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Thread: Gibson Guitars in trouble

  1. #51
    Member Sputnik's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Supersonic Scientist View Post
    From what I heard over the past few days, Gibson hired a new CFO. Maybe this person can be a "new-pair-of-eyes" on the financial landscape for Gibson. AND, if Henry J can stop and listen for a minute, MAYBE, just maybe things can be brought back from the brink.
    Good to hear. Hope they can turn it around.

    Quote Originally Posted by Supersonic Scientist View Post
    From a personal standpoint:

    Professionally, I am a Six Sigma Black Belt (a fancy term for a trained person specializing in Process improvement) The ONE THING that I've learned over all of these years is this: the SMARTEST people are the ones that actually work on the factory floor. They experience all of the process failures and ultimately are the ones that come up with the best ideas on how to fix process problems.....MBA-types and upper management-types who never came-up from the blue collar path will NEVER be good at getting down to the ROOT CAUSE of a problem(s)...and if you can't get down to the root cause you'll never truly solve anything....I doubt that Henry could care less about what the factory people think or say.

    my 2 cents
    From the perspective of line-level product quality, truer words were never spoken. It's clear Juszkiewicz doesn't give a crap about what the employees think, and probably thwarts or subverts their efforts to make quality instruments.

    But from the perspective of competing in a large, multifaceted, global marketplace and environment, I'm not sure shop-floor people are the smartest. Additional expertise is required when you get to this stage, and Gibson got there before Juszkiewicz ever got on the scene.

    Bill

  2. #52
    Member Yodelgoat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    Computer software, meanwhile, will continue to improve.
    The latest versions of software to create music is centered around non-musical people. The reason I stayed with version 8.5 Sonar is because it did everything I needed it to do, and didnt do all the crap that I hated about music - Auto tune, extensive loop editing, "electronifying effects" to make music sound like its produced in a club environment... Things for non-musicians did to make music less human and more - well, what it is today.

  3. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by Sputnik View Post
    Good to hear. Hope they can turn it around.

    From the perspective of line-level product quality, truer words were never spoken. It's clear Juszkiewicz doesn't give a crap about what the employees think, and probably thwarts or subverts their efforts to make quality instruments.

    But from the perspective of competing in a large, multifaceted, global marketplace and environment, I'm not sure shop-floor people are the smartest. Additional expertise is required when you get to this stage, and Gibson got there before Juszkiewicz ever got on the scene.

    Bill
    I do think the floor-level people can help solve the quality problem...the financial problems DO NEED other experts (best coming from the outside of the company) to see things from a different perspective.

    Sorry if my original 2 cents didn't clarify my position on the matter. (separating quality -vs- financial issues)
    G.A.S -aholic

  4. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by Supersonic Scientist View Post
    I do think the floor-level people can help solve the quality problem...the financial problems DO NEED other experts (best coming from the outside of the company) to see things from a different perspective.

    Sorry if my original 2 cents didn't clarify my position on the matter. (separating quality -vs- financial issues)
    We're on totally the same page.

    Bill

  5. #55
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    By announcing that Gibson is about to declare bankruptcy, Juszkiewicz was probably not looking for production expertise to come forward off the shop floor.

    He was PROBABLY fishing for a bailout from his buddy Donald Trump. Like Carrier got. Like John Deere got.

  6. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yodelgoat View Post
    The latest versions of software to create music is centered around non-musical people. The reason I stayed with version 8.5 Sonar is because it did everything I needed it to do, and didnt do all the crap that I hated about music - Auto tune, extensive loop editing, "electronifying effects" to make music sound like its produced in a club environment... Things for non-musicians did to make music less human and more - well, what it is today.
    As far as the Big Time Music Business is concerned, the problem with music is musicians. Musos' years of listening hard and practicing hard for hours and hours teaches them to hear and think of music in a manner different from the mass public, and this handicaps them when it comes to creating hit records. For one, they tend not to just love hearing the same worn-out lick repeated over and over about a hundred times - whereas Joe Sixpack can't get enough of that. But from a Big Time point of view, that kind of software is wonderful because it lets The Biz cut out the middleman and go directly from the public to the public. Or, to clarify, from music-creating but non-musician members of the public, straight out to the vast buying crowd of the consuming public. In practice, the "creating public" often takes the form of club DJs, whose whole stock in trade is their ability to hear music in exactly the same way as the "consuming public", to read a crowd and know exactly what they want before they know it themselves.

