Yorkeville and Traynor, do make some great stuff. Owned some Yorkeville and played through a Traynor. The quality of most companies have gone to crap. I will be in the market for a new bass soon, and thinking Reverend. I owned a Sensai Jr guitar and the quality of that was great. I expect the same for their basses. I will be making a trip to their plant soon.
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Will we all being playing our Gibson's through Behringer's before to long?
- Thread starter hopsbb
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Big Hoss
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- Sep 5, 2014
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It seems those same rumors about Fender being in the dumper are related to the same rumors about Guitar Center on the verge of bankruptcy. According to the same rumor mongers, both companies should be long gone by now...
For what it's worth I don't own anything that I am aware of made by Gibson, or a Gibson owned company, I've got Fender (Squier), Ibanez, SX, and Yamaha for instruments, and Fender and Behringer for amplification (My guitar amp is a Behringer, since I play very little guitar, it is good enough for my needs...
What a load of bs. Tons of players in the sixties and seventies played Gibsons.
In your mind I'm sure Ric, Alembic, Lakland, Sadowsky, Spector and many other "Non-Fender" brands have never been relevant either. 
These guys are pretty sure you're mistaken... Gibson and many other non fender brands have been instrumental in shaping the music we hear and play today.
I'm not trying to start any sort of argument at all about Gibsons being cool or not (I think they are cool). However, I think Gibsons used to be a lot more popular is the point.
Gibson revenue has been plummeting since 2008 so they can't have a growing market share. I think the only market they have left that is thriving is for the Les Paul. That may explain their current product line up, sticking with winners.
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Which is The Most Popular Electric Guitar? - Six String Soul
I can't really knock on Behringer. I currently own two bass heads and a phaser pedal made by them. One head I got basically for free when I got my GK 210 115 from a guy off Craigslist. Its a Bugera Bvp5500 hybrid amp. I though it was gonna be crap when I got it but 2 yrs later I still haven't bought another head to replace it. I've gig with it constantly,its been used at festivals for 8 hrs by other bands and never had the slightest problem. It was at least 2 yrs old when I got it from the guy and he gigged it while he had it.
Then just for kicks I bought a used Behringer Bvt4500 head off eBay for $60. Its a good 6yrs old now that I know of. Guy that I bought it from used it as his gigging amp for 5yrs. Its still going,no problems.
Then the Behringer phaser pedal I got from a coworker. He does alot of open mic's and used it all the time.
I hear ppl tell of Behringer products crapping out on them and being junk but for me they have been nothing but reliable. Are there better products on the market? Sure but in my case their stuff has and continues to work just fine.
my band's pa rack is filled with Behringer gear including... power amps, equalizers, mixing board, microphone pre-amps, compressor/limiters, crossovers, patch bays, feedback suppressors etc.
been running strong for about 5 years...no complaints and at the price they charge...easily replaced
been running strong for about 5 years...no complaints and at the price they charge...easily replaced
Well, don't go talking about FMIC killing companies without really knowing what happened. I hardly see how FMIC destroyed Guild for example. First, some background. I managed a guitar store from '77 - '88 and we were a Guild, Fender, Gibson, Ovation, Takamine, Yamaha, Peavey, Washburn, G&L, Martin dealer as well as carrying some other brands I don't recall. Plus I've always been a rabid fan of Guild instruments. More consistent and higher quality (measured by fit and finish, attention to detail, and value) than Gibson ever was. Guild has ALWAYS been pretty mis-managed no matter who owned them after Al Dronge's family sold them to Avnet. Poor marketing, ineffective advertising, lousy artist representation, etc. Fender bought Guild way back in 1995, almost 20 years before they cut them loose. Fender bought the defunct Sunn name back in the late '70s or early '80s, and applied the name to a line of lighting products. But Sunn had been gone for a good while before that so it's not like FMIC destroyed them at all.
