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 September 30 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 September 30 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 September 30 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 September 30 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.

[Stub Mandrel]

39 minutes ago, Delberthot said:

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:

 

If they had little points on the tuners they wouldlook different and by echoing the geadstock 'pip' they would brjng some unity to the design.

[Chienmortbb]

A tad more info here. 

 

[LeftyJ]

15 hours ago, Cato said:

 

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 

 

 

One of the first things they did was reinstate the Fender headstock on the Charvel guitars and the Phil Collen signature, which I think was a cool move because they had sent them the dreaded cease and desist letter over that earlier  . And the distribution through Fender's network saved a LOAD of costs too. I know because I had just bought a brand new Japanese-made Jackson DK2 guitar for €1039 and had to watch Fender drop the prices down to just €650 while adding genuine Seymour Duncans and black hardware to the model and retaining the factory in Japan when mine had Duncan Designed pickups 

Edited October 1 by LeftyJ

[BaggyMan]

G & L are the Saab of the guitar industry.  Maverick to a certain extent, quirky, historically significant a bit...I love 'em (i own a m2000 and a SB-2).  The MFD pcikups alone should have hailed as a classic design

 

Yet, always the stealth brand, with no big name endorsees, always a bit to far off the general path of things.  And we'll miss them when they are gone, or bought.

Aparently the tariffs have something to overload their costs...conjecture maybe, who can tell these days.

 

Those who knew...knew i guess, just not enough of us.

 

I also owned a Saab..lol

[Russ]

19 hours ago, BaggyMan said:

G & L are the Saab of the guitar industry.  Maverick to a certain extent, quirky, historically significant a bit...I love 'em (i own a m2000 and a SB-2).  The MFD pcikups alone should have hailed as a classic design

 

Yet, always the stealth brand, with no big name endorsees, always a bit to far off the general path of things.  And we'll miss them when they are gone, or bought.

Aparently the tariffs have something to overload their costs...conjecture maybe, who can tell these days.

 

Those who knew...knew i guess, just not enough of us.

 

I also owned a Saab..lol

The only "name" players I can think of who played G&Ls are Jerry Cantrell, Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith and Cass from Skunk Anansie. I'm sure there's been plenty of others, but those are the only major ones that come to mind. 

 

Cantrell now has something going on with Gibson/Epiphone and they've worked with him on a signature Les Paul and an acoustic, Tom Hamilton plays all sorts of different basses and always has done, and Cass uses Alusonic basses now, so they've all moved on. 

 

I also owned a Saab.  Still got my eye out for a nice 2012 9-5! 

 

Edited October 2 by Russ
Typo

[Bass Direct]

R.I.P G&L, sad times indeed!

 

[BaggyMan]

Dammit getting all nostalgic and bought a Tribute sunburst Jazz...

 

And the video that did it for me...

 

 

[ezbass]

3 minutes ago, BaggyMan said:

Dammit getting all nostalgic and bought a Tribute sunburst Jazz...

 

And the video that did it for me...

 

 

Good man! Great video too, love the Richie’s band.

[Misdee]

So many bass makers are gone recently, Modulus,  Pedulla, Vigier, Status, and now G&L.  Myself, I don't see any of the newer makers as offering worthwhile alternatives to what those established brands offered. 

 

I know Wal are still going and turning out better basses than ever but last I heard it was a six year wait, so in practise you can't really buy a bass from them either.

Edited October 2 by Misdee

[LukeFRC]

22 minutes ago, Misdee said:

Myself, I don't see any of the newer makers as offering worthwhile alternatives to what those established brands offered.

the change is brands like you listed that formed themselves and advertised via magazines and working with musicians (who you probably found about from press) to now where the brand starts and communicates via instagram and similar platforms. 

[Russ]

21 minutes ago, Misdee said:

So many bass makers are gone recently, Modulus,  Pedulla, Vigier, Status, and now G&L.  Myself, I don't see any of the newer makers as offering worthwhile alternatives to what those established brands offered. 

 

I know Wal are still going and turning out better basses than ever but last I heard it was a six year wait, so in practise you can't really buy a bass from them either.

Technically, Modulus and Status are still around, but obviously not producing at nearly the scale that they once were.