chris77 wrote
I think there is a bit too much input at Gibson at the moment. That looks like it was put together by a 'team' with a very broad based brief on what the outcome should be. A bunch of Zany!Hip!Modern! Designers left to tinker with what is actually a very traditional and settled concept is looking for trouble.
I think it's the opposite chris77. I think that they didn't get hip, modern designers in - the thing has practically zero aesthetic merit. I think rather that the people (or more likely, the person) at the top kept tinkering with whatever design was put forward (and whether there even was a professionally designed concept is really debatable looking at the result) until it looks like a child's attempt.
Even designed by a committee of designers, I don't think it's possible to create something that is so appalling if the designers were competent in the first place. This is literally one of the worst new guitars - looks-wise, I have ever seen. And ergonomically the racks of manual effects controls are flat out bonkers. It looks a bit like some eighties Samicks and Fernandes, but far worse - busier, with the clashing complexity of the fret-board wood and the inlays (no neck binding, but headstock binding ???), the multi-coloured knobs with their bizarre instruction plates - not to mention their garish robot control knob.
To me it's odd to even consider it in terms of a Firebird (which was a totally un-Gibson-like design that has proved a classic why? Because it was given to a professional designer). If it didn't say, "Firebird" in the name, I wouldn't have even thought about a Firebird. I don't have any problem with Gibson messing with classics - as long as they do something cool with them. I think this is more simply a case of designing a pure stinker. Simple as that.