FMIC brought Guild some real marketing, got real endorsers who got people's attention and played the instruments, created the custom shop, and did a LOT to keep the brand going for those 20 years. The factory in Westerly RI was simply not at all practical to maintain for modern guitar production (and one could make the case that that old furniture factory was NEVER really a good place to make guitars due to humidity and temperature control considerations). They moved production to Corona when they closed Westerly, and the acoustics made there are still pretty good stuff. The electrics made in Corona were superb. Then when FMIC bought Tacoma (a company already struggling and with increasing QC issues before FMIC came in) they had already realized that making acoustics wasn't the same as making electrics, so they thought they'd have Guilds made where the Tacomas were made- but then realized that factory wasn't really what it should be either. So, yeah, they did pull the plug on Tacoma, but it was already struggling with maintaining dealer respect and never really had a big enough market share to justify it as a stand-alone brand.
FMIC had bought Kaman Music, so they now owned Hamer, Ovation, Takamine, Genz-Benz, and CB-700 drums, but they were really after the distribution and supply chain part of that business. It's unfortunate that Hamer went away, but they were again a very very small footprint in the business and probably not really breaking even financially. Now my experience as a dealer was always that Ovations were impeccably well made- even if I didn't like the design choices they made, they were excellently executed. In fact when I ran the store the only brands I never had the recut the nuts on factory new instruments were Guilds, Ovations, and the higher Takamines (which were set up at the Ovation factory before shipping to dealers). So it made sense to move Guild production to the Ovation plant.
Several years later FMIC in the face of financial (recall the rescinded IPO) issues they needed to get out from some drag on the bottom line so they sold Guild (essentially to the guy who'd managed it for them for a good while before) and Ovation, Takamine, and Genz-Benz went away.
SWR was already a falling star when FMIC bought them. Stevene W Rabe (SWR,duh) had left the company years before FMIC came around and they weren't happening anyway. FMIC came out with the amps with magnets holding them to the cabinets, but they never really revived that failing brand, so they cut it loose. They revived the Sunn name for bass amps almost 30 years after the original company folded and Fender had bought the name, but after all that time it was simply a name with no connection nor legacy of the original company. And they made the same amps with the Fender name and they still didn't sell after they shut down Sunn again.
So let's not malign companies because we only look at basses or because we think the whole history is the last five years.
I've always detested Gibson through Norlin, Henry, et. al. They were always the absolute worst company with which to do business, even worse than Dale Hyatt's atrocious treatment of dealers with the early G&L company. We hear all these horror stories of the huge annual commitments Gibson and Fender require of dealers, but that was common back before 1977 with Gibson. Our Gibson rep (a store in town of less than 75,000 and a very very limited local bluegrass/folk scene and next to no jazz scene) insisted that we should have an L5, a Super 400, and at least one mandolin and some banjos on the wall if we wanted to buy Les Pauls and SG's. We resisted that but lost the franchise a couple of time because we wouldn't make those stupid commitments. But under Henry's first year they DID a lot to make the guitars better- going back to mahogany necks on the electrics, taking time to make expensive guitars look good and have properly fitted hardware, etc. But they were still horrible people to work with and when they foisted a guitar on us with the Steinberger trem that never worked right and wouldn't send us parts to fix it, we dumped them.
That IS a company that has spent a lot of time and money buying companies and destroying them by totally ignoring the things that made Steinberger, Tobias, Moog, etc. special. But I've said the same thing about G&L- Leo in my opinion NEVER had anything to do with actually running the company, and the guitars they made in mid to late '80s (the ones with Kahler trems and Schaller humbuckers that were the exact size as Gibson 'buckers) were totally the antithesis of Leo's vision... but I digress.
