G3 Reissue

[Basvarken]

Wonder if the Midtown Bas had anything to do with the Midtown Guitar?

[uwe]

In a way: It is the bass version! 

[Basvarken]

I meant as in thinline, flat top, smaller lower bout etc 

[uwe]

Gibson being Gibson, I would expect the body to be exactly the same. It is supposed to be short scale. You know how they only vary body shapes for basses under duress!

[Wilbur88]

I wonder why they haven't gone with maple boards?

[uwe]

Not very Gibsonish, is it? I love a nice snappy maple board as much as the next man, but it's not really Gibson tradition. They regularly did it for budget basses (Grabber and G-3) and the budget versions of their other models (maple board blond RDs and Rippers). And with the advent of the Victory in the early eighties, they stopped doing maple boards for basses altogether. At least I'm not aware of a maple board Victory ever being made though that would have been quite a snappy affair too!

[Dave W]

Also, even the hardest rock maple is not near as stiff as most traditional fingerboard woods. Combined with a maple neck, it's usually stiff enough, but maple necks aren't a Gibson tradition either.

[the mojo hobo]

Other upcoming basses this year are T'Bird Non-reverse. Pelham Blue and VS.

If this is true I'm going to have to start selling stuff.

[patman]

IMHO the "Maple" years for Gibson were the best.  Only Gibson bass I ever owned was a Ripper.

[Dave W]

I meant as in thinline, flat top, smaller lower bout etc 

And Bigsby! 

[PhilT]

IMHO the "Maple" years for Gibson were the best.  Only Gibson bass I ever owned was a Ripper.

My natural maple neck / alder body Ripper sounds better to me than the later one with a maple body. The later one is black though, and looks cool. It's also 2lbs heavier.

[uwe]

IMHO the "Maple" years for Gibson were the best.  Only Gibson bass I ever owned was a Ripper.

I have nothing against the maple years and long made peace with Rippers/Grabbers/G-3s as well as RDs and Victories. But maple/alder or all-maple are wood combinations other firms such as Fender and Ric have rubberstamped for themselves. Mahagony construction was in contrast very much Gibson's own thing and it is what Henry J wanted when he bought the company.

That said, as the recent reissues of maple basses such as the Novoselic RD, the Ripper II, Grabber II and the G-3 II show, maple basses are no longer a dirty word even for the new era Gibson USA company. That was different in the noughties and nineties.

I never subscribed to the opinion that the Norlin era was crap. And I notice in guitar mags a reappreciation for the guitar models from that era (Marauder, Sonex, L-6 etc) too. Not so long ago anything by Gibson that wasn't an LP or, to a lesser extent, an SG was dismissed, yet this month's issue of "Gitarre and Bass" drools about what an excellent guitar the L-6 was. 10 years ago you couldn't have gotten arrested with one, now all of the sudden it is pivotal for Santana's more adventurous work, circa Love, Devotion, Surrender.

[Dave W]

You said it. Norlin made its share of design and marketing mistakes but the guitars and basses weren't crap. They just strayed too far from tradition to suit their traditional fan base. Never mind that their traditional fan base at that time wasn't generating enough in sales.

[patman]

I always thought they had too much ADD...models would come and go...

[uwe]

Yeah, but that is Gibson: Failure breeding creativity!