  7. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    By announcing that Gibson is about to declare bankruptcy, Juszkiewicz was probably not looking for production expertise to come forward off the shop floor.

    He was PROBABLY fishing for a bailout from his buddy Donald Trump. Like Carrier got. Like John Deere got.
    That is pure speculative BULLSHIT.
    G.A.S -aholic

  8. #58
    Member Dave the Brave's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yodelgoat View Post
    I didnt know that about SONAR. I still use the 8.5 version and have for 15 years. (well earlier versions) I didnt know they had gone to leasing software. What a stupid, idiotic, bogus, greedy thing to do. As a practice, I do not upgrade until there is a valid reason for doing it. I'm still on Windows '95! (kidding!)

    That's just what Adobe did recently.
    You can no longer by software from Adobe you have to lease it.

    The former Creative Suite is now the Creative cloud.

    DtB

  9. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    By announcing that Gibson is about to declare bankruptcy, Juszkiewicz was probably not looking for production expertise to come forward off the shop floor.

    He was PROBABLY fishing for a bailout from his buddy Donald Trump. Like Carrier got. Like John Deere got.
    Interesting that Gibson was featured as one of the companies in Trump's Made In America presentation he gave last year.

  10. #60
    Pendulumswingingdoomsday Rune Blackwings's Avatar
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    the just stopped being relevant after Skwisgaar and Toki got endorsed by ESP.
    "Alienated-so alien I go!"

  11. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by progholio View Post
    Interesting that Gibson was featured as one of the companies in Trump's Made In America presentation he gave last year.
    well, who knows what happens in the course of a year....one of my relatives was in a company that had a contract with Solyndra...
    "Alienated-so alien I go!"

  12. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by Supersonic Scientist View Post
    From a personal standpoint:

    Professionally, I am a Six Sigma Black Belt (a fancy term for a trained person specializing in Process improvement) The ONE THING that I've learned over all of these years is this: the SMARTEST people are the ones that actually work on the factory floor. They experience all of the process failures and ultimately are the ones that come up with the best ideas on how to fix process problems.....MBA-types and upper management-types who never came-up from the blue collar path will NEVER be good at getting down to the ROOT CAUSE of a problem(s)...and if you can't get down to the root cause you'll never truly solve anything....I doubt that Henry could care less about what the factory people think or say.

    my 2 cents
    As a production supervisor myself, who has had 6 Sigma training (just a yellow belt for me), I totally agree with you.

  13. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by Trane View Post
    Guitar Geek has explained that most Fender and Gibson guitars have been crappy since the 70's, especially for the prices asked.
    That's not quite what I said, or at least, not what I meant. During the 70's, both Gibson and Fender were owned by companies who basically didn't know anything about building quality musical instruments. I'm less familiar with how it went with Gibson being owned by Norlin, but I'm guessing it's not unlike what at Fender during the CBS era.

    CBS basically was worried more about the bottom line than they were about building guitars. So they were cutting costs, increasing quotas unreasonably, etc. They changed the way the bridge saddles were made, they changed the way the pickups were assembled, they changed the way the guitars were finished, etc, all of which changed the way the guitars sounded. A lot of 70's era Fenders have neck pockets that are slightly too large for the neck itself, causing the neck to wiggle just a bit, which can knock the guitar out of tune real easily. They even changed the look of the guitars, with the larger headstock on the Strats and the slight change to the Telecaster body (I never noticed it myself, but there's some people who insist late 60's and 70's era Telecasters don't look right).

