I agree that Gibson guitars are likely to live on. I think most of their problems arise from having tried to become a monster.
I agree a lot with that, it really does remind me of General Motors of the 70s and 80s. I think it's driven by greedy investors and bankers and corporate mentality, once a company successfully starts turning out well loved reasonably high quality product, you get bankers and investors trying to teach you how to turn the crank shaft higher and faster (more product more money) and go into parallel divisions and replicate a second moneymaking scheme. all of a sudden you find you got away from the product that made you successful.
Like having to order parts from General Motors to fix my Frigidaire dishwasher in the 80s. I'm saying to myself geez, so the people that make Corvettes are now making dishwashers and refrigerators???,
I just looked it up, Gibson is now 13 different divisions. so making guitars is just a tiny part of their company. certainly one CEO cannot possibly influence each division to be successful.
just like General Motors failed after they took over 27 different companies, then they had to divest everything, started over to focus on the products that were good at, don't get greedy , just be a good corporate citizen supplies jobs, and high quality products to the world, while the investors make a healthy profit,,, but greed seems to creep back into these large successful organizations.
and I really do believe back in 2015 they (Gibson) started to get it, I for one have been buying Les Paul's and SG's here and there every few years, hoping to find one that had that magic mojo, and they were close. but they all had minor issues and they just wandered out of the stable got sold.
I think in 2015 they tried to do too many things at once, but they are at the root of innovation of guitars, since the 50s and 60s, so that's what they said we are going to innovate,(remember McCarty)
I for one think the robot tuners are such a forward thinking innovative concept, it's just that its at the beginning stages of being technologically invisible to the user, it reminds me of the first cell phones everybody said their stupid and there too big and their clumsy and they don't have enough power, and there's problem after problem. but having the vision to continue developing in the face of all the complainers takes heart. I do actually think they'll get there or close eventually, transparent little micro motors that can't be seen or heard in your guitar, and your string never goes out of tune, I understand the vision. each execution and each iteration truly has been getting better.
and I also don't understand all the complainers, a nearly perfect replica of arguably one of the best sounding guitars on the planet can be had. do you want an iconic guitar that sounds and plays identical to the guitar on thousands of hit records, you can go buy it. but you can't demand that they stop making guitars that might improve on that guitar. "don't you dare try to improve the guitar", you should make R9's and R9's only. today's Corvette has elevated the driving experience to a joyful level versus a 69 Corvette, while still maintaining the spirit.
so in 2016 I bought the Les Paul high-performance, the tone and playability the innovative zero fret, the 20 different tones, 4 push pull pots, the Axcess neck, the weight relieved chambered mahogany, all the pieces of innovation I was looking for for the last 10 years, the tone is incredible, the guitar is simply one of the best guitars I've ever played. I'm sort of neutral on the robot tuners, only because it's not perfect 100% of the time, I occasionally have to tune it manually, but they are very impressive and fun. so when I hear people telling them to go make R9's only, it just doesn't make any sense, I guess the last bullet point is people wish they could buy these fantastic American-made guitars for $1000 but it's just not going to happen ever again. but they will complain about it for 1000 hours.
I also believe the market has evolved the Gibson CEO has it right the guitar market has become extremely complex and competitive, the younger generation is actually picking up acoustic guitars instead of electrics. total guitars of all kind sales have been about the same for the last eight or nine years. but the average price due to the good quality Asian guitars, puts pressure on the American-made guitars, Fender and Gibson can no longer make large profits anyway. I saw another article saying there are now 260 different manufacturers of electric guitar. the massive dilution of the market, and his other point about Amazon.com dominating the way we purchase everything. Paul S, has said it himself it's a saturated market, the industry is pumping ~2 million guitars per year into the market for the last 15 years, and seeing how guitars seem to last 30 or 40 years, approximately 100,000,000 guitars for 20,000,000 players.
companies are now relying on guitar players to each own 10 to 20 guitars a piece. which most of you do.
Sales of guitars in the U.S. guitar market increased steadily from 2005, with a peak of 2,341,551 guitars sold in 2011. Since 2011, guitar sales stayed at approximately the same level through 2013. However, between 2005 and 2011, the average value of each guitar sold has fluctuated from $590 in 2005, with a low of $529 in 2010, which further declined to $353 in 2013.
my conclusion is I don't think Gibson is doing all that much wrong in guitar manufacturing, (the other 13 divisions are losing the money) they have equal sales to fender and PRS, they have high interest in their iconic guitars, they are trying to offer innovative guitars, as well as the classic. I do think we all agree they had a period of time where quality control went in the toilet, and they have tried to turn it around in the last 4-5 years, at least started heading in the right direction, the 2016 G product I have is nearly flawless, only slightly lower in quality, to my amazing stunning 594 PRS, all they need to do is stop trying to be General Motors. go back to a core business concept, instead of a corporate takeover debt acquisition leveraged buyout business. which they are not good at. check out how many companies they are, crazy how many money losing brands they own.
http://archive.gibson.com/Press/press_divisions.asp
it's a trap that PRS could fall into as well, investors start convincing him to diversify, you should start making computers and microphones Paul.
wow that turned out to be a lot of words. apologies.