Anyway, the conglomeration of the biz is pretty common, has been going on for decades, but I think (perhaps I'm still a wide-eyed hippy) that we won't see the total annihillation of all but "Christams Incorporated". Too many smaller companies have access to the market via the web so conglomerates can't buy them all out and control it all. The only problem with this is if the brick 'n' mortar retail business goes completely the way of Wal-Mart/Guitar Cancer where there is no expectation of service, product knowledge, etc. If the retail is strictly on price then real customer service can't survive because not enough people want to pay for it. "Showrooming" was a problem when I was in the biz, and it's only gotten worse as the 'net and the push for lowest initial cost has exacerbated the pressure. That leads to a homogenization of the products one sees- if an unknown esoteric pedal won't sell, the store ain't gonna have one in stock for you to try out. And if a brand new bass comes out today that's roughly the same big change in concept as the original StingRay was but dealers aren't willing to try it so they keep stocking P and J (and their cosmetic clones whether higher or lower quality) and that's all that sells. And because that's all that sells, it's all that stores order. THAT is why almost every guitar store in the US has a hundred black Strats with maple necks and just about nothing else.
Oh, and by the way- We won't be playing Gibson's and Behringer's because they aren't ours. The apostrophe as used in the thread title indicates possesive, not plurals. So the OP is actually asking if we will be playing something Gibson owns, not something they made. It's a simple thing ya learned in 3rd grade...
FMIC brought Guild some real marketing, got real endorsers who got people's attention and played the instruments, created the custom shop, and did a LOT to keep the brand going for those 20 years. The factory in Westerly RI was simply not at all practical to maintain for modern guitar production (and one could make the case that that old furniture factory was NEVER really a good place to make guitars due to humidity and temperature control considerations). They moved production to Corona when they closed Westerly, and the acoustics made there are still pretty good stuff. The electrics made in Corona were superb. Then when FMIC bought Tacoma (a company already struggling and with increasing QC issues before FMIC came in) they had already realized that making acoustics wasn't the same as making electrics, so they thought they'd have Guilds made where the Tacomas were made- but then realized that factory wasn't really what it should be either. So, yeah, they did pull the plug on Tacoma, but it was already struggling with maintaining dealer respect and never really had a big enough market share to justify it as a stand-alone brand.
FMIC had bought Kaman Music, so they now owned Hamer, Ovation, Takamine, Genz-Benz, and CB-700 drums, but they were really after the distribution and supply chain part of that business. It's unfortunate that Hamer went away, but they were again a very very small footprint in the business and probably not really breaking even financially. Now my experience as a dealer was always that Ovations were impeccably well made- even if I didn't like the design choices they made, they were excellently executed. In fact when I ran the store the only brands I never had the recut the nuts on factory new instruments were Guilds, Ovations, and the higher Takamines (which were set up at the Ovation factory before shipping to dealers). So it made sense to move Guild production to the Ovation plant.
Several years later FMIC in the face of financial (recall the rescinded IPO) issues they needed to get out from some drag on the bottom line so they sold Guild (essentially to the guy who'd managed it for them for a good while before) and Ovation, Takamine, and Genz-Benz went away.
SWR was already a falling star when FMIC bought them. Stevene W Rabe (SWR,duh) had left the company years before FMIC came around and they weren't happening anyway. FMIC came out with the amps with magnets holding them to the cabinets, but they never really revived that failing brand, so they cut it loose. They revived the Sunn name for bass amps almost 30 years after the original company folded and Fender had bought the name, but after all that time it was simply a name with no connection nor legacy of the original company. And they made the same amps with the Fender name and they still didn't sell after they shut down Sunn again.
So let's not malign companies because we only look at basses or because we think the whole history is the last five years.
I've always detested Gibson through Norlin, Henry, et. al. They were always the absolute worst company with which to do business, even worse than Dale Hyatt's atrocious treatment of dealers with the early G&L company. We hear all these horror stories of the huge annual commitments Gibson and Fender require of dealers, but that was common back before 1977 with Gibson. Our Gibson rep (a store in town of less than 75,000 and a very very limited local bluegrass/folk scene and next to no jazz scene) insisted that we should have an L5, a Super 400, and at least one mandolin and some banjos on the wall if we wanted to buy Les Pauls and SG's. We resisted that but lost the franchise a couple of time because we wouldn't make those stupid commitments. But under Henry's first year they DID a lot to make the guitars better- going back to mahogany necks on the electrics, taking time to make expensive guitars look good and have properly fitted hardware, etc. But they were still horrible people to work with and when they foisted a guitar on us with the Steinberger trem that never worked right and wouldn't send us parts to fix it, we dumped them.