    There's a story of a day at the Fender factory where they had several guitars that had been expected and had to be sent back to whomever had to adjust the necks, because they weren't aligned just right. They had like, a dozen of them maybe. So some photographer shows up, says he has to take a picture for publicity purposes, so he lines all these guitars up and photographs them, I mean, for that purpose, you can't tell the guitars aren't "just right".

    So this happens around lunch time, the inspection guys come back from their lunch break, to find that a bunch of "rejects" (and rejects that could have been easily fixed in a matter of hours) had been packed up and shipped off because some idiot from sales or whomever came down and yelled at the crew members who were there that they weren't shipping enough guitars out or whatever. So a bunch of guitars that shouldn't have gone out into the field just yet, did.

    I also remember Nels Cline saying that his favorite Jazzmaster, which was from about 66 or so, "demonstrates all that went wrong when CBS took over Fender". So, at least according to Nels, a year or two after the regime change, things were already going south.

    This is one of the reasons why the vintage guitar market came into being, because people realized the new Fenders (and Gibsons, and Gretsches, etc) weren't as good as the ones they had made a decade or two earlier. Suddenly, a 1961 Stratocaster that might have sold for a hundred bucks or less as a used guitar (they didn't call them "pre-owned" back then), becomes a "pre-CBS" Stratocaster and the price starts to escalate, depending on condition, originality, what the finish (custom colors like Lake Placid Blue, Fiesta Red and Burgundy Mist go for more than garden variety sunburst or blonde). Last I heard, a mint, completely original Strat or Tele goes for around 20 or 30 grand, more if it has gold hardware or a custom color. I saw one website that was selling a mid 50's Les Paul Custom (one of the original black two pickup ones like Jerry Garcia played for awhile in 1967) for 60,000 grand!

    The other thing was, liked with the 70's US auto industry, it increased the demand for Japanese knock offs, some of which looked virtually identical to the real thing, but without the quality issues. Even after Ibanez, Tokai, etc were forced to change the headstocks on the guitars they sent to the US, they were still often times better quality instruments than Fender, Gibson or Gretsch were doing in the 70's.

    Now, my understand was always that during the 80's, when Norlin and CBS sold off Gibson and Fender (in the CBS case, when you adjust for inflation, CBS actually lost money, even though they sold the company for a million dollars more than they bought it), there was a turn around. The quality got better, and it got back to where the respective reputations of the new instruments had been restored.

    But for about the last 10 or 12 years, I've been hearing a lot of weird stories about both companies, about guitars arriving at dealers with nut slots cut too deep, or other issues that should have stopped the guitars from leaving the factory. I don't know how severe some of these issues are, but I have the impression it's definitely a "try before you buy" situation, ie don't order a new Strat or Les Paul or whatever off E-bay, for instance.

    For decades, Fender has had inferior brands (like Squire) to sell bigger amounts of guitars.
    I don't know the numbers that were sold of Fender versus Squier, but I've always heard the original Japanese built Squiers were actually reasonably good guitars. If I remember correctly, Marillion's Steve Rothery used to built a Japanese built Squier Strat, back in the 80's. It wasn't until they started making them in Korea, which came in the late 80's, I believe, that things started going wonky. I'm not that familiar with them, but I know now some of them are built, I believe in China, and you might find a decent one, but again, I hear you want to play the guitar before you pay for it.

    Likewise, you've got the Mexican made Fenders, which I hear can be decent guitars. I've got a Mexican made Strat that I like, but it was made in the 90's, so maybe things have changed there since then. I've also heard that with both Squiers and Mexican Fenders, if you change the pickups, they become better guitars. They might not be quite up to the standard of a properly set up American Fender, but I hear that's one of the places they cut corners on the cheaper guitars (on the other hand, the Squier Surf Modified Strat has Seymour Duncan built lipstick tube pickups, so I can't imagine you getting better quality than that).

