Gibson raided by FBI

[Notuern]

Yes, its true.

They are currently being "investigated for illegal importation of Madagascar wood".

http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2009/11/17/gibson_guitars_raided_by_fbi

 

[digitaldeath]

And I thought that Madagascar was just a movie...!

 

[Lasse Lammert]

hm, perhaps they wanna build good sounding guitars again and realized that it won't be possible with the shit wood they've been using in the past couple of years.

 

[GeertSamuel]

that's pretty f-ed up tho. imagine you now have a guitar on order...it probally is now pushed forward by some weeks...

 

[kaomao]

that's what they deserve for the price of their guitars!

 

[::XeS::]

+1

 

[TRA]

I don't think this has anything to do with illegal wood. I think even the feds got sick of the junk Gibson has been releasing, and took it upon themselves to rid the world of this nonsense.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Seeing how much that shit costs, my guess is your only gonna find it on there custom shot shit.

 

[ze kink]

That's pretty crazy if they've actually been using illegal woods. It might get pretty ugly, since I'm pretty sure that others might start to follow. I can't see it being just Gibson who'd be doing that.

Anyway, good to know that something's being done. Myself, I'd like to see more of this: http://www.flaxwood.com/intro/

 

[TravisW]

That flaxwood thing is interesting. I've always been interested in synthetics, particularly those that reduce the inconsistencies that you find in a lot of tonewoods (ahem...mahogany). Good-sounding mahogany is fantastic, but there's way too much variance in the tone between pieces of the stuff. I think that has been a big part of the problem in Gibson's electric line for decades now.

 

[ze kink]

That flaxwood thing is interesting. I've always been interested in synthetics, particularly those that reduce the inconsistencies that you find in a lot of tonewoods (ahem...mahogany). Good-sounding mahogany is fantastic, but there's way too much variance in the tone between pieces of the stuff. I think that has been a big part of the problem in Gibson's electric line for decades now.

I've played a few Flaxwoods and my other flatmate owns one. They're very good, especially the necks feel fantastic (no sticky lacquer needed) and don't react to changes in climate, weather, temperature etc. so far less tweaking required. They're very light too and indeed, there (should?) be no chances of getting a guitar with bad tonewood.

 

[ahjteam]

Sources say the Nashville-based guitar manufacturer is being investigated for violating the Lacey Act, a key piece of environmental law, for importing endangered species of rosewood from Madagascar.

 

[aortizjr]

Those Flaxwood guitars remind me a lot of Switch Guitars. They are gone now, but they would use an injection molded system using resin. Great idea and later generations sounded and played pretty well. They just sort of had an odd look to them and asking them for any new models or slight customizations were impossible. But they did resonate really well and were nearly impervious to environmental damage.

Oh and the price was very reasonable. It bothers me that many of the synthetic guitar makers will admit that it is cheaper to make the synthetics but charge more to make them "novelty." Labor is the killer price wise every time all the time. So if you have a machine that makes them perfectly consistent every time and you don't need master skilled labor, charge a fair price for it.

That being said I have no idea what the flaxwood stuff goes for. I see there is a dealer near me... I will be checking it out.

 

[slashvanyoung]

Sources say the Nashville-based guitar manufacturer is being investigated for violating the Lacey Act, a key piece of environmental law, for importing endangered species of rosewood from Madagascar.

So that's why my fretboard smelled like lemur poo poo!

Gibson... the like to move it, move it. They like to move it!