What are the most overhyped guitars?

[Thrashman]

Such as? Genuinely interested

The mass of the body and neck combined is just too light which means the tonal frequency center of the guitars clash with notes in the D/F area. i could find you a wolf tone on pretty much any chambered strandberg within 2 minutes and did this for fun at GuitarGuitar in the UK with all their models.

I wish I was lying to spite them, but... I'm just sharing actual experiences. I went through 4 strandbergs and reported & demonstrated the issue for Ola and his final solution was to blame it on me

 

[USMarine75]

i've played MII guitars that blow recent Gibsons out of the water in every way possible. y'all need to look past the stigma of imports and realize that MIA means very little in the way of guitars these days.

I've driven Toyotas that blow recent Ferraris out of the water in every way possible.

^ Equally useless statement.

 

[USMarine75]

I am not entirely sure I have witnessed any any overhyped reaction to Gibson. They have their passionate fans and certainly their detractors and you can complain about price but welcome to MADE IN AMERICA....as in more fucking expensive labor than Indonesia. You can't compare quality and price when one guitar is made where labor is like 20 cents to the dollar. Also, Gibson has a built in premium because of the fact they increase in value like almost no other guitar.

But there is not an over-reaction to the brand because they've been pumping out the same basic stuff for 60+ years and the only time anyone talks about them is when they fuck up and make a stupid authentic video or reinvent the tuner.

If you wanna talk overhyped then let's talk PRS...not an indictment of quality but the John Mayer sigs and other special tops and caps and what not make it the most overhyped brand in my book (I didn't say bad...over hyped)

Oh and fuck headless guitars

Exactly.

Gibson is Frank Sinatra. Timeless.

PRS is Liberace.

 

[j3ps3]

The mass of the body and neck combined is just too light which means the tonal frequency center of the guitars clash with notes in the D/F area. i could find you a wolf tone on pretty much any chambered strandberg within 2 minutes and did this for fun at GuitarGuitar in the UK with all their models.

I wish I was lying to spite them, but... I'm just sharing actual experiences. I went through 4 strandbergs and reported & demonstrated the issue for Ola and his final solution was to blame it on me

Wood is not a homogenous material, though, so the weight and the chambered construction have nothing to do with what you described.

 

[budda]

Has anyone said "custom built guitars" yet? I'm not re-reading 3 and a half pages .

 

[Thrashman]

Wood is not a homogenous material, though, so the weight and the chambered construction have nothing to do with what you described.

Maybe not, but it is a consistent issue across 20+ examples.

 

[mmr007]

Exactly.

Gibson is Frank Sinatra. Timeless.

PRS is Liberace.

I thought "lighten up Francis" couldn't be topped and then I get "PRS is Liberace" mic drop. Need to find out how to put that in my signature....

 

[michael_bolton]

Aristides crowd has a sizeable subset known for their propensity to order an instrument, be all psyched about it while it's getting built, get it in a few months and then sell it in a few months, typically keeping one or two older builds on hand. Imo this does not make Aristides "overhyped", they make awesome instruments with pretty much flawless builds. Don't think I've ever seen any complaints related to their build quality.

I love mine, it's a 6 string which I barely played in 2 years since I mostly play 7s now but if I do decide to thin the herd a bit at some point it'll probably be the last one to go.

 

[beerandbeards]

These threads are created to trigger me and all my guitars

I cant think of guitars as overhyped. There’s hype because a large portion of players find them of quality. Maybe I’m just lucky, but every guitar I’ve bought I’ve enjoyed regardless of brand. I can play Chuck Schuldiner riffs on a any guitar, but I really like my Majesty, Gibson LP and Fender Tele.

All that being said, any guitar with more than 6 strings in overhyped…

 

[xzacx]

Some very loud, very bad takes on Gibson in this thread. Would you pick up a banjo and be like... "huh, heavy, 4 strings, high action. Used prestige was better in all respects"?

Wake me up when an import is better than a Gibson _at things people use Gibsons for_. Like some import LP. Because epiphone isn't comparable. Hell, Navigator isn't as good. Even many PRS or Huber and instruments that are made phenomenally well are often not better at achieving those sounds.

Les Pauls have been used on countless records from every genre imaginable for roughly seven decades, and almost every guitar maker you can name has attempted their own version of what Gibson does. It would almost be hard to overhype something with THAT as its resume.

guitar players: “I want something that looks like an LP, sounds like an LP, and plays like an LP.”

also guitar players: “But not an LP because those suck.”

Not necessarily anyone in this thread but I’ve seen this scenario play out many times on forums over the years.

 

[mmr007]

ignoring the blatant assumptions and downright weird things you said in that post...

Blatant assumptions? Weird things? Such as?

