Bash the new Gibson Bass!!!

[Chaser001]

The fact that Gibson has come out with some short scale basses like this out of the blue is a very pleasant surprise for me.  As of now, I don't really know if I'll get the T-Bird or the LP Jr.  Some things have happened today which are making me lean toward the LP Jr DC.  It won't be anytime soon, but my next bass after that will definitely be some kind of Fender J bass.  Although I've never been a Fender person, some things have happened in the last two years which has caused me to change my mind, at least toward Jazz basses.  I still don't like P basses very much, though.  And a Fender would never be my main bass.  Right now, though, I'm thinking about how to get one of the new Gibson short scale basses sometime this year. 

[Dave W]

Gibson is just as much a parts bass as Fender, today it's all CNC and even in the old days of the 50s the hand cut tenon was the only thing keeping the necks from being interchangeable between Gibsons of the same model. You'd better believe the neck throughs are CNC cut too.

...and uses the same wood as any other production model, ...

Where did you get that idea? It's the same species, of course, but beyond that, both Gibson and Fender buy wood by the carload or boatload and then select wood by product line. The better the appearance grade, the wider the planks, etc., woods with the better qualities are assigned a higher raw cost and used for more expensive guitars. Paint grade woods, narrow planks etc. at the lowest end may be assigned a lower raw cost than what the wood actually cost.

As for the US Vintage 62 J, you get a fancy two pickup bass with appearance grade wood that's the same body style and specs as the original, for a couple hundred more (street) than the new Gibson, which is none of the above. I'd say Fender wins that comparison hands down, not that interested in owning either.

[Dave W]

Still, three new basses this season (five if the rumored Flying V bass and Explorer really show up) is exceptional considering that 12 months ago Gibson was rumored to be approaching Chapter 11. With their Firebird X experiment and three new basses for that laughably small minority of people who give a rat's mahogany ass about Gibson basses the company can't certainly be in the claws of its creditors anymore. Henry J. Had the nerve to see it through (whether the company was just overleveraged and fell into the post-Lehman rut of mnay "innocent manufacturers" that any credit just dried up or whether some or most of the Gibson money had indeed gone into the wrong financial instruments I don't know). You might not like Henry J. And he has his share of daft decisions, but he now has a track record of running and expanding a company for 25 years - that attests considerable more business acumen than Leo F. who was a great engineer and inventor, but a lousy business man (perhaps not entirely fair as Henry studied business and Leo did,'t).

After Gibson's last 2006 offensive of basses (SG, Studio TBs, Mon(k)ey basses and Continental V) only yielded one consistent seller with the SG, another bass offensive just 5 years later and fresh out of an economic downturn that had the company teetering on the brink of insolvency - plus a nasty flood and that wood investigation - ain't too bad in my book.

If I were you I wouldn't be too sure of anything concerning Gibson's finances.

Gibson's past bass sales failures are their own fault. Of the new basses, I see the oversized LP as the only possible success, and then only if they will get them into the hands of local dealers so people can play them first.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Gibson makes basses?   

That's the problem. Gibson doesn't have a large share of the modern bass market because they've never made a serious effort to have it. Warwick, as a brand, did not exist at all in the US 25 years ago, yet in that short time they've managed to position themselves as a lead market player in both the inexpensive (Korean/Indonesion/Chinese) price mark and the extreme upper end while making an array of basses that all sound pretty much the same. They did it with incredibly aggressive marketing and well-placed endorsements. That Gibson could not do the same is ridiculous. The new LP bass will flop even if it sells out its entire run simply because Gibson puts almost zero support behind any product that doesn't say "Les Paul" and have six strings.

The average player can't afford a Gibson bass anyway. Fender is smart with their market tiers, and the best values you'll find out of them are the midline Mexican produced basses, at least to my reckoning. I have over a dozen Fenders and out of those, only two are US made. My favorite 4-string players are my heavily modified and re-finned MIM 62 reissue and my Epiphone Les Paul with Fralin T-bird buckers. Why pay $1-3k for something that is sub-par to a $500 import? I'd love a cheaper version of the TB Studio or a longscale Triumph or a Ripper with a wierd pickup. None of those things would be hard to produce and should sell like crazy.

[eb2]

I guess it could be worse.  The guys at Alembic probably walk around muttering about how they used to matter.

I think the last thing Gibson got kind of right, in my opinion at least, was the SGZ bass.  I hated the Z inlays, but conceptually I dug that one a lot. 

