What makes a gibson guitar special

For those who still insist on good quality wood, they have to be willing to pay the price. Gibson guitars are mostly made of rosewood, maple, ebony, and mahogany. These are high-quality woods, but they are also getting rare these days. Being rare means they are also expensive. In addition, the small quantity of these types of wood that are available might not meet the high-quality standards of Gibson.

Only the best kinds of woods are used by Gibson. This is a main reason why nearly every Gibson guitar is more expensive than its nearest counterpart brand. Gibson uses only high-quality wood because these are the ones that could produce the best quality sound that the brand is known for.

The sound is richer and thicker. Gibson guitars are all solid body guitars. There is no hollow portion in the guitar body.

Still, the sound is unique, full and robust and not thin, or weak. The guitar sustains the sound much longer. All the electronic parts that go into a Gibson guitar are all made in the United States.

Furthermore, the pickups in most of the Gibson guitar models are hand-wired. This is to maintain the sound quality Gibson is known for. This is the quality of tone that famous guitarists prefer. Gibson could use machines to do this, but that will affect the sound quality of the guitars. Other electronic parts in a Gibson guitar are also hand-wired. These include the capacitors, potentiometers, switches and other electronic parts.

All of these parts contribute to a higher price tag in the end. It also includes the Gibson Tune-o-Matic bridge with stopbar tailpiece, and Grover Kluson-style green-key tuning machines. It has the pure rock tone that is made famous by Gibson.

I owned an SG a couple years ago but then sold it to a friend. The design is simply flawless and truly a masterpiece. Once you play a Gibson, like the SG, it is hard to go back to playing other guitars. There are certain laws that the United States enforces that cause the price of Gibson guitars to be higher.

These laws refer to the manufacturing and international shipping of guitar components made of certain classes of woods. For instance, the FBI raided certain guitar manufacturers and confiscated materials like rosewood imported from India. The reason is that the wood was not fabricated to be used in the country where it originated. That particular law in India seeks to preserve or protect Indian manufacturers.

In the United States, rosewood is already becoming scarce. So, Gibson imports from other countries where rosewood is still available. India is one of those countries. Every Gibson guitar is made of nitrocellulose finish. This finishing component gives a very elegant finish to a guitar. However, the use of this chemical is heavily regulated in the United States. The government has put a limit to Gibson as to how much of it they can use every day.

This restriction furthermore limits how many guitars Gibson can make each day. Other guitar makers were forced to use other kinds of finishing materials because of this regulation.

They are now using polyurethane or urethane instead. One of the major reasons why Gibson guitars are more expensive is the manufacturing costs. Every Gibson guitar that comes out of the Gibson factory is made by employees whose salaries are higher than the salaries paid to foreign workers in guitar factories abroad.

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Gibson App - Learn, Watch, Shop Grab your phone, grab your guitar, and use our app to tune up, take lessons, watch Gibson TV, and browse our online store. Gibson Careers Come join the band. Each of us wanted to own a Les Paul or any other model of their guitars, only to be hit by an incredibly high price. You probably wondered why is this a thing, and why most Gibson guitars are so expensive. Even though they use basic materials like other manufacturers, there is a huge difference in prices.

You probably thought that guitars are the same and that there cannot be so much difference in price, and that the only factor is the name on the headstock. The main reason why Gibson guitars are expensive is that they are made in the USA. All their three factories are located in cities where the workers have relativity high wages.

As the result, the guitars must be sold at a higher price. However, there are more determining factors that all add a bit to the total price of the Gibson guitars.

The company was founded in in Michigan, and it has been around for years. As you can imagine that carries a bit of weight.

Furthermore, all of the parts and everything in the guitar is from the U. There are three factories in the U. The first company in Memphis, Tennessee creates semi-hollow guitars like their famous ES series. And finally, the third company in Bozeman, Montana creates acoustic guitars. So, as we already mentioned all parts of the guitar are made in the States, and therefore it will have a major impact on the overall price of their models. This is one of the main reasons why many companies have chosen to relocate to other parts of the world to reduce costs.

For example, Fender has a company in Mexico, and the guitars are assembled there. Other companies usually choose countries like Indonesia, India, China, and Korea. There is so much history that comes with it, and almost every guitar player you can imagine played Gibson at one point.

This adds a lot of weight and there is so much history behind the brand. Of course, the brand itself is what adds a bit to the price as well. The name and the recognition play an important role in the final price of the instrument. Gibson Les Paul was created in , and to this day remains one of the most popular guitars ever created.

With a recognizable tone, this solid-body guitar was something that many players around the world dream of. Of course, when it comes to history, seeing players like Eric Clapton and Knopfler playing Gibson models can mean a lot. Not to mention Lucille that B. King used to play.

This is just another factor that means prestige. Ultimately, people dream of owning a Gibson guitar and that means a lot. Furthermore, that will make the price a bit higher. Since the best guitar players in the world played Gibson guitars, that must mean that they are good.

The second determining factor is wood. If you plan on using expensive wood for the guitar, the price will go higher. Furthermore, the regulations and laws in the U. Not to mention that their guitars usually use wood like mahogany, rosewood, ebony, and maple which are either rare or expensive. If we compare Gibson to other companies, there are a lot of stricter regulations when it comes to importing wood since the company is located in the United States and creates a guitar only on this location.

There is no way to avoid the law, and there is no way to go around something like the restriction of using rosewood. While other companies that relocated across the globe have to follow the laws of the countries where their factories are. If we take a look only twenty years ago, most fretboards on the guitars were made of rosewood.

The same thing applies to Gibson as well. The methods and wood they used before, today might be more expensive or even restricted. However, players would demand it, and the price for rare wood or rare anything will only go sky-high. And the customers will want to have a guitar that is made using the same materials as it was fifty years ago.