[Slowhand] EC, Gibsons, Heritage, Various and Sundry ...

[Almighty Geetarz]

Happy New Year, Y'all ...

To touch on a few topics of note (I am as usual a month behind on 
reading email <g>):

1) Gibson (Montana) *is* making some superlative guitars these days - I 
would argue, in terms of consistency, perhaps the best ever acoustics 
bearing the Gibson name. While the "reissues" aren't as accurate as they 
could be, that is a separate issue from quality. I had occasion to own a 
reissue J-45 for a while that was a stunningly good sounding guitar, but 
ultimately I couldn't handle the "modern" neck profile. Should Gibson 
elect to produce a J-45 with a nice hand filling 'v' profile neck, I'm 
in there ...

2) The 1970s Gibson acoustics were indeed, in general, mediocre.  
Lutherie is a business, and the main problem, at least on the acoustic 
side, was that the corporate owners of the brand wanted to see a 
reduction in warranty returns. An acoustic guitar, at its heart, is an 
engineering  compromise between the tension of the steel strings 
(several hundred pounds of force at concert tuning) and the strength of 
the bracing.  Of course, one could put strings on a block of concrete, 
steel, or solid wood, and on the other end, one could produce a 
stunningly "open" sounding acoustic, that would fail structurally quite 
quickly.  The trick to producing a "production" acoustic, is to find a 
happy place between these two extremes.  I used to frequent a local 
builder's shop for years, and on the wall they had a 1970s Gibson top 
mounted, braces out, with a sign that had some sort of pithy comment on 
it (I can't remember the exact wording).  The point was, the bracing on 
that 1970s Gibson top, was MASSIVE and tone-deadening, and the Gibson 
top was the epitome of what they were striving NOT to produce.

Nowadays the larger acoustic manufacturers seem to have found a happy 
medium, and brace their tops strongly, but not overbuilt, for most 
purposes.  It's one of the reasons that an independent builder will 
usually always have an edge, tonally, over a mass produced guitar like a 
Martin or a Gibson, because the builder can get closer to that 
theoretical "edge", especially with some one on one interaction with the 
player. Obviously someone who will play fingerstyle jazz is going to 
want a more responsive, less braced box, than Pete Townshend, who 
probably NEEDS those 200's braced with carbon fiber ;)

3) Someone asked if EC had ever been spotted with a Gibson acoustic, and 
the closest I can think of, is that during the late 1980s at least in 
concert, EC did occasionally use a Gibson "Chet Atkins SST", this was 
actually a quite clever semi-solidbody that looked like a (thin) 
acoustic, fitted with piezo pickups. Since piezos (at least in my 
opinion) pretty much sound like crap whether they are in a $100 solid 
body or a $10,000 Martin, the Chet SST always struck me as a great 
"acoustic" for stage work. EC also played the gut string version of the 
Chet on occasion, again it was a solid body guitar that gave the 
appearance of a classical guitar, at least from the front.  But I don't 
recall seeing EC with any standard Gibson acoustic, at least not doing 
any stage work.  Meanwhile Martin will keep cranking out the EC 
"signature" editions, and hopefully the income will help buy Chris 
Martin IV a better hairpiece (if that's not a hairpiece, it's simply the 
worst haircut this side of Don King).

4) Last but not least, who needs real guitars when one can play AIR 
GUITAR, and now there's a new product to help us all with that:

http://www.dailytech.com/Guitar+Hero+Begets+Air+Guitar+Rocker/article10278.htm

One can only hope that future versions will include an "EC Buckle".

Rock on!

~AG