[uwe]

But that thing sounded so weak in the bass department which is kind of self-defeating for a bass, don't you think, Jim?! It looked nice enough, but the sleek body and the fancy passive "Z-electronics" (geared, I guess, to mimic a single coil sound if need be, but failing bitterly) came at the price of totally de-ballsing the sound. George bequeathed his one-off mid nineties long scale SG  bass to me and that sounds fat, but it has a thicker neck (LP Standard size), a hugely thick body (to the detriment of the sleek SG look) and - you guessed it - TB Plus pups.

[Pilgrim]

The average player can't afford a Gibson bass anyway. Fender is smart with their market tiers, and the best values you'll find out of them are the midline Mexican produced basses, at least to my reckoning.
[snip]
Why pay $1-3k for something that is sub-par to a $500 import?

Agreed on all counts.  To me, new Gibsons are priced at the level of unobtanium.  Fender is smart enough to be pricing at a number of different levels, from entry to professional, and their instruments are easy to customize or upgrade.

I have a '63 P and a 2000 MIM J and they are fully comparable instruments.  The '63 is probably worth a couple thousand with its refin, and the J cost me $250 on Ebay without a scratch on it.

I don't know whether Gibson has simply decided that they need to maintain a price standard regardless of sales, or whether they really think that even basic instruments similar to this are worth it.  I don't see the value for the cost.

[dadagoboi]

A Squier P Bass isn't any beter than an SX IMO ( and I have 3 or 4 Squier basses with bad necks that are definitely worse) but it's close enough that buyers will choose the Squier because it's a 'Fender.'  Gibson screwed up by not stressing that 'an Epiphone is a Gibson' enough and not having a more logical price structure to move buyers up the ladder.  A long scale bass that was not a ThunderBird, LP or a reissue and appealed to younger players couldn't hurt either. 

[Barklessdog]

To me, new Gibsons are priced at the level of unobtanium.  Fender is smart enough to be pricing at a number of different levels, from entry to professional, and their instruments are easy to customize or upgrade

I thought Epi was the entry level Gibson?

[Basvarken]

The worn faded ones are Gibson's entry level.

[Pilgrim]

I thought Epi was the entry level Gibson?

Well, there you are!  I plumb forgot that. 

[Hornisse]

A Squier P Bass isn't any beter than an SX IMO 

Not all Squier basses are created equal.  The JV series Squier basses from the early 1980's are on par with the USA Reissues of that era.  (JV is on the left, VOO is on the right)

[Psycho Bass Guy]

A Squier P Bass isn't any beter than an SX IMO ( and I have 3 or 4 Squier basses with bad necks that are definitely worse) but it's close enough that buyers will choose the Squier because it's a 'Fender.'

In my (albeit limited) experience, the SX basses I've seen are superior to most Squiers, except possibly for the bridges, which seem a bit chintzy.  I never thought I'd like a short scale bass, but my SX has made me change my tune. The new Classic Series Squiers are superb instruments but the entry-level instruments below that are mostly garbage with horrible neck profiles and crap hardware. The MIM Roadworn basses are much better than most current US-made Fenders, and very nearly on par with their Custom Shop, no joke.

I was hopeful for Gibson when Epiphone came out with their Japanese-made Elite/Elitist series, but they didn't get much market penetration, probably because Gibson didn't like the idea of their own import line being better quality than even their custom instruments (as Fender's recent crackdown on Fender Japan echoed.) There is no reason they couldn't do a whole array of Elitist basses with selling prices that could cut into Fender's dominance. It would also be a good test market for experimentation. They need another pickup for basses besides the TB+. A little r&d into something more innovative wouldn't kill them. Carvin has four or five completely different bass pickups witout even counting piezos.

[Dave W]

All of these companies have different quality levels for different price points. SX/Agile/Douglas, different grades of Squier and Epi, different levels of Japaense Fenders (although the lower level MIJs are usually Japan only).

[uwe]

The Epi Elitists (all two bass models of them) were in Germany priced at a level below the expensive Gibsons but above the cheap Gibsons. As expected, there weren't many Epi buyers who wanted tp spend more money on an Epi than on a cheaper Gibson.

Gibson has a couple of basses that could compete perhaps not with MIM Fenders, but with the cheaper USA stuff. The TB Studios were among them as is the SG Faded series and the new Hobbird is below 1.000 bucks too. None have sold or are selling like hot cakes though which raises the question whether there is much of a market for 1.000 Dollar basses from Gibson. Certainly not in this forum, most of you guys prefer some vintage classic or some upmarket model you get for a good price, but you don't rush for the faded stuff (which are perfectly well-sounding and -looking instruments in my book). Even the chrome hardware of the TB Studios did not entice you ...  

I think there is a tendency with people - certainly guitarists - to buy the more expensive "real" Gibsons. In so far Henry J.'s "reassuringly expensive"-strategy has worked.