"Mojo" is exactly what Gibson are riding on. That fuzzy garter-sock notion that Gibson got it right in 1959 and are still getting it right now. If absolutely nothing else the inconsistent QC at Gibson these days is at least shedding a more favourable light on Norlin-era instruments.
A few months ago I played a poop-brown Norlin-era ES-355. Gibson, by this point in time, had taken it upon themselves to re-shape the body and pickguard, and add a coil tap switch to the ES-355 design. The pickups were probably 'tarbacks' or a similarly undesirable '70s model, though I wasn't in a position to check. The guitar was very much a child of the '70s, post 1973 Oil Crisis. There was a subtle shonkiness going on, but it was still a nice guitar that sounded wonderful. The Norlin-era Gibson guitars aren't the best made, and the corner-cutting is sometimes pretty obvious, but Gibson were still of the mentality that they were building musical instruments for musicians to play. Yeah the router templates were worn out and a whole screed of 'close enough' was hidden by black 'goof hider' rings and covers. Yeah they let anybody have a stab at spraying a sunburst body, which results in some hideously asymmetric bursts on '70s Les Pauls... but they are still perfectly good musical instruments!
Of the 2016/17 Les Pauls and ES-355s I've tried, they've been consistently characterless, charmless and joyless instruments. Frets that have been crowned and then leveled, leaving the frets with flat tops drizzled with tooling marks. I've sen astonishingly inconsistently applied binding nibs over the frets. That dreadful brass zero fret nut arrangement. The frankly spooky hologram of Les Paul watching you pee. Orange peel, poor masking and poor inlay work. A horrible level of inconsistency across examples of the same model. I saw two sunburst Thunderbird basses, and one had the bridge pickup riding out the body on the absolute maximum excursion of the mounting screws. This pickup freely bounced around on its mounting spring. Good for tremolo effects? The bridge was also stanced far off the body to get a good action. What went wrong here? Those robotic tuners on the guitars are a joke too. A device that utilises six servo motors simply to put your guitar further out of tune? Sign me up!
The best bit about new Gibsons is that vanilla smell.
And it isn't just the standard models either. I tried a historic/custom/whatever ES-175 reissue. There was a fuzz of router shavings all around the inside of the f-holes, and the thing played like a poorly setup, decrepit archtop acoustic that you might find in a highschool music department. It had two dull, muffled PAF copies attached, which looked like somebody had attacked the covers with steel wool in a low-effort bid to make them look antique. When I think of an ES-175 I think of that warm jazz tone. There isn't a lot of top end, but there is still a rich chime to the mids and a bass retention that is present without being woofy or sludgy. None of that going on with this ES-175, which was about £6 k or so in price.
Then there is the whole line of 'econo' models with the satin finish, no grain filler, no top coat, blah blah blah. The finish comes off on your jeans, the fretwork is hopeless, the pickups and electronics are hopeless. Half-finished guitars basically that look totally worn out after a year of use.
A few months ago I played a poop-brown Norlin-era ES-355. Gibson, by this point in time, had taken it upon themselves to re-shape the body and pickguard, and add a coil tap switch to the ES-355 design. The pickups were probably 'tarbacks' or a similarly undesirable '70s model, though I wasn't in a position to check. The guitar was very much a child of the '70s, post 1973 Oil Crisis. There was a subtle shonkiness going on, but it was still a nice guitar that sounded wonderful. The Norlin-era Gibson guitars aren't the best made, and the corner-cutting is sometimes pretty obvious, but Gibson were still of the mentality that they were building musical instruments for musicians to play. Yeah the router templates were worn out and a whole screed of 'close enough' was hidden by black 'goof hider' rings and covers. Yeah they let anybody have a stab at spraying a sunburst body, which results in some hideously asymmetric bursts on '70s Les Pauls... but they are still perfectly good musical instruments!
Of the 2016/17 Les Pauls and ES-355s I've tried, they've been consistently characterless, charmless and joyless instruments. Frets that have been crowned and then leveled, leaving the frets with flat tops drizzled with tooling marks. I've sen astonishingly inconsistently applied binding nibs over the frets. That dreadful brass zero fret nut arrangement. The frankly spooky hologram of Les Paul watching you pee. Orange peel, poor masking and poor inlay work. A horrible level of inconsistency across examples of the same model. I saw two sunburst Thunderbird basses, and one had the bridge pickup riding out the body on the absolute maximum excursion of the mounting screws. This pickup freely bounced around on its mounting spring. Good for tremolo effects? The bridge was also stanced far off the body to get a good action. What went wrong here? Those robotic tuners on the guitars are a joke too. A device that utilises six servo motors simply to put your guitar further out of tune? Sign me up!
The best bit about new Gibsons is that vanilla smell.
And it isn't just the standard models either. I tried a historic/custom/whatever ES-175 reissue. There was a fuzz of router shavings all around the inside of the f-holes, and the thing played like a poorly setup, decrepit archtop acoustic that you might find in a highschool music department. It had two dull, muffled PAF copies attached, which looked like somebody had attacked the covers with steel wool in a low-effort bid to make them look antique. When I think of an ES-175 I think of that warm jazz tone. There isn't a lot of top end, but there is still a rich chime to the mids and a bass retention that is present without being woofy or sludgy. None of that going on with this ES-175, which was about £6 k or so in price.
Then there is the whole line of 'econo' models with the satin finish, no grain filler, no top coat, blah blah blah. The finish comes off on your jeans, the fretwork is hopeless, the pickups and electronics are hopeless. Half-finished guitars basically that look totally worn out after a year of use.
Same Stuff, Different Day....
