Gibson's foreseeable bankruptcy

As most media have broadcasted at this point in time, Gibson has about half a billion dollars in dept due in July.

But it all started in about 2008. Some may call the 2008 line up at Gibson "the legendary line up" because it is the last year Gibson made high quality guitars in their minds but actually 2008 was the year that started Gibson's melt down.

The robot mistake

It all started way back in 2007 with the HD.6-X Pro Digital. "The what?" you might ask. While discontinuing the beloved by fans "Les Paul BFG", a guitar with a rough finish really good pickups and no inlays, Gibson introduced the HD.6-X Pro Digital with a thick baby blue finish with natural back and creme backplates as well as carbon fibre  inlays and an Ethernet cable output - called MaGIC - to get a signal from their "Breakout Box" pickup right in between their 498T pickup and the bridge. It doesn't just sounds complicated, it was. And completely useless unless you had special equipment to use it. Do I mentioned the cylindrical tuning pecks? The HD.6-X Pro Digital was a concept way to complex for people that would actually like to play guitar and it tried digitising a field that never wanted to rely on technology that heavily. It was wildly unsuccessful and Gibson discontinued it not even a year later. But they just started...

In 2008 Gibson released every new guitar in their Gibson USA line up with so called robot tuners. Tuning pecks that tuned your guitar automatically to the tuning of your choice. Besides a bad battery life and bad performance  it made the guitars instantly more expensive to buy. A thing we will get to in a second. 

For the sake of the length of this article:

Gibson implemented even more attempts of simplifying the guitar tuning issues normal to Gibson guitars and digitising everything instead of solving the tuning issues through simple steps like changing the neck angle from 17 to 10 degrees while making it even less likely to break if it falls of a guitar stand. 

Every single attempt failed in the eyes of consumers because of their overall complexity and / or their bad performance especially when using on stage. It pinnacled in the Gibson Firebird X in 2012, combining a super complex setup to work (it came with an extra case the size of the actual guitar case just to run everything digital) and robot tuners that won't function most of the time. Needless to say most of them got never even sold as it combined two other trademarks Gibson has to offer ridiculous pricing and bad design.

Ridiculous pricing

It's not uncommon for brands to raise their prices to accommodate inflation. Normal inflation rates of currencies (the rate in which the worth of let's say a dollar losses it's value) is about 2 to 3% each year. Even charging more because of new CITES laws, making importing and exporting of wood products more time consuming and pricy are legitimate. But Gibson is now more of an dentist or lawyer brand then ever before.

Comparing prices over the last decade we will find that most prices went up about half at least. Entry level Gibson's in 2008 were about 500 to 600 dollars, speaking of the SG und Les Paul Junior respectively. In 2018 those are 1.429,00 each. Instead of leading people to Gibson as a brand it now is more of an collectible not for working musicians or even beginners. My personal SG Special Faded cost' me about 729€, which in Europe includes tax. Now you can get one for 949€ also including tax. official pricing is 989$ without tax! Session musicians friend's the Gibson Les Paul Studio was about 900 in 2018, now it is 1.649,00, nearly doubled in price although nothing changed. A guitar that changed was the Gibson Les Paul Custom. Costing 2.799€ in 2008 it is now more of an 4.499€ monster despite Gibson now using a plastic component named Richlite as fretboard instead of ebony wood due to supplies. Interestingly Gibson is able to use it on other guitars in the same price range.  Most interestingly historic accurate Models differ immensely in price. Gibson introduced a series named "Collector's Choice" in 2010. It includes not just accurate reproductions of historic models it includes exact reproductions of famous guitars used by musicians. A well received series. The "Collector's Choice" series collides with Gibsons "True Historic" series introduced in 2015. The "True Historic" series is founded upon the "golden era" Gibson's from 1952 - 1960 and is built to precise measurement's just the the "Collector's Choice" series. The simple difference: "Collector's Choice" guitars are exact recreations and look old, "True Historic" are made like those in the 50s but look new. The Point: despite more effort is being used to produce the "Collector's Choice" guitars the "True Historic" models are more expensive to be purchased in stores. An example:

"Collector's Choice #10 Tom Scholz" - 3.890€, "1959 True Historic" - 6.999€

(Prices are subject of change, those are the lowest prices I could find by the time of writing this article)

Not to mention Gibsons now yearly special runs which especially at Gibson Custom exceed 4.000$ with ease while having a really bad and consumer unfriendly design.

