Scott is concerned that guitar manufacturers are becoming conglomerates and that this is harming the guitars they make. I don’t think it matters one jot. The guitars made by a company, any company, should be judged on their own merit, not on which factory they were built in and where that factory is located.
Besides, Gibson has owned Epiphone for 50 years, and as far as I can see only good has come of it. Not only does Epiphone continue to make some of the finest original guitars, banjos, and mandolins around, it makes the best Gibson copies in the business.
I’m sorry but in my opinion this does matter. Good coming of it or not, ownership changes are made for a reason, and in the controlling parties interests. In this case, the controlling parties interests are to use epiphone as a budget brand and NOT to continue using Epiphone as a guitar brand in its own right. Compare this with the way ownership change has affected Steinberger and Jackson, among others, and you can plainly see that the images of those companies are still very much of the boutique high end builder. As opposed to Epiphone, who very much are promoted as ‘Gibson lite’
The quality of the product aside, those are not changes conducive to keeping epiphone in the high end or innovation race. This ensure epiphone will only continue to innovate after other companies. And when you’re tied to a company who wouldn’t know real innovation if it slapped them in the face, thats not a good thing.
You have a point, but in the case of Epiphone and Gibson, good came of it for both parties. Epiphone was being very badly run and wouldn’t have survived very long had it not been bought.
And while Epiphone does produce budget versions of Gibson models, obviously, it also continues to produce original guitars, banjos, and mandolins.
The introduction of Epiphone’s Elite range doesn’t fit with the ‘budget Gibson’ model. Perhaps Gibson is repositioning Epiphone as a brand in its own right again
As for Gibson not being innovative, I guess the Robot Guitar doesn’t count in you book?.
Actually no it doesn’t. THat particular idea has been around for a very long time in various forms. For me, innovative is embracing new technologies, developing your own, and constantly changing and redefining your productbase. A good example would be Ibanez, who design their own bridges, pickups, body shapes, neck joints, finish options galore, endorse the use of sustainers, peizo double locking bridge systems, ball bearing AND fulcrum pivot bridge designs, pioneered the idea of digitally modelling a neck profile, offer a level of quality surpassing that of gibsons in my eyes, through their J custom models…
In short, everything gibson do NOT do. Gibson have yet to embrace the locking trem, nor the tonepros bridge which improves on their much loved TOM design. They made a reactionary statement to Kahler bridges by making a shoddy copy that many gibson aficionados have never even seen due the their erasing of it from history. And their attempts at incorporating a FR onto a TOM mount were laughable at best.
And please don’t bring up that horrible ‘Magic’ midi guitar monstrosity they were promoting prior to this robot baloney. Even fender are more innovative, at least they know of the existence of modelling technology!
I agree with you about the Robot, it was a throw away line. However, I disagree with your interpretation of innovative. The word means commercially exploiting new ideas, not necessarily inventing or coming up with the ideas in the first place.
Look at Apple. Most people would describe it as the most innovative computer company there is and one of the most innovative companies in the world. Yet it has invented very little and uses other company’s parts in its kit. Saying Gibson isn’t innovative cos it uses bought in parts is like saying Apple isn’t innovative because it uses Intel processors and ATI graphics cards.
That said, it does appear more concerned with re-issuing signature versions and classics than moving forward in the innovation stakes.
I don’t really agre with that. Innovation is creating something new, not exploiting something new. Thats business, which is very different.
Oh, and I’m very anti-apple, for the same reasons I’m anti gibson. They offer very very little choice and there are many ways to do the same things far better. They get by almost solely on their reputation.
“in·no·va·tion
Pronunciation:
\?i-n?-?v?-sh?n\
Function:
noun
Date:
15th century
1 : the introduction of something new”
Fom Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
The key word is introduction, as opposed to creation. Creating something new is invention. Introducing it is innovation. As all guitar companies are businesses, introducing means selling, ie commercially exploiting.
And you’re oh so wrong about Apple. Its reputation was dirt a decade ago. The iMac and iPod, and now the iPhone have changed that. Apple doesn’t invent, it innovates. It takes existing technologies and puts them together in a way that no one else has. As a result its products are easier and more pleasurable to use than competing products.
You’re right about offering little choice. But that’s the point. There’s the Apple way, which tends to be easier, more fun, and more productive than the alternative which is usually cheaper, more versatile, more infuriating, and less secure.
But to say that Apple gets by on its reputation is, frankly, nonsense.
This is clearly going to turn into a very ugly argument, judging by the differences in our opinions on apple alone. I will leave it at this and remind you that I hold my opinions for many and varied reasons, being not only a guitar player but also a degree student of music and computer hobbyist.
It’ll only turn ugly if we let it, so far it’s perfectly civilised. You’re perfectly entitled to your opinions, as I am mine. However, they hold no more weight than anyone elses just because you have a music degree and play with computers. Nor do mine just because I have a business and marketing degree, have played guitar for 20 years, and written about Apple and its products for a Mac magazine for a decade.