    I also own a 1979 Strat, which has Lace Sensor pickups on it. It's a decent guitar, but heavy, and yes, the neck does wiggle around a bit. If you put too much pressure on the neck, it causes the whole instrument to go out of tune. I don't even dream of trying to do any of that Adrian Belew thing of yanking the neck on that guitar.

    Hasn't Gibson relied on Epiphone for decades??
    There again, I've heard a lot of people say that Epiphones are sometimes better value for the money than "authentic" Gibsons. But I've also, guess what, heard that the newer ones, the quality is again slipping. My issue with Epiphone is, they don't have the right headstocks. I know, you're thinking, "So what?!", but half the reason you're buying a given guitar is how it looks. IF you want a Les Paul, you want a guitar that looks like the guitars played by Jimmy Page, Ace Frehley, Slash, Gary Richrath, or whoever your chosen guitar god is. You don't want something that kinda looks like Jimmy Page's guitar.

    That's why Fender did it right with Squier and the Mexican guitars, because at first glance, they look like the more expensive guitars. Nobody's gonna your Telecaster was made in Ensensada, unless they look closely at the headstock, or that it's a Squier if they're standing 20 feet back from you. Not so with a lot of those Epiphones. But maybe that's why Gibson did it that way: to motivate guitarists to spend the extra cash on a "real" Gibson, because it'll "look right".

  14. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    Les Paul 12-string? Are those rare? Don't believe I've ever seen one before.
    I've seen a few. The first one I remember seeing was in Guitar Player's old Rare Bird column, it was mad ein the late 70's, and was apparently a custom order instrument. It was basically a 12 string version of a Les Paul Artist/Artisan hybrid. It had Artist electronics (two humbuckers, and active electronics with an onboard compressor and expande,r similar to the ES Artist that Howe played during the Asia era) and Artisan Les Paul fingerboard inlays (a really fancy inlay pattern that actually dated back to the 1900's, when it was first used on some of their banjos). Supposedly, it was the only 12 string Les Paul Gibson ever built. But that was in 1985 or so that I read that.

    Subsquently, I've seen photos of a few here and there, I gather Gibson has offered such guitars in the catalog in the 90's and more recently. I wonder if they've fixed the problem with the neck. Apparently, the problem with the Les Paul 12 string that wasin teh Rare Bird article, and apparently all of Gibson electric 12 strings back in the day, was that they didn't change the neck dimensions from the six string models, so they could use the same nuts, bridges and pickups, presumably. Hence, they all tend to feel uncomfortable for a lot of players, because they were shoehorning the extra strings onto a six string neck. I gather some people have the same problems with Rickenbacker and the 60's era Fender Electric XII models, too. Supposedly, Vox was one of the few companies that built electric 12 strings in the 60's (and I would imagine, the 70's also), where the neck was actually wide enough to properly accommodate the extra strings.

  15. #65
    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    That's not quite what I said, or at least, not what I meant. During the 70's, both Gibson and Fender were owned by companies who basically didn't know anything about building quality musical instruments.
    About time you intervened, my bait was starting to rot

    I didn't mean to misquote or highjack what you'd written about 18 months ago, I didn't remember it very well.

    But I did understand that a lot of 70's rock stars were looking for pre-65 models or Fender & Gibson, because the models in the shops by then stunk
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

  16. #66
    Member Vic2012's Avatar
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    I recently bought a Squier P Bass. It's cheap crap but it's something to mess around with. I was hoping it was made in Mexico but no, it was "crafted" not made, in China.... I can afford a real P Bass but why spend a 1000 bucks just for something to toy with?

  17. #67
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    I saw a Epiphone Firebird Bass I almost bought but it felt and looked cheapo, and it was 400.00. Pass. For that I'll fork over an extra 4 bills and get the Fender Bass.

