The Last Bass Outpost

I'm not all right with parting out vintage gear, but nothing can be done about it.

The Stratosphere is different. Not vintage parts. As I understand it, it's just a guy, with his wife and maybe an assistant. He buys new dealer overstock and mint recent gear, AFAIK he's not authorized by Fender or Gibson.

I've used the Stratosphere once, bought a Squier Mustang neck for a Bronco project.  You just never used to see Fender shortscale necks on eBay.  It was worth the purchase IMO.

I know that a lot of basses share an element of design heritage with guitars (Firebird/Thunderbird etc.), but I've never felt the Les Paul Bass shape lends itself that well to a bass. 

I just hope they take someone on who  reads discussion groups like this one and try to engage with their customer base.  I'm a member of the UK Basschat (and a casual browser of Talkbass), it's a great thing when manufacturers chip in - Tech 21 regularly post to Basschat.

Thing is, until they actually listen to what people want, they're always going to fail eventually.  I know full well they have a business to run, but do they honestly need to flood an already saturated market with thousands of rebooted Les Paul models year in, year out?  Probably not.  I might actually be a good thing if they ceased production for a couple of years...it worked in the 1960s.

Ultimately (and I use the collective 'we' here, despite not currently owning a Gibson in any guise), what do we, as bassists, actually want from Gibson, because I have a significant wedge of money just burning a hole in my pocket.  In recent years, we've gone from a period where nobody wanted a Thunderbird to a point where every Tom, Dick and Harry is playing one (which was largely why I bailed and started buying Lulls).  In my gigging years I've never played with anyone (either as support or headliner) that's used any other Gibson model; not a single EB or SG-Bass variant.  Add to this that pretty much every bass other than their core range seems to have either been short lived or abject failure.

I'm surprised Mark wouldn't be more into Heather Mist.

Just assume a French accent and say, 'Heather Mist, aah, for the smell of it.'

...and for Christ's sake make the %^&$#*& thing in Pelham Blue and Inverness Green.

Now you've done it, see?  You post something on a forum and the bods at Gibson are just sitting there going, 'Aah, that Mark bloke, he suggested painting a Thunderbird in Pelham-something or Inverness-whatsitsname.  Oh no, that will never do.  No, no, no.  Get onto the team in the spray booths and tell them to destroy all the stocks.  We can't be giving people what they actually want, not when we can custom-shop it and charge three times more.'

As an aside, you may remember a couple of years back my foray with Thomann, Germany about trying to get them to coerce Gibson into doing a run of different coloured Thunderbirds; the colours banded around at the time were Sapphire Blue and Cardinal Red.  It didn't happen as I think there would only have been four buyers (me, Neeph, Mark and Uwe), BUT perhaps/maybe my efforts didn't go unnoticed as a cardinal red run did happen.

This is the first time I see a Cherry Sunburst Thunderbird made by Gibson.

...and the last hopefully.
 

It looks like the gold of the print oxidised a bit

Noooo, it has a Ned Steinberger signature.  Unsure whether this is normal.

Discord emerges between Gibson, creditors in bankruptcy proceedings

Phopto ten from the slideshow on this page nreaks my heart.  Two Juniors.  I mean, how difficult would it have been to just do a rear rout and make these models correct?