New Gibson Firebird! What's your opinion?

[Saiko]

Haha, Ace is looking at it as if he wants to say: "You called me here for this?"

Can't really say anything that has not already been said. I hope to wake up tomorrow to find this was all a dream. Well, gonna get my luddite ass out of the chair and back to the other room here and play my Les Paul. Wait, on second thought, I am gonna play my Fender Strat or the ESP Eclipse. I can't even look at a Gibson right now.

[SteveGangi]

Originally Posted by Saiko

Haha, Ace is looking at it as if he wants to say: "You called me here for this?".

Poor Ace. He looks as if someone just handed him a bag of shit. Oh wait.

[ltdave32]

If there was a Paris Hilton BFF guitar, this would be it.

Does it have texting?

[TommyB]

Originally Posted by HOT-BRIT

You have got to go to the original craftsmen who created the holly grail Les Paul's in the original factory in Kalamazoo and buy a traditional hand made guitar from Heritage Guitars and the biggest joke there custom made guitars are cheaper than the junk guitars that Gibson is turning out now!

Good point. I wonder what the K-Zoo Heritage folks think about all this?

[theMETALone]

....EPIC FAIL

[Danelectro]

The Firebird X has rendered my entire guitar collection obsolete. Its nothin' but a bunch of damn firewood now.

[JonMan94]

You mean all of this for that turd!!!!!


What the f----!!!!!!


D;<

[Sinmastah]

Thoughts on the Firebird "X" - Gibson Guitar Board

Feel free to post your feelings. Please be somewhat respectable, but give him your opinion. And tell him what you want Gibson to start doing.

Thanks

-Sin

[Standard Andrew]

Originally Posted by Sinmastah

Thoughts on the Firebird "X" - Gibson Guitar Board

Feel free to post your feelings. Please be somewhat respectable, but give him your opinion. And tell him what you want Gibson to start doing.

Thanks

-Sin

I thought the public were already telling Gibson what they want? They don't seem to be listening

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Saiko

Haha, Ace is looking at it as if he wants to say: "You called me here for this?".

[kernelofwisdom]

Originally Posted by Standard Andrew

I thought the public were already telling Gibson what they want? They don't seem to be listening

Yeah seriously I think the message is clear. It only remains as to whether there are enough suckers to buy the 1800 which could be an incentive for the big H to do something even worse, if that's possible.

[studio1087]

I went through the first 8 pages of posts and then jumped to the end. I don't know if anyone has posted the demo....

Firebird X Demo in NY

Firebird X Demo in NY

It makes me feel bad. Yikes Yikes Yikes.

Gibson just built the Line 6 Variax....



Line 6 Variax 700 Electric Guitar With Tremolo Features:

* Dozens of classic guitar sounds
* Simple, instantly familiar controls
* Carved ash top on mahogany (transparent finishes) or carved mahogany body (black)
* One-piece maple neck with rosewood fingerboard
* Rounded bar mother-of-pearl fretboard inlays
* Gotoh tuners
* Custom Baggs tremolo bridge
* 22 medium-profile frets
* 25-1/2" scale length
* 10" fingerboard radius
* Digital I/O jack for Vetta II connectivity
* Standard 1/4" analog out
* XLR balanced analog out
* Included A/B footswitch selects between outputs
* Volume and tone controls respond faithfully for each model
* Powered by footswitch, onboard batteries, or Vetta II
* Can be switched from the FVB foot controller
* Custom-fitted heavy-duty gig bag

I was at Les's public funeral in Milwaukee for crying out loud. He's buried 12 miles from my house. The Firebird X?

I'm gonna go hug my Les Paul & SG.

From the Les Paul exhibit at Discovery World in Milwaukee....this is an innovator...



I feel bad.

[Sinmastah]

Originally Posted by Standard Andrew

I thought the public were already telling Gibson what they want? They don't seem to be listening

Well lets do it again. This isn't a revolution from Gibson. If anything, it's an uprising from Gibson Customers.

The CEO of Fender must be laughing his ass off.

[chequepoint]

Originally Posted by AngryHatter

You guys don't think far enough ahead.
This is being made so the Zoot Suit will start to look good by comparison.

You should see the new zoot les pauls!

[05jrock]

Originally Posted by Amber Monroe

I just think it makes these just that much more appealing.

I'll take one of each please

[SteveGangi]

Originally Posted by Sinmastah

Thoughts on the Firebird "X" - Gibson Guitar Board

Feel free to post your feelings. Please be somewhat respectable, but give him your opinion. And tell him what you want Gibson to start doing.

Thanks

-Sin

Already told Henry what I think, and I didn't use any bad words (for a change).

[chequepoint]

Originally Posted by Tuxedo Kaz

Henry J. is finished. The man's not teflon. It's sounded a death knell...and Gibson's board will decide if it's the Company and Brand, or that fuddy-duddy grandpa, as someone put it.