  18. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Likewise, you've got the Mexican made Fenders, which I hear can be decent guitars.
    About 10 or 12 years ago, I bought a bottom-of-the-line Mexican Telecaster specifically because I wanted to try my hand at replacing hardware and electronics. It really was a lovely guitar with a nice, smooth-playing neck. (No sharp fret ends like I've found on some more expensive Fenders!) And while it naturally benefitted from the upgraded pickups and tuners, there was really nothing wrong with the originals.
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  19. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Triscuits View Post
    About 10 or 12 years ago, I bought a bottom-of-the-line Mexican Telecaster specifically because I wanted to try my hand at replacing hardware and electronics. It really was a lovely guitar with a nice, smooth-playing neck. (No sharp fret ends like I've found on some more expensive Fenders!) And while it naturally benefitted from the upgraded pickups and tuners, there was really nothing wrong with the originals.
    I hear ya Bro...I too have a MIM tele that is an absolute gem to play.....(full disclosure, I don't own nor really ever played a USA-built Tele for comparison)..all's I know is, my MIM Tele gets a regular workout in my Classic Rock cover band and I love to tone of it.
    G.A.S -aholic

  20. #70
    Member Sputnik's Avatar
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    IMO, Squier and Epiphone guitars are an excellent buy. I've owned two Epiphones, and I'd easily put them up against Gibsons that cost 4 - 5 times a much. The Squiers I've played in stores play fantastically well. Yeah, pickups and hardware might be only so-so, but those can be replaced. You can certainly get a dud, but overall I think these guitars are very solid at their price points, and definitely beat the "student instruments" that were available in the 70s when I started out.

    Bill

  21. #71
    Man of repute progmatist's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave the Brave View Post
    That's just what Adobe did recently.
    You can no longer by software from Adobe you have to lease it.

    The former Creative Suite is now the Creative cloud.

    DtB
    True, but way more people use Adobe Photoshop, Premier, Dreamweaver, et cetera than Cakewalk software. Not only that, Photoshop is the industry standard in photo editing. The same cannot be said for Sonar...that distinction would go instead to Pro Tools.
    "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama

  22. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by Trane View Post

    But I did understand that a lot of 70's rock stars were looking for pre-65 models or Fender & Gibson, because the models in the shops by then stunk
    That's basically true. I read an interview with John Entwistle in the early 80's where he was asked how he started collecting guitars. He said he started collecting when CBS bought Fender, because he could spot the change in quality right away.

    Prices of vintage guitars I think were also influenced by what certain famous guitarists were playing. When Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Peter Green, Jeff Beck, Mike Bloomfield, etc were all playing Les Pauls during the 60's, that drove up prices on the second hand market (note that Gibson wasn't even building Les Pauls anymore when most of these guys were first seen playing them). Then when Clapton switched to playing 50's vintage Strats in the early 70's (along with other notable players from that era, like Rory Gallagher) made those models popular on the "pre-owned" market.

    But less popular models, such as the Fender Jaguar, Jazzmaster, Mustang, weren't affected by such trends. Even in the 80's, you could buy a pre-CBS Jazzmaster for a few hundred bucks, when a similar vintage Strat or Tele would cost 10 times that amount, if not more. That all changed in the 90's, when all the "alternative" bands were playing those models, and suddenly, those relatively inexpensive guitars weren't so inexpensive anymore, just because some dork on MTV was playing it.



    But not everyone was playing pre-CBS Fenders (or similar vintage axes of other makes). Jimi Hendrix was seen playing pre-CBS Strats circa 67-68, but the guitars he played at Woodstock and Isle Of Wight were both CBS era guitars. Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George both played CBS era Strats regularly. The Telecaster James Burton played during the 70's and 80's was a 1969 Pink Paisley model. And during the late 70's and early 80's, Keith Richards main standard tuning guitar, at least onstage anyway, was a black Telecaster Custom.

