was always - without exception - negative because it wasn't a Fender or a Gibson; there seemed to be some rock'n'roll pact which said you had to play a strat/LP/Tele if you wanted to be a rock god!!
Tell me guitarists are forward thinking and clear headed about kit, and I'll disagree with you! :-)

[ILRGuitars]

I bought my '71 Les Paul Recording back in 1985 for $600. It has never failed me. It has some body wear that was there when I bought it but it always sound great, stays in tune and only recently had the bridge replaced due to wear. But of course, back in those days, Gibson quality was everything. Les was involved with design and development. American made meant something. I've never owned a Fender so I can't compare but if I could find a vintage Gibson for $600 again, I'd jump on it!
If, as Simon stated, Gibson have gone down the corporate road and forgotten about quality and what made them great, then of course they will fail. Hopefully they will wake before it's too late..or..maybe not and my LP will keep going up in value. Fingers crossed!!
Funny though, my favourite guitars now are my PBG Tele and my apprentice piece first build Tele (I call it "Keith", ugly as hell but geez it can rock!). Made with hard work to my specs and I just love to tone and feel of both of them.

[JB RETRO]

Had an interesting conversation in a music shop today. Apparently Gibson are in a very shaky financial state. The music shop has just stopped being a Gibson dealer because they could no longer ask Gibson for what they wanted to sell - they had to take what they were given. Previously to be able to get the guitars they wanted to sell, they had to take £35k/A$57k per month of Gibson products (and obviously sell them at a higher price). This is just one shop, not a chain. So rather than simply take what Gibson gave them - what Gibson thought they should sell rather than what they knew they could sell - they've dropped Gibson altogether.

Apart from some poor management of guitar designs (feedback on their new products from NAMM seem to be rather negative by all accounts), the company had been and still is involved in a large number of acquisitions of other companies, often just to simply close them down shortly afterwards and loose vast sums of money in the process. Whilst some of these companies were guitar related, most haven't been, and the general reaction of the people working for the taken-over companies has been to leave and take their expertise with them, making them unviable businesses.

Gees Simon that sounds so very similar to selling push bikes. A lot of bike shops here had to buy a certain amount of pushies to sell what they wanted. Couldn't just order what you wanted. The corporate bottom line!.