Official Luthiers Forum!

Remember that iconic anti-war tune from the late 60's?

Picked up a very nice Heritage, a brand spanking new one that came in for a set up and the first thing that I said to myself was "where are the F holes..."

Flipped it over and what do ya know there they are!

Interesting design and worthy of sharing.

alert

1st guy: Dang, we need to be able to access the electronics and we don't want to increase the cost for a removable panel. Other guy: why not use one of those old fashioned funny looking holes on the back then it will look like we did it to improve the sound

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

ummmmmmmmmmmmm why ??? seems like its waste pointed at your stomach ???

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Hesh: The guy who built that put it together upside down. Fix it and put the f holes on the top and I'm sure the owner will be super pleased......!!
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Hey Larry, we can't send this one out of the factory.

Why not?

We put the f holes on the wrong side.

Idiot, that guitar is for people playing on that side of the room.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

uhhh .. nothing wrong with them f-holes .. its the neck and electronics that are on the wrong side .... obviously built on a Friday afternoon, after a gourmet 7 course lunch (6 pack and a sub ...)

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

That's just asking to get caught on my belt buckle.

Yeah kind of brings new meaning to that old term about getting one's "teat caught in a ringer....." So much for my mermaid playing a guitar fantasy.....

Also - for all of time, well some of it anyway, F holes are strategically positioned in accordance with approximate bridge locations. The points are always a very close starting point when folks forget to mark and take all of the strings off at once. Putting the bridge on the back would be pretty uncomforable....

On a serious note, hard as that is for me... I've been doing a lot of Heritages lately, over ten in the last 10 days or so and I am impressed. The chassis is solid, certainly as good as a G*bson if not slightly better IMO, and all they need to be a really nice guitar is a great set-up what nearly all f*ctories neglect to do or can't do in the current biz model.

One of the very few things that I don't like about them is the height of the binding - way too big and it draws my eye right to it and reminds me of Joe Nameth's white shoes back in the day.

Might be one of these puppies in my future I'm thinking.

Lastly they are built in the original G*bson f*ctory on Parsons street by some of the very same guys who used to build G*bsons. Pretty cool company, very cool guitars, and nice to see the throw back to G*bson's heritage as well.

And really lastly one of the Heritage Les Pauls that we worked on this week had the pups swapped to the "Throw Backs" and I have to tell you that this guitar sounded absolutely fantastic in all respects. These pups are I am told over $500 but man did they sound great, fat, warm, lots of definition and great highs when you wanted them.

Might be time for ole Hesh to replace that 67 335 DOT that I traded in to get my Dad a tape recorder in 1973.... with a Heritage 335ish model with throw backs. Nothing like playing Blind Faith on a 335!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Don't worry... I fixed it

James: That looks a lot better................may you could hire on with Hesh.........!!
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Hesh- making a guitar "as good as a g*ibson" if pretty low hanging fruit, don't you think?

Let's not delude ourselves that we are younger than we are, Hesh ...very early sixties IIRC ... one of the first songs I ever learned on guitar ...

Strange, i always thought F holes were used on either side of the bridge to allow lateral movement of the bridge.
That looks funky.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Oh maaaaan. Canadian company too. Well, I think the body was made in Ch#%a.

Roger that and what a crying shame as well.... That's why I always refer to G*bson as G*bson and not Gibson.... bad word ya know.....

I've owned a few Gibson's and like many others I enjoyed showing them off with tremendous pride. Wish I still had my tobacco ES335TD paid $250 I believe now worth $10,000 - $15,000. Perhaps I am missing the humor or something else? Just pointing out that "brand" bashing spills over to the owners -- what am I missing?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

With me its the " Repair aspect " ( insert any name brand ) has taken on the attitude that the Name will sell no matter the quality . Sadly , like many products the quality has dropped . I am not "anti" ( insert any name brand ) However when the ONLY place you can get parts is from them and they charge 4-5 times the value of the work . THAT to me is an arrogant attitude no matter who the ( name brand ) is. The average factory built guitar is over priced by at least double based on the construction quality these days.

Just my 2 cents

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

So did anyone ever figure out why they did this?? An attempt at less feedback? Tired of getting picks lost inside? Custom for an eccentric customer? Friday afternoon joke?

Heritage makes excellent guitars. There was a time when if you wanted a real Gibson, you bought a Heritage...

Me thinks that pretty much applies to any high profile consumer product? Martin, Taylor, Gibson fairly successful "American" companies with "American" employees -- and happy owners, my question is still why a need to bash? Can't we just move on and delight in the works of the members --- pro's and amateur's alike?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Hey Ken - Spills over to the owners of the company... or the guitars? If you mean that my brand bashing spills over to G*bson's current CEO - good!

Here's my beef(s) with G*bson.

First and foremost I'm a life long business guy with more experience with corporations than most folks that you have ever met.... When I consider the G*bson story, Harvard grads assume majority stake in iconic American guitar company one has to marvel at the opportunity for G*bson AND those of us who love G*bson's post current CEO.

Then when you consider the current state of affairs such as the following:

1) Quality sucks...... but still commands very high prices....
2) Troubles with poaching and infamous reports in the news....
3) The legacy of Gibson - maker of working man's (and woman's) instruments less expensive than Martin priced to get em out here for all of us to play and enjoy. G*bsons were embraced, Les Pauls, 335's, Cream, Robert Johnson, Led Zeppelin, etc. etc. etc. and can be heard on much of the music that I love and adore and listen to daily. What a market position to have!!!
4) Fretwork on a $300 Ibanez is superior these days to a $3,000 G*bson and there is NO excuse for it. At these prices G*bson cannot claim that the economics are not present to tighten up the quality.
5) If you want a Les Paul that even approaches some of the early LPs even a lousy 70's one.... it's custom shop or better, $5K minimum for what is basically a pretty simple instrument to construct.
6) Predatory practices: Have you spoken with music store owners lately? They will tell you that G*bson is so very controlling with their dealers that many have decided that G*bson is not worth the trouble. Elderly Instruments one of the biggest and best respected music stores on the planet dropped G*bson some time ago for the controlling business practices.
7) Support: Are you aware that non-G*bson-entities, stores, repair shops, etc cannot and will not be permitted access to G*bson parts? How does that support mutual clients?

G*bson as a company today has destroyed all of the considerable good will that the original G*bson earned and deserved. I love old G*bsons and grew up with an LG-1, 335, SG, and some Kalamazoos too including a tube amp. I would love to have G*bson still around, still making great instruments for the common folks and priced accordingly and I would love to buy them from real, Mom and Pop music stores not that abomination called G*itar C*nter....

But with lousy quality, absurd prices, predatory business practices, self-limiting support availability, getting caught poaching and blaming others mind you..., and the fact that I seriously doubt that even the knowledge base of how to make a great guitar remains at G*bson today.....

But most of all...... as a life long corporate puke myself I simply cannot fathom how this incredible opportunity for business excellence has been pissed away through personal greed and arrogance by today's G*bson leadership.

It's a crying shame...

On a postive note.... we have Heritage!

One of Heritage's ES-175 type guitars got me through college jazz band.