Post by ux4484 on Jun 10, 2013 12:00:33 GMT -5
So... Being a cheapo, I'm usually looking for good cheap guitars, If I like, I keep, if not... return/sell/trade and I'm not out much cash. I had picked up an EPI SG special (the one with the kill switch) on clearance at GC for $99 with a coupon. The Mrs found it and went ballistic. SG goes back to GC. As we've all seen from overseas guitars, there are good and bad ones. This one was REALLY good. Oh well....
Flash forward one month. The Mrs' needs/wants a new car. Goes and gets herself a Beetle Turbo! Even the kids got on her about making me take the SG back after that. She says "fine" and says I can go get a guitar I want... not so easy now... I don't have a budget (but I'm still cheap). The SG special's left are all abused or morphodites. Can't find a G310 or G400 I like as much as that SG special (really, it was THAT good). I decide I'm going to get something really nice, so I sell a couple guitars I had to cover the additional cost (Conrad/Aria 5120 1960's bass, and an Ibanez G105 5 string bass. I had repaired/restored the Conrad/Aria and made a few bucks in the process).
While at Sam Ash, I spot a Gibby SG for $799 high on the wall behind the glass-case guitars. I'm thinking I'd better check it out, they get it down...it's a ROBOT SG. I knew about them, but had never tried any. Some things should have tipped me off about it:
1: It was $799
2: It was missing two strings
3: The manager came up and dropped the price $100 while I was trying it out even though it was "new".
4: It had the dreaded joint ripples in the finish.
They re-strung it (locking tuners) and I tried it out. VERRRRY cool... It sounded in tune...maybe just a little off when changing to open E tuning... but I wrote that off to new strings (curse my relative pitch!). I was so hyped, I didn't check it against a tuner as I should have. Action was low, pups were all Angus, and it played like butter. It was a special, so there was no neck binding, but the grain of the fretboard was wonderfully finished on the sides and was so smooth, you could barely feel the difference from the fret ends to the wood.
Got it home... charged it up. Manual tune... sounds great (pull the tuning peg out to tune manually), auto tune... not so much. Alternate tunings... all are a bit off. I performed a calibration, and then a factory reset. Changed strings to the recommended .10-.46's, tried again, tried their "eFunction" algorithm... all to no avail. So then I started researching it: This is a VERY common problem with the Robot system (especially on this V2 release). Called Gibson, and they said to send it in. My research turned up nightmare stories ranging from folks sending theirs in and Gibson loosing their guitar (additionaly waffling on sending out a replacement) to folks waiting over a year for a fix. I didn't go that route.
I started using the auto-tune first, and then fine-tuning manually... It played great when in tune...but when the VERY reason you bought something doesn't work ... It doesn't take long for that to piss you off... so back it went.
I was past the return period, but was able to exchange for full credit. It was replaced by an ESP LTD EC401FM in Reindeer Blue (a story for another day). As I was leaving with the ESP, the manager came up and told the salesman to send the SG back to Gibson and that he never wanted to see it again (I think I was not the first to have that guitar).
Flash forward one month. The Mrs' needs/wants a new car. Goes and gets herself a Beetle Turbo! Even the kids got on her about making me take the SG back after that. She says "fine" and says I can go get a guitar I want... not so easy now... I don't have a budget (but I'm still cheap). The SG special's left are all abused or morphodites. Can't find a G310 or G400 I like as much as that SG special (really, it was THAT good). I decide I'm going to get something really nice, so I sell a couple guitars I had to cover the additional cost (Conrad/Aria 5120 1960's bass, and an Ibanez G105 5 string bass. I had repaired/restored the Conrad/Aria and made a few bucks in the process).
While at Sam Ash, I spot a Gibby SG for $799 high on the wall behind the glass-case guitars. I'm thinking I'd better check it out, they get it down...it's a ROBOT SG. I knew about them, but had never tried any. Some things should have tipped me off about it:
1: It was $799
2: It was missing two strings
3: The manager came up and dropped the price $100 while I was trying it out even though it was "new".
4: It had the dreaded joint ripples in the finish.
They re-strung it (locking tuners) and I tried it out. VERRRRY cool... It sounded in tune...maybe just a little off when changing to open E tuning... but I wrote that off to new strings (curse my relative pitch!). I was so hyped, I didn't check it against a tuner as I should have. Action was low, pups were all Angus, and it played like butter. It was a special, so there was no neck binding, but the grain of the fretboard was wonderfully finished on the sides and was so smooth, you could barely feel the difference from the fret ends to the wood.
Got it home... charged it up. Manual tune... sounds great (pull the tuning peg out to tune manually), auto tune... not so much. Alternate tunings... all are a bit off. I performed a calibration, and then a factory reset. Changed strings to the recommended .10-.46's, tried again, tried their "eFunction" algorithm... all to no avail. So then I started researching it: This is a VERY common problem with the Robot system (especially on this V2 release). Called Gibson, and they said to send it in. My research turned up nightmare stories ranging from folks sending theirs in and Gibson loosing their guitar (additionaly waffling on sending out a replacement) to folks waiting over a year for a fix. I didn't go that route.
I started using the auto-tune first, and then fine-tuning manually... It played great when in tune...but when the VERY reason you bought something doesn't work ... It doesn't take long for that to piss you off... so back it went.
I was past the return period, but was able to exchange for full credit. It was replaced by an ESP LTD EC401FM in Reindeer Blue (a story for another day). As I was leaving with the ESP, the manager came up and told the salesman to send the SG back to Gibson and that he never wanted to see it again (I think I was not the first to have that guitar).