Nightbird I Review

GAD

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Here you go! First one of the backlog to see the light of day!

http://www.gad.net/Blog/2018/01/07/guild-nightbird-i/

Guild-Nightbird-I-TopFull-1.jpg
 

walrus

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Nicely done! Personally, I love the spruce top on Nightbirds...

walrus
 

DThomasC

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Nice write up, GAD! I know it's purely a personal thing, But I prefer the feel of an unbound fingerboard. Likewise I prefer nickel or chrome over gold plating almost every time, so the Nightbird I really is the machine for me.

Do you think George Gruhn thought of it as a Les Paul copy? I always imagined that he was going for more of a single cutaway Jazz guitar vibe. Of course, Les Paul was probably going for the same thing... Maybe it's better to think of Nightbirds, Bluesbirds, and Les Pauls as parallel efforts, all copies of archtops. I mean, the body shape hardly originated with the Les Paul, though even Hans talks about the 50's Aristocrats as competing directly with LP's (which makes NO sense to me!)
 

adorshki

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hansmoust

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. I mean, the body shape hardly originated with the Les Paul, though even Hans talks about the 50's Aristocrats as competing directly with LP's (which makes NO sense to me!)

That's not what I wrote in my book ( The Guild Guitar Book - page 56, second alinea). Maybe you should re-read what I wrote exactly!

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
 

Quantum Strummer

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Ironically the part of the Les Paul that Les actually designed was the trapeze tailpiece. It was more appropriate for the ES-295, which was introduced at the same time and did in fact use the same tailpiece. The gold finishes on both guitars were Les' idea too. The rest of the LP is with little doubt the product of Ted McCarty and his team.

My guess is the Aristocrat was intended to emulate the LP's small-ish body size while preserving hollowbody acoustic response. With the Nightbird my impression is George Gruhn had in mind both the hollow and solid Bluesbirds, with some Aristocrat thrown in too.

-Dave-
 
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shihan

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Thanks for the education on Nightbirds, GAD. I always enjoy your reviews. One of the few guitars I don’t lust after. Having only one vol and tone on a 2 PU guitar is too limiting. Of course, I’ve played an LP for most of my life...
Can’t wait to see what comes next!
 

DThomasC

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. I mean, the body shape hardly originated with the Les Paul, though even Hans talks about the 50's Aristocrats as competing directly with LP's (which makes NO sense to me!)

That's not what I wrote in my book ( The Guild Guitar Book - page 56, second alinea). Maybe you should re-read what I wrote exactly!

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl

Thank you Hans, for requiring precision. What you wrote, exactly, is this (pg56):

'Unlike most of the other models in the early Guild line, the Aristocrat M-75 was not a mere descendant of the earlier Epiphone line. What at first sight looks like a solid body instrument, styled after a Gibson "Les Paul" model is really a scaled-down version of a hollow-body guitar.'

This quote directly supports my rant: the Aristocrat is NOT styled after a Les Paul; the bridge, tailpiece, and cutaway are completely different. It is in fact, styled very closely after all of the larger Guild archtops. To me, it looks much more like a X-175 than a Les Paul.

In the second paragraph you write:

'It is quite obvious that Guild was going for the players who were attracted by the compact size of the Gibson Les Paul but who did not like its weight.'

Well, yes, the Aristocrat (and the Nightbird and Bluesbird) are similar size to the Les Paul, but they are also similar size to the Telecaster and Duo Jet. Why not compare to them?

My entire beef (and obviously it's not limited to Hans or Gary) is we are all too quick to think of anything that vaguely resembles a toy-sized archtop in Les Paul terms. I think that if George Gruhn were here he would not object to the Nightbird being compared to great guitars like the Les Paul, but I also think that he would be disappointed if people only saw it in relation to the Les Paul and didn't appreciated it entirely on its own... only because it has a vaguely similar shape; that of a small archtop.

I apologize if I've offended Gary or Hans. I want to thank them both for their contributions. But, it continues to be a sore spot for me when people see Guild solid body electrics as Gibson wannabes (an S-100 looks NOTHING like an SG!) Neither Gary nor Hans has done that explicitly, but they haven't helped either. If we want to end prejudice, then those with the voices most heard need to be the most careful with what they say.

Thanks for listening!
 