Henry is the Majority shareholder.. the board are his buddies. The other shareholders are his buddies.

The only ones with the power to remove henry are the banks, and while they're trying.. he has to relinquish it before the ship goes down.. but he's perfectly allowed to take the ship down if he wants it.

[SludgeBurns]

I wonder how well Henry could sell this crap if he put his own name on the headstock? Too bad he knows he needs the Gibson name to push his terrible ideas. All he's really doing is tarnishing a good thing.

[Sinmastah]

Originally Posted by SteveGangi

Already told Henry what I think, and I didn't use any bad words (for a change).

I just request everyone is respectful, so he doesn't see a bunch of people just swearing the entire time.

Also, that demo sounded nice, but I can replicate the same thing with a few pedals. I don't need a guitar that costs 5x more than my car.

[dynabite]

A three screw TRC ?

[JonMan94]

i tihnk gibson had offically lost their way... Fuk a classic les paul at the momment, id take a strat or a ESP right now....

[TommyB]

Hey, check this out...the thing doesn't sound bad at all...

YouTube - New Firebird test 1

YouTube - New Firebird test 1

This guy is pretty good (watch the whole vid) and he obviously knows how to tweak all those effects on the fly.

[HOT-BRIT]

Originally Posted by Danelectro

The Firebird X has rendered my entire guitar collection obsolete. Its nothing' but a bunch of damn firewood now.

I think its ok to keep our old Gibson's but we wont be buying the new PCB board Les Paul's, from a factory production line, from a company that is only interested in reducing production costs and maximizing profit margin!
if we need a new guitar then we will have to go to the original craftsmen who created the holly grail Les Paul's in the original factory in Kalamazoo and buy a traditional hand made guitar from Heritage Guitars and the biggest joke there custom made guitars are cheaper than the junk guitars that Gibson is turning out now!
I believe it is Heritage Guitars time now! lets support traditional USA craftsmanship, lets keep jobs in the USA! they will hand Build the guitar to your specs, you can even supply your own pickups and hardware, they do any thing they can to make there customers happy. There guitars play and sound great! I have 2 all ready and they are excellent value for money.

[Laservampire]

"It's a Jump-To-Conclusions mat!"

[Feeling Supersonic]

Look away! Now.

[chequepoint]

Originally Posted by tmb1958

bravo! well said

the funny thing is everything about that guitar from design to how it was presented was tested on focus groups, who are gibson talking to to get responses that made them think any of this travesty was a good idea.

of course i could be wrong and one day in the far future there will be a vintage fireturd x sub forum here on mlp with people arguing that the 2010 fireturd x is better that the 2060 fireturd x and the old plastic vs. new plastic.

I was there for some of the focus groups.. they only work if you listen.

There is a very sound philosophy that focus groups don't work when you are innovating. Apple has taken this philosophy when developing new products like the ipad, etc. because when you are defining a new market segment, the public doesn't always know what they want until they've had a chance to find use for it. The famous Henry Ford quote "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" is the argument for it that Henry J kept tossing around.

The only thing he was looking for in the focus groups were for people to validate his ego. He has surrounded himself with VP's and employees who are scared to do anything else.

I say all of this as someone who gets the robot technology, and would use it if I could count on it. I'm not a luddite. When Line 6 hands me something amazing like the M9, I gladly replaced half of my rig with it. I mixed my last record on a Euphonics desk, when I had access to a great SSL, Trident, and really anything I wanted here in town. If the tech works, and sounds great, I'm there. We switched our keyboard player over to Apple Mainstage and use it to run the whole set. I'm supposed to be getting one of those new Variax guitars shortly for a test drive and I can't wait.

The issue with this guitar is, it's a piece of shit. It's ugly, overly complicated, unreliable, unnecessary, etc. Henry is not a rockstar CEO, no matter how bad he wants to be. If he wanted to make this thing fly, he should have never set foot on stage, and brought out someone amazing like Reeves Gabrels to demonstrate and present the instrument, and show exactly how the tech can push musical boundaries.

[guitarfish]

Suddenly Ed Roman looks like a genius. And stock in the Dusk Tiger just went up.

Nice move introducing a $5K guitar in this economy!

Anyone still doubt the posts about Henry on glassdoor.com? I think he's completely lost it.

Wow. Just...wow.

[mtgguitar]

It's time to move back to Kalamazoo.

Heritage Guitar, Inc. of Kalamazoo - Guitar Models

[HOT-BRIT]

Originally Posted by mtgguitar

It's time to move back to Kalamazoo.

Heritage Guitar, Inc. of Kalamazoo - Guitar Models

I second that

[guitarfish]

Business schools everywhere will use Henry's presentation as an example to teach how NOT to do a product launch.

POLL: What sucked more?

A) The Firewood X
B) Henry's presentation

Ooo, tough one.