G&L in trouble...?

[Mediocre Polymath]

Weird coincidence. On the day that it was announced G&L were no more, a scrote in France stole all The Beths's touring gear, including the G&L Fallout that Liz Stokes has been playing since the band started. They're all playing Fenders for the rest of the tour, borrowed off their support act.

[Cato]

4 hours ago, ezbass said:

FMIC didn’t change the Gretsch brand, very different I know, but Charvel and Jackson still exist and they’re definitely Fender shaped objects.

 

When Fender bought Jackson/Charvel one of the first things they did was discontinue the Surfcaster line because they considered it direct competition for their own Jaguars andJazzmasters 

 

 Fender's other brands all cover different markets. Charvel for modern rock players, Jackson for the heavy stuff, Gretsch covers a lot of the same ground as Gibson , none of them are in direct competition with Fender.

 

I think the problem G&L may have is that, L Series aside, a lot of G&L models are based directly on Fender models and have been marketed as upgrades on those original designs for a long time.   I can't see Fender selling Fender clones (albeit upgraded ones) under a different brand. 

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Cato

[ezbass]

Here’s something we haven’t considered, Gibson take over G&L and then they have a competing brand to Fender. Given Gibson’e history with annexing other brands, maybe not a good thing.

[Russ]

2 minutes ago, ezbass said:

Here’s something we haven’t considered, Gibson take over G&L and then they have a competing brand to Fender. Given Gibson’e history with annexing other brands, maybe not a good thing.

Gibson seem to be on a bit of a path to redemption in that department. They're doing well with Mesa/Boogie, they've resurrected Tobias, and, by all accounts, the new instruments are excellent, and they have apparently addressed a lot of their QC issues recently. 

 

Having said that, I still can't see it happening. 

[visog]

Reports of workers laid off... rumours of a Fender buy out which would be ironic. Shame if true - lovely basses. Sign of the times I guess?

[Chris2112]

3 hours ago, Mediocre Polymath said:

Weird coincidence. On the day that it was announced G&L were no more, a scrote in France stole all The Beths's touring gear, including the G&L Fallout that Liz Stokes has been playing since the band started. They're all playing Fenders for the rest of the tour, borrowed off their support act.

 

 

It was probably Fender 😂

 

Very sad to hear this about G&L. I've always loved their instruments though the relative scarcity of them outside of America and Japan meant that I'd never ended up owning one. I do hope that Fender could buy them and keep them going as a sub-brand, out of respect for the company that Leo had built, but I don't think the shareholders will go for that. A lot of skilled workers will suffer in this. 

[gjones]

Double post

Edited 4 hours ago by gjones

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Russ said:

they have apparently addressed a lot of their QC issues recently. 

 

Secretly rebadging Epiphones perhaps?

[Russ]

32 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Secretly rebadging Epiphones perhaps?

Epiphones, despite having lower quality hardware, pickups, electronics, etc, were a lot more consistent than US Gibsons.

 

You got some great Gibsons, but a lot of bad ones. A friend of mine was after a new Les Paul and tried out at least 20 in order to find a good one. Supposedly they've got that under control now though. 

 

[Delberthot]

2 hours ago, ezbass said:

Here’s something we haven’t considered, Gibson take over G&L and then they have a competing brand to Fender. Given Gibson’e history with annexing other brands, maybe not a good thing.

 

Surely the first thing that Gibson would do would be to remove the upper horns from all of the guitars and basses that G&L make in order for the headstock to want to head to the floor as soon as you take your hand off the neck

Edited 2 hours ago by Delberthot

[Silky999]

I love my Tribute L2000. Really versatile and it has has the K mod so pickups can be split, series or parallel. I put a Japanese premium G and L neck on it so it now has a more jazz bass width instead of the chunky one it had before. I kept the original in case I ever want to put it back. 

[Mokl]

1 hour ago, Delberthot said:

 

Surely the first thing that Gibson would do would be to remove the upper horns from all of the guitars and basses that G&L make in order for the headstock to want to head to the floor as soon as you take your hand off the neck

ASAT bass already does that! I loved mine, apart from the dreadful neck dive which I ultimately couldn't live with. Amazing sounding bass that was. These days I'd keep it for recording/home use but didn't have the luxury back then

Edited 55 minutes ago by Mokl

[Delberthot]

I love the ASAT but never considered one due to the neck dive that something that shape will always have.

 

Which reminds me that when someone was mentioning famous users - Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith's name popped into my head and sure enough, here it is:

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, Russ said:

Epiphones, despite having lower quality hardware, pickups, electronics, etc, were a lot more consistent than US Gibsons.

 

You got some great Gibsons, but a lot of bad ones. A friend of mine was after a new Les Paul and tried out at least 20 in order to find a good one. Supposedly they've got that under control now though. 

 

 

My brother is a Gibson addict. He has had many and still has a '62 SG Junior and a LP Junior. He also delights in a few Epiphones (he loves his Firebird and Coronet), and prefers his  Eastwood LP jr to the Gibson. He also a Swuir Troublemaker. Build quality is great across all of them.