That IS a company that has spent a lot of time and money buying companies and destroying them by totally ignoring the things that made Steinberger, Tobias, Moog, etc. special. But I've said the same thing about G&L- Leo in my opinion NEVER had anything to do with actually running the company, and the guitars they made in mid to late '80s (the ones with Kahler trems and Schaller humbuckers that were the exact size as Gibson 'buckers) were totally the antithesis of Leo's vision... but I digress.
Anyway, the conglomeration of the biz is pretty common, has been going on for decades, but I think (perhaps I'm still a wide-eyed hippy) that we won't see the total annihillation of all but "Christams Incorporated". Too many smaller companies have access to the market via the web so conglomerates can't buy them all out and control it all. The only problem with this is if the brick 'n' mortar retail business goes completely the way of Wal-Mart/Guitar Cancer where there is no expectation of service, product knowledge, etc. If the retail is strictly on price then real customer service can't survive because not enough people want to pay for it. "Showrooming" was a problem when I was in the biz, and it's only gotten worse as the 'net and the push for lowest initial cost has exacerbated the pressure. That leads to a homogenization of the products one sees- if an unknown esoteric pedal won't sell, the store ain't gonna have one in stock for you to try out. And if a brand new bass comes out today that's roughly the same big change in concept as the original StingRay was but dealers aren't willing to try it so they keep stocking P and J (and their cosmetic clones whether higher or lower quality) and that's all that sells. And because that's all that sells, it's all that stores order. THAT is why almost every guitar store in the US has a hundred black Strats with maple necks and just about nothing else.
Oh, and by the way- We won't be playing Gibson's and Behringer's because they aren't ours. The apostrophe as used in the thread title indicates possesive, not plurals. So the OP is actually asking if we will be playing something Gibson owns, not something they made. It's a simple thing ya learned in 3rd grade...
Actually, I do have a problem with your use of the word "greed", particularly in this context. The word itself has negative connotations, and you're assuming a motivation in others that you do not actually know to be true. To quote the definition from Wikipedia:
Greed (Latin, avaritia), also known as avarice, cupidity, or covetousness, is the inordinate desire to possess wealth, goods, or objects of abstract value with the intention to keep it for one's self, far beyond the dictates of basic survival and comfort. It is applied to a markedly high desire for and pursuit of wealth, status, and power.
Profit in and of itself does not equal greed, and greed by itself is not the only motive for profit.
As far as loyalty to one's customer base: Mike Tobias has a well-established history of continuing to support and service customers who bought his basses prior to the Gibson buyout. I believe that Genzler and others have similar reputations, but obviously not everyone does. It's unfair to say that people who sell their companies are greedy and do not care about their customers. It's just not universally true. (Although, to be fair, there are plenty of examples to the contrary.)
wmhill
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- Aug 20, 2012
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They were able to void the Guilds lifetime warranty..... oh wait, that was good for Fender, not me as the consumer. My bad!
(Unfortunately a true story)
Has Behringer taken a cliff dive in recent years? I played an old 90w combo amp that carried me solidly for several years, all through high school and a bit into my college years.
Ned Steinberger sold the buisiness because he couldnt keep up with demand, not to mention he never wanted to be a buisinessman, he wanted to design......so Gibson, finally seeing how good they sell, and how awesome they are, buys it...but instead of continuing quality,they make em out of wood. All of the original L2 and XL2 molds are ruined. So to all of you who are lucky enough to own an L bass, hang on to it, because the mold has been broken.