Bad design

Gibson as a company tries new things. That is a good trait for a company. The problem: Gibson is not good at it. They try things and design guitars that are some times outrageously bad in consumer eyes. It's not like most consumer wouldn't let them know what they want. There are thousands upon thousands of blogs, forum posts, videos talking about interesting guitars people and consumers want. Sometimes it's as simple as bringing certain colours or pickups back and people would buy them again. That's not the way Gibson imagines itself by now. Since about 2008, beginning with the Guitar of the Month lineup and their HD.6-X Pro Digital every new year brought us guitars that didn't sell. It cost money to make, advertise and built but they can't sell them because people won't buy those guitars because of their bad design and / or high pricing. 2018 is a year in which Gibson tried to outdo themselves and their Firebird X guitar of 2012. Gibson's line up was torn apart by consumers and friends for enormously high prices while using really bad designs. But even if you are able to buy those guitars you are not even guaranteed to get a fine guitar after all...

Bad quality control

Gibson never delivered perfect guitars although trying to do so. Especially with non Custom Shop models Gibson  used to have trouble to get them problem free to their customers. Bad electronics, scratched, dented guitars or even guitars with broken headstocks arriving at customers... the list is long and "is going out of tune easily" which is based on a design flaw itself leads the list ever since. Recent pictures on Gibson's own website show these problem even in marketing material! Although Gibson has changed the pictures by now just days ago at least two guitars could be seen with either an broken headstock or guitars with chipped paint. This is probably due to carelessness employees or tight management...

The Management

Over the past few years Gibson as an employer sinks in popularity. Glassdoor, leading portal for former employees to rate companies has some pretty bad reviews about Gibson stating that mostly the management of each sector is responsible for problems with design and building the actual guitars ans especially their pricing. Even the working conditions aren't the best either according to those reviews. It doesn't help that staff is always changing and people come and go on a daily basis...

Treating endorsers

Gibson endorses bands or people. A common practice in the music business which consists of companies giving touring musicians gear on a lease and the can buy them discounted afterwards or musicians get the gear for free. Either way the company gets promoted through those musicians and musicians sometimes then get so called signature models built to their desired specs. In the past few years many musicians like Bill Kelliher of Mastodon  got endorsed by Gibson but would then jump to other companies. Why? In case of Bill Kelliher it was bad communication, not following orders when a guitar is ordered, staff at Gibson's always changing and won't let the new stuff know what they have to know, Gibson's not delivering his signature guitars to fans with the correct specs and so on. 

Lifestyle over Heritage

Gibson got their recent dept mostly over buying companies directly or indirectly connected to Gibson's robot tuners and their new "Pro Audio" section introduced in 2011. The problem is that their lifestyle products such as studio monitors are neither the best on the market nor for their premium price or even good to look at. They are designed to reflect the guitar design which isn't functional or beautiful. Sales are not even close to what they need to refinance the acquisitions.

Conclusion / TL:DR

Gibson's bankruptcy is a combination of the factors: changing your company style from legacy guitar builder to lifestyle brand, bad management, bad design, bad quality, not delivering what the market want's, bad handling of endorsees, enormously high pricing and the urge to modernise and digitise a mostly analog business that needs none of them. 

For the sake of this articles length I shortened everything up. 

Tell me what you think about Gibson, their nearing bankruptcy and this article down in the comment section, I would like to hear your thoughts.

- Ian