GAD

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Hey man, rant away. More discussion is good and it doesn't hurt my feelings. If and when I'm wrong I'll freely admit it and/or update what I wrote where necessary. I've learned a lot here and one of the things I've learned is that I rarely have all the facts and try to defer to those that do when I can.

That said, and regardless of what the reality is, people look at Bluesbirds as a "Les Paul copy" and the S100 as an "SG copy". In my experience the vast majority of guitarists know Gibson and Fender and then there are the other brands like PRS. If you want a shredder look at Jackson, Charvel, and the like. Guild? They make acoustics. If a guitar from another brand looks even remotely like one of the two most famous electric guitars in history, then the vast majority of people will naturally compare it to them. The good news is that if you put something like a Nightbird in the hands of a guitarist, a fair number of them will describe it as a "Les Paul Killer", and that's a good thing IMO, because the "Les Paul" (regardless of the fact that there's 1000 variations) is a "standard" (inaccurate as it may be) by which people can relate.
 

walrus

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My entire beef is we are all too quick to think of anything that vaguely resembles a toy-sized archtop in Les Paul terms.

Just a random comment, even Gibson itself does this!

"In 1998 PRS released their "Singlecut" guitar, which bore some resemblance to the venerable Les Paul, Gibson Guitar Corp filed a trademark infringement against Paul Reed Smith."

FYI, Gibson lost.

walrus


 

DThomasC

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First of all, let me apologize if I'm coming across as hostile. I'm not really hostile, at least not towards any of you guys. You're my people. I might be excitable...

OK, imagine it's something like 1950 (feel free to correct the dates; I'm just going for a general sequence of events.) Magnetic pickups on archtop guitars is old news. It's so old that you realize that the giant acoustic box might not even be necessary. Actually, even that's old news as solid lap steel guitars have been around for a while and that crazy left-coast company Fender is selling quite a few non-acoustic electric guitars. You've got a tight relationship with Gibson - you've sold a lot of records made with their instruments and they want to make you happy, so you approach them with the idea of a solid electric guitar. Now this is Gibson we're talking about. They're not going to bolt a neck to a piece of 2x12 lumber like that other company. If they make a solid electric guitar it will need to be respectable and worthy of the reputation they've built in archtop guitars. It will need to look like Gibson. It can be more compact, but it will still have to look like a Gibson.

Under the circumstances, it would be nearly impossible to come up with something that doesn't look like the Les Paul.

That project goes well, and after a couple of years the stodgy old company decides to loosen its necktie a little and comes up with the Explorer, Flying V, and Moderne. After few more years, the Les Paul model is not making as much money as they'd like. They see what Fender is getting away with, so they decide to make a something simple and inexpensive to manufacture. They take a neck and glue it to a slab of mahogany. Then they cut the mahogany into the general shape of a guitar. You know, upper and lower bout, waist. Add cutaways to allow easy access to the upper frets.

Under the circumstances, it would be nearly impossible to come up with something that doesn't look like the SG. Well, that's not entirely true. Actually, the SG has a fairly progressive shape to the upper bout and horns that so-called copies lack. Maybe it'd be more correct to say that it would be difficult to come up with something that doesn't look like an S-100. In other words, it's an obvious design. Seeing it as a copy of anything other than every other guitar ever made is missing the obvious.


Hey man, rant away. More discussion is good and it doesn't hurt my feelings. If and when I'm wrong I'll freely admit it and/or update what I wrote where necessary. I've learned a lot here and one of the things I've learned is that I rarely have all the facts and try to defer to those that do when I can.

That said, and regardless of what the reality is, people look at Bluesbirds as a "Les Paul copy" and the S100 as an "SG copy". In my experience the vast majority of guitarists know Gibson and Fender and then there are the other brands like PRS. If you want a shredder look at Jackson, Charvel, and the like. Guild? They make acoustics. If a guitar from another brand looks even remotely like one of the two most famous electric guitars in history, then the vast majority of people will naturally compare it to them. The good news is that if you put something like a Nightbird in the hands of a guitarist, a fair number of them will describe it as a "Les Paul Killer", and that's a good thing IMO, because the "Les Paul" (regardless of the fact that there's 1000 variations) is a "standard" (inaccurate as it may be) by which people can relate.

I totally get that. You have an audience that you want to communicate with, so you use terms that they understand. But, you also have an opportunