
Guitar-maker Gibson Brands files for bankruptcy - ilamont
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/guitar-maker-gibson-brands-files-for-bankruptcy-2018-05-01-81035414
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reason-mr
As guitar player, I can tell you that there is at present a huge oversupply,
particularly of electric guitars, relative to the number of guitar players
there are around currently. Some of this is of course caused by people with
oodles of spare cash taking up playing guitar, only to find that it is quite
hard and time consuming and then dumping their catch-and-release nice guitars
for much less than retail. Regardless, one only has to browse craiglist
"musical intruments" to see many incredible guitars, lightly used amps and
other equipment selling for far less than retail. The result - people who
actually know what they are doing and have some spare money are scooping up
bargains. Plus of course kids are sampling, etc, can't be bothered, and/or
playing nicer acoustic guitars - as made by Martin, Collings, etc. Also - as
other posters have pointed out - gibson diversified over its means. But it
will come back, and then we will own all of the guitars :)

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fenwick67
This is a pet theory but the guitar hero/rock band craze seemed to prop up the
real guitar industry for a bit, suddenly kids everywhere knew who Slash is and
got a $150 guitar for Christmas, when it declined around 2010 I think they
lost some of that market.

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mikestew
Word on the street is that kids just don't want to play guitars anymore. Throw
some samples into GarageBand, and have at it. One young lady describes herself
as being considered "weird because I play a guitar". I am a long way from
childhood, but the impression I get is that the age of the guitar-playing rock
god might be taking a breather for a bit.

But in Gibson's case, it's debt-laden acquisitions. They might sell fewer Les
Paul's than they used to, but probably enough to stay in business (Fender and
Martin don't seem to be going anywhere). One additional point of data is the
Nashville flood from around ten years ago. The mandolin business came back to
life, but IIRC Gibson just gave up on making banjos after that. How the flood
affected the rest of the business, I don't know.

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squarefoot
"Word on the street is that kids just don't want to play guitars anymore."

This pretty much started during the early 80s when everyone and his cat would
want to impress girls playing a keyboard or a sax, then glam rock happened,
followed by grunge and guitar became appealing again. Time changed since then,
as did the interest for guitars, but it's not going away anytime soon; let's
hope Gibson manages to survive the period. Today I'd say there's more interest
for drums than guitar or bass: in my band a while ago I was among the 4 people
who could play drums and we had only one guitarist, way different from say the
70s. What surely changed since the early days of guitar factories is the
quality of unknown brand guitars; today it still requires some good work to
manufacture a good guitar, but it's definitely much much easier than it was
decades ago, and the quality difference doesn't reflect anymore the price
delta.

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freedomben
What are some good manufacturers that are less expensive? I haven't bought a
guitar in about 15 years but I'm ready to buy a new one. No idea what the
landscape looks like these days.

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reason-mr
Oh an please, if buying new, support a decent, local, guitar shop (not a
chain!) and get a "setup" done on your new guitar. Your fingers will thank you
and so will the local guitar shop + you will have somewhere to go back to when
things stop working for you.

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neverminder
You don't need a setup if you buy a Taylor.

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RobLach
Is there a known reason why a guitar maker bought up a bunch of high end audio
companies? I’d like to hear the story behind this.

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mikestew
In summary, the impression I get is that the current CEO wants to be a
businessman who runs a company that happens to make guitars, in contrast to
wanting to run a guitar company. With the former, you could a bunch of debt-
driven acquisitions that might, or might not be, a good buy. But now you're
not just the CEO of a guitar company, you're the CEO of a _conglomerate_. Big
swingin' dick, you are.

In contrast to Martin, who has been making guitars, and the occasional
mandolin or ukulele, for well over a hundred years. That's pretty much all
they do, and as far as I can tell they're financially fit. Probably because
Mr. Chris Martin is content running a guitar company.

That's just my arm chair analysis. I otherwise have no idea what the hell
Gibson wants with, say, Teac.

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wilsonnb
Martin also sells mostly or entirely acoustic instruments, not electric. I
would guess that acoustic guitar sales have remained more consistent than
electric guitar sales over time.

Part (most?) of Gibson's problem is that the guitar just isn't as popular as
it used to be.

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Gravityloss
It's odd that they don't survive? It's basically a license to print money.
Many factories make good guitars all over the world but Gibson is one of those
that can charge a lot just for the brand. (At least as long as the guitars are
actually good.)

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squarefoot
That's the issue. If someone gets the name just to sell crap guitars built in
China with no quality control then the brand is screwed forever.

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Gravityloss
As far as I know, Gibson guitars have been okay during the years. Opposed to
say, Fender which had some bad years.

