Gibson considering making ukes after bankruptcy reorg

70sSanO said:

Just wondering... is there anyone under 30 that sees Gibson ukulele as any different than a Fender ukulele?

John

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I'm under 30 and for me, the two in the ukulele world are identical (no brand affinity for either). In the guitar world, I've owned several Gibsons and several Fenders, so I think of them as front-of-mind for guitar companies. But if Gibson/Fender made quality ukuleles, it's before my time. I do recall when Fender got into entry-level ukuleles. I liked the headstock style, but wasn't willing to buy one on that alone.

I was thinking too, that, knowing the high quality and demand of the Gibson banjo, that there is a niche for Gibson to produce a very nice banjolele, and even a "miniature" 5 string banjo. My luthier has a mini 5 string banjo (maker unknown) that I drool over each time I see it. He won't sell it. I know too, that if I ever upgrade from my Duke banjolele, I'll be looking for something nice, and Gibson has certainly proved they can build banjos.
Godin guitars has done very nicely with their hollow body electric ukes, and Gibson can do this too. I see a niche there for them, if they dare to go head to head with Godin. If I were in the market for that type of uke (great for gigging!) and I saw a Godin and a Gibson side by side of equal quality and price, I'd go for old reliable.
But I think Gibson is too late to jump on a ukulele bandwagon to produce ukes like Martin. And I don't think I would buy a new Martin uke, I think they ruined their product by letting it leave Nazereth. Just sayin'.

I've owned one of the 0XKs and currently own one of the Mexican-made concerts. Both fine instruments and worth the relative premium price. Plenty of fine ukes are made outside the U.S. at a lot of price points. I won't hate on Martin for moving some production to Mexico just because they wanted to keep its under-$1,000 price point uke line alive.

If the instruments were lousy, I'd happily say so. But they aren't.

hendulele said:

I've owned one of the 0XKs and currently own one of the Mexican-made concerts. Both fine instruments and worth the relative premium price. Plenty of fine ukes are made outside the U.S. at a lot of price points. I won't hate on Martin for moving some production to Mexico just because they wanted to keep its under-$1,000 price point uke line alive.

If the instruments were lousy, I'd happily say so. But they aren't.

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I stand corrected. I hope it didn't sound like I was hatin' Martin.
You're right, I've played some Vietnamese ukuleles that were really awesome, and very affordable. A friend of mine just bought a Bruce Wei, and it is, well, danged nice for the price.
I've only played one new Martin that I liked, and I wanted it but couldn't afford it. The others were kinda so-so, I thought.
But then I'm not a very good player....

No prob, Nickie.

I'm nowhere near a great player, which may be why the Martin is probably above my ability level or my capacity to do it justice. It is a sweet instrument, even so!

I've found the Bruce Wei's intriguing, but generally speaking, they seem to feature a lot more bling than I like.

Nickie said:

I stand corrected. I hope it didn't sound like I was hatin' Martin.
You're right, I've played some Vietnamese ukuleles that were really awesome, and very affordable. A friend of mine just bought a Bruce Wei, and it is, well, danged nice for the price.
I've only played one new Martin that I liked, and I wanted it but couldn't afford it. The others were kinda so-so, I thought.
But then I'm not a very good player....

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I don't know about Gibson ukes, but here's a couple of ukuleles for Gibson guitar lovers:

I do hope that they would make high-quality, medium-priced ukuleles (and banjo ukuleles!) based on their heritage, but I'm simply afraid that Gibson is looking for a rather short term profit (necessary at the moment) and quite unaware of how they used to make those (the interview with the former CEO contains a lot of wrong info; Gibson barely has archives, moved around a lot and doesn't have employees with a long history at the company anymore, in contrast to say Martin or even Fender).

As for brand value, did you know that Epiphone used to have a higher reputation than Gibson, before it was bought up by Gibson and reduced to a cheaper import brand? It's the mechanism that could be applied here: use a high-end name to sell lower-key instruments, until the high-end name gently slides down the scale as well.

Fender and Gibson have been producing electric as well as acoustic instruments for well over half a century, but Fender is by far still the 'electric' company with very few iconic acoustic instruments. While Gibson has a clear acoustic past (mandolins, L-5 big band guitars, Granada banjos) decades before it became the Les Paul, Flying V and Explorer brand. I might be just over 30 years, but to me there is a clear difference between the two.

New Gibson ukuleles.

All the work of building a guitar at half the profit.

Another in a long list of great ideas by Gibson's current management.

I played a Gibson uke at a collector's house in the 70's. I was looking for a mandolin at the time and didn't have the money for both but I thought that Gibson uke was a killer. If Gibson gets back in the ukulele game, I would certainly take a look. I don't have any suggestions for their new overall business strategy.

I have been lucky enough to play a couple of original Gibson ukes. My rule of thumb - if it says "The Gibson" on the headstock, it's almost always good. Those Epiphone things look like toys.

These will be boring far Eastern made instruments. Nothing wrong with that. There are lots of fine instruments. But they won't be the thing that they're collected for.

They will go out of business and frankly a bit of me thinks it serves them right.

chris667 said:

They will go out of business and frankly a bit of me thinks it serves them right.

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Why do you say that?

Before I started playing music I always thought Gibson was a pretty big name brand and that they made good guitars. Got into music a little bit and realized when it came to guitars, Martin stole the show. Had no idea Gibson ever went bankrupt until literally this morning I just never paid attention to them.

My own personal preference; I don't like ukes made by guitar builders (although I do have two guitars made by uke builders...I don't know).

necessaryrooster said:

Why do you say that?

Before I started playing music I always thought Gibson was a pretty big name brand and that they made good guitars. Got into music a little bit and realized when it came to guitars, Martin stole the show. Had no idea Gibson ever went bankrupt until literally this morning I just never paid attention to them.

My own personal preference; I don't like ukes made by guitar builders (although I do have two guitars made by uke builders...I don't know).

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Gibson made great ukuleles in the past. For decades, they have been run by people who were interested in trading on their name. Now, they are tacky. FWIW I think this also applies to Martin.

The best uke I ever played was a 1920s Gibson.

hoosierhiver said:

I would never have thought Martin would muddy their reputation with mid-grade unremarkable imports, but they did.

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They did, but used a different name - Sigma. Some were great, some were... shall we say less than stellar. WAY less.

chris667 said:

Gibson made great ukuleles in the past. For decades, they have been run by people who were interested in trading on their name. Now, they are tacky. FWIW I think this also applies to Martin.

The best uke I ever played was a 1920s Gibson.

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I have a 1920s Gibson (rebranded to be the “house brand” at a department store) and it is wonderful. More chimney than the Martins of the day and a dream to play.