  23. #73
    Man of repute progmatist's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    But less popular models, such as the Fender Jaguar, Jazzmaster, Mustang, weren't affected by such trends. Even in the 80's, you could buy a pre-CBS Jazzmaster for a few hundred bucks, when a similar vintage Strat or Tele would cost 10 times that amount, if not more. That all changed in the 90's, when all the "alternative" bands were playing those models, and suddenly, those relatively inexpensive guitars weren't so inexpensive anymore, just because some dork on MTV was playing it.
    Interestingly, the Jaguar and Jazzmaster were super deluxe models, which retailed for more than the Strat or Tele in the early 60s, when all were brand new.
    "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama

  24. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by progmatist View Post
    Interestingly, the Jaguar and Jazzmaster were super deluxe models, which retailed for more than the Strat or Tele in the early 60s, when all were brand new.
    Yeah, that's right. When the Jazzmaster and Jaguar were introduced they were meant to be the top of the range, as it were, just as the Strat was when it was first introduced. But somehow, they were never as popular as the Strat or Tele. I think again, that had a lot to do with who was playing which model. For instance, George Harrison, Hank Marvin and, I think, also Rory Gallagher said they wanted Strats because Buddy Holly used one.

    Also, I think a lot of people who tried the Jazzmaster and Jaguar were unhappy with them. The Jazzmaster's name implies it was aimed at jazz guitarists, but what jazz guitarist in 1958 was using a thin, trebly tone? Also, I recall reading a lot of guitarists didn't like the whammy bar on the Jazzmaster or Jaguar as much as the Strat's. I've heard it described as "poorly designed", though I think that's actually one of the features a lot of the "alternative" guitarists liked about it.

    During the 70's, Tom Verlaine and Elvis Costello played Jazzmasters. But it really wasn't until the 90's, when bands like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine took off, that "everyone" started wanting them. That was when Fender finally started reissuing them, and the vintage models started going through the roof.

  25. #75
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Yeah, that's right. When the Jazzmaster and Jaguar were introduced they were meant to be the top of the range, as it were, just as the Strat was when it was first introduced. But somehow, they were never as popular as the Strat or Tele. I think again, that had a lot to do with who was playing which model. For instance, George Harrison, Hank Marvin and, I think, also Rory Gallagher said they wanted Strats because Buddy Holly used one.

    Also, I think a lot of people who tried the Jazzmaster and Jaguar were unhappy with them. The Jazzmaster's name implies it was aimed at jazz guitarists, but what jazz guitarist in 1958 was using a thin, trebly tone? Also, I recall reading a lot of guitarists didn't like the whammy bar on the Jazzmaster or Jaguar as much as the Strat's. I've heard it described as "poorly designed", though I think that's actually one of the features a lot of the "alternative" guitarists liked about it.

    During the 70's, Tom Verlaine and Elvis Costello played Jazzmasters. But it really wasn't until the 90's, when bands like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine took off, that "everyone" started wanting them. That was when Fender finally started reissuing them, and the vintage models started going through the roof.
    Factor in as well the short scale, over-complicated switching systems, and the simple fact that the Jazzmasters and Jaguars simply don't look as cool as the Strat or Tele, and you can see why they bombed. Personally, I hate them with a passion - awful guitars.

    On the topic of non-US made guitars, my Mexican-made Charvel So-Cal (Charvel are now owned by Fender) is an excellent instrument: well-made, finished, and a delight to play. My only criticism is that the unfinished neck struggles with the humid climate here in China - in fact at present it is in need of attention again from the local guitar doctor as the neck has moved once more and it's not currently usable as a consequence. When it's on, though, it's quite excellent, though I do wish that it was more resilient to the changing climactic conditions here; my (admittedly much more expensive) Ibanez J-Custom and cheap Dove acoustic really don't suffer from the same problems.

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