Tweet
Here's my take on the one I HAD - this is what I posted on the Gibson Dark Fire forum as well:
The amount of problems they are having with these is tragic. It is truly a remarkable guitar with a LOT of potential. Gibson screwed the pooch and launched it before they were ready.
I picked mine up the other day and have spent a fair amount of time with it. And thanks to those of you that have been posting tips and tricks, it's been quite helpful.
Bottom line: this guitar should never have shipped out. QA just rushed it out the door, plain and simple.
It's too bad because I love the look, feel, and sound of the guitar.
1) The guitar doesn't actually stay in tune worth a darn. I have a light touch but bend a lot and this guitar goes out of tune *extremely* easy. I have owned a lot of guitars in my life and this one is one of the worst guitars I've owned in terms of staying in tune.
2) When the MCK knob is pulled out and pushed in there is a nasty pop.
3) When the MCK knob is out the guitar is obnoxiously noisy.
4) The guitar isn't silenced while tuning - who wants to hear a guitar being tuned? This is a terrible thing for a gigging guitar.
5) Chameleon tone doesn't work right. I select 'C', push down lightly to enter Chameleon mode, select a preset 'Funky', push down to return to play mode, voila I get 'Gibson'. If you press and hold the MCK and 'store' the setting and then press down it seems to work. This is way too cumbersome. Also, on several of the settings the neck pickup does not 'take' - IOW, it's the stock P-90 tone.
6) Piezo's don't work right using the split outs. When you switch the blend to the standard pickups it doesn't lower the output to the acoustic side - rather it just adds the standard pickups to the acoustic output.
7) Piezo's don't work intuitively - when I enable the piezo's via the 'I' position and then press the MCK down the piezo's shut off. Only if I switch over to the 'balloon' position and push the MCK down do the piezo's remain on.
8) One of the most maddening things is after I finally get a Chameleon tone settings semi-working, selecting an alternate tuning reverts the Chameleon tone back to 'Gibson'. Combine that with the fact that the guitar won't stay in tune and you have a real hassle.
9) The MCK switch doesn't work well at all - sometimes it is difficult to pull up and then pushes all the way down to easily.
10) The MCK design is fundamentally poor to begin with. I understand going out of your way to not have a lot of knobs on the guitar but operating this guitar is very cumbersome and not intuitive at all. A few extra controls wouldn't have been so horrible.
At this point I can't see keeping this guitar. I will return it and wait until later in 2009 when they've worked out the bugs.
Bottom line: this guitar should never have shipped out. QA just rushed it out the door, plain and simple.
It's too bad because I love the look, feel, and sound of the guitar.
1) The guitar doesn't actually stay in tune worth a darn. I have a light touch but bend a lot and this guitar goes out of tune *extremely* easy. I have owned a lot of guitars in my life and this one is one of the worst guitars I've owned in terms of staying in tune.
2) When the MCK knob is pulled out and pushed in there is a nasty pop.
3) When the MCK knob is out the guitar is obnoxiously noisy.
4) The guitar isn't silenced while tuning - who wants to hear a guitar being tuned? This is a terrible thing for a gigging guitar.
5) Chameleon tone doesn't work right. I select 'C', push down lightly to enter Chameleon mode, select a preset 'Funky', push down to return to play mode, voila I get 'Gibson'. If you press and hold the MCK and 'store' the setting and then press down it seems to work. This is way too cumbersome. Also, on several of the settings the neck pickup does not 'take' - IOW, it's the stock P-90 tone.
6) Piezo's don't work right using the split outs. When you switch the blend to the standard pickups it doesn't lower the output to the acoustic side - rather it just adds the standard pickups to the acoustic output.
7) Piezo's don't work intuitively - when I enable the piezo's via the 'I' position and then press the MCK down the piezo's shut off. Only if I switch over to the 'balloon' position and push the MCK down do the piezo's remain on.
8) One of the most maddening things is after I finally get a Chameleon tone settings semi-working, selecting an alternate tuning reverts the Chameleon tone back to 'Gibson'. Combine that with the fact that the guitar won't stay in tune and you have a real hassle.
9) The MCK switch doesn't work well at all - sometimes it is difficult to pull up and then pushes all the way down to easily.
10) The MCK design is fundamentally poor to begin with. I understand going out of your way to not have a lot of knobs on the guitar but operating this guitar is very cumbersome and not intuitive at all. A few extra controls wouldn't have been so horrible.
At this point I can't see keeping this guitar. I will return it and wait until later in 2009 when they've worked out the bugs.
:ROTF:
Comment