I'm sorry but there have been countless posts on this forum website of people bitching and complaining that for the price they are paying their Ibanez should be made in Japan not Indonesia. Why should that matter? Based on the arguments now being used against Gibson supporters. Because it does. Where a guitar is made still matters to a lot of people for a perception of value and Gibson has (along with Fender USA) cornered a market for people who look at the historical significance of the instrument and the future resale or investment value. That is not overhyped.

Granted my perspective may be skewed because the only forum I belong to and visit is this one and it is not exactly full of Gibson fan bois...but even with my constant guitar related youtube viewing I don't see Gibson hype.

Everyone from Led Zeppelin to Metallica to AC/DC plays Gibson. That is not hype. That is real. Kirk Hammett has ESP...one of the most quality guitar makers on the planet giving him everything he wants and he still went to Gibson....did he buy into some Gibson hype machine or did he just really want what makes him happy...a les paul and a flying V just like his heroes such as Michael Schenker and Gary Moore?

 

[angl2k]

Must be blackmachine.. just a basic guitar with a polarizing headstock design and magical fairy tone at a magical price point

Also in terms of parts, definitely Hipshot. They make decent products but I'm not gonna swap all my parts to Hipshot for the sake of getting a Hipshot.

 

[AltecGreen]

I am not entirely sure I have witnessed any any overhyped reaction to Gibson. They have their passionate fans and certainly their detractors and you can complain about price but welcome to MADE IN AMERICA....as in more fucking expensive labor than Indonesia. You can't compare quality and price when one guitar is made where labor is like 20 cents to the dollar. Also, Gibson has a built in premium because of the fact they increase in value like almost no other guitar.

I can't completely buy that argument. There are lots of Japanese made Gibson-like guitars that beat Gibson at every price point. You can't say the cost of labor in Japan is much less than the US. Many of those Japanese guitars are better replicas of the vintage than what Gibson make themselves. Those new Gibson Korina guitars are a perfect example. Gibsons asking $20K for the limited version with Brazillian rosewood fretboard and $10K for the production version with Indian rosewood. Momose in Japan make production versions of the V. It's $2K for the Korina V with Indian rosewood and $4K for the version with Brazillian rosewood. I trust the Momose to have better QC than the Gibson.

 

[AltecGreen]

Some very loud, very bad takes on Gibson in this thread. Would you pick up a banjo and be like... "huh, heavy, 4 strings, high action. Used prestige was better in all respects"?

Wake me up when an import is better than a Gibson _at things people use Gibsons for_. Like some import LP. Because epiphone isn't comparable. Hell, Navigator isn't as good. Even many PRS or Huber and instruments that are made phenomenally well are often not better at achieving those sounds.

The question I have is something you are in the best position to answer. There's no secret sauce for making a Gibson guitars. They have been dissected and studied for years. In Japan, you have lots of domestic makers making very accurate versions of Gibson guitars. You find all of the magic Gibson buzz words like long tenon, horse hide glue, etc. So what makes Gibson better other than the name of the headstock. Besides Navigator, I'm looking at Crews, g7, Provision, etc.

 

[Adieu]

Horse hide?

Boycott Gibson save the ponies!!!

 

[wheresthefbomb]

Electric.

 

[narad]

The question I have is something you are in the best position to answer. There's no secret sauce for making a Gibson guitars. They have been dissected and studied for years. In Japan, you have lots of domestic makers making very accurate versions of Gibson guitars. You find all of the magic Gibson buzz words like long tenon, horse hide glue, etc. So what makes Gibson better other than the name of the headstock. Besides Navigator, I'm looking at Crews, g7, Provision, etc.

I'm honestly not sure.

An obvious guess is the pickups. I've played a Crews before with K&T PAF-styles, and while I didn't get to A/B it with anything and it was a while ago, I was super impressed. The guitar was nowhere near there craftsmanship / feel-wise, but the sound was basically there. But then you're talking about a 120,000Y set of pickups. In Navigators you're getting SDs, in Momose I think you're getting mainly proprietary things.

Another thing could be materials. This varies and there's a lot of things I'm not sure of, but if you look at the revisions Gibson makes to the historics each year for like 2013-2020, they're small changes in hardware and wiring that aren't immediately obvious. There's really no telling to me whether other builders trying to produce Gibson-style guitars are milling comparable ones. The wood stash could be another material issue. One obvious thing is that you'll almost never find a Japanese LP with a Gibson comparable top, and if you do, they're usually already 400,00-700,000Y. If you run the rack of Navigators or Crews or Momose, you find this really weak tops. When there's flames it's a more tight flame that's not really "the look" of the vintage LPs everything is striving for. So you know they're making some compromises somewhere in terms of sourcing the right materials. Which is why if I picked one of these up, it'd probably be a goldtop or black beauty -- the others just don't look authentic. Gibson has the advantage here -- big wood stores, and domestic maple.

Another thing is the sort of "broken in" stuff. My Navigators were all sort of like new production guitars. My R9 has a really broken in feel -- the neck lacquer feels great and the binding edges are all subtle angled in a way that just feels more at home.

So I think a Crews or Momose with a pickup swap isn't a bad option, but I hate to get a guitar and then start swapping the caps, and the bridge studs, and the saddles, etc. There are some really fanatical Japanese luthiers who go after LPs and are basically the Gil Yarons of the country, but their guitars actually cost more than most Gibson historics anyway. I haven't had the chance to play any of those -- I saw a Fullertone one before, but it was 900,000Y and the guy wouldn't let me try it.

That's just kind of a general answer, I forget what people are arguing about. I think it's hard to really make a solid argument when the variables all change across various price points. If you have $1500 to spend, I think the QC with Crews is better than the Gibsons in that bracket (and maybe a bit higher). But if you have $5k to spend, I wouldn't take any of them over a Gibson.

Regarding the cost of labor, it's true that country to country the basic stats don't seem so different, but they could be. The salaries and cost of living in Japan outside of the cities is super low. Gibson is in Nashville, which isn't so rural. It's not valid, but if we looked at average salaries at Nashville vs maybe Nagano, it's like 2x difference. I think probably the cost of labor makes a difference, but too many unknowns.

 

[AltecGreen]

I'm honestly not sure.

An obvious guess is the pickups. I've played a Crews before with K&T PAF-styles, and while I didn't get to A/B it with anything and it was a while ago, I was super impressed. The guitar was nowhere near there craftsmanship / feel-wise, but the sound was basically there. But then you're talking about a 120,000Y set of pickups. In Navigators you're getting SDs, in Momose I think you're getting mainly proprietary things.

Another thing could be materials. This varies and there's a lot of things I'm not sure of, but if you look at the revisions Gibson makes to the historics each year for like 2013-2020, they're small changes in hardware and wiring that aren't immediately obvious. There's really no telling to me whether other builders trying to produce Gibson-style guitars are milling comparable ones. The wood stash could be another material issue. One obvious thing is that you'll almost never find a Japanese LP with a Gibson comparable top, and if you do, they're usually already 400,00-700,000Y. If you run the rack of Navigators or Crews or Momose, you find this really weak tops. When there's flames it's a more tight flame that's not really "the look" of the vintage LPs everything is striving for. So you know they're making some compromises somewhere in terms of sourcing the right materials. Which is why if I picked one of these up, it'd probably be a goldtop or black beauty -- the others just don't look authentic. Gibson has the advantage here -- big wood stores, and domestic maple.

Another thing is the sort of "broken in" stuff. My Navigators were all sort of like new production guitars. My R9 has a really broken in feel -- the neck lacquer feels great and the binding edges are all subtle angled in a way that just feels more at home.

So I think a Crews or Momose with a pickup swap isn't a bad option, but I hate to get a guitar and then start swapping the caps, and the bridge studs, and the saddles, etc. There are some really fanatical Japanese luthiers who go after LPs and are basically the Gil Yarons of the country, but their guitars actually cost more than most Gibson historics anyway. I haven't had the chance to play any of those -- I saw a Fullertone one before, but it was 900,000Y and the guy wouldn't let me try it.

That's just kind of a general answer, I forget what people are arguing about. I think it's hard to really make a solid argument when the variables all change across various price points. If you have $1500 to spend, I think the QC with Crews is better than the Gibsons in that bracket (and maybe a bit higher). But if you have $5k to spend, I wouldn't take any of them over a Gibson.

Regarding the cost of labor, it's true that country to country the basic stats don't seem so different, but they could be. The salaries and cost of living in Japan outside of the cities is super low. Gibson is in Nashville, which isn't so rural. It's not valid, but if we looked at average salaries at Nashville vs maybe Nagano, it's like 2x difference. I think probably the cost of labor makes a difference, but too many unknowns.

That's a pretty good answer. I do find it funny that some of those Japanese builders are even more fanatical than Gibson and are priced at an equally obscene level. Those K+T pickups have an obscene price. I think Gibson have pretty strong economy of scale. It's when they price things like those Korina re-issues that make people's head scratch.

 

[John]

Has anyone said "custom built guitars" yet? I'm not re-reading 3 and a half pages .

I'll add to that in saying semi-customs belong here, too. Especially thanks to folks who keep trying to pass them off as fully custom guitars.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Has anyone said "custom built guitars" yet? I'm not re-reading 3 and a half pages .

Hey, how do you know someone has a custom guitar?

Don't worry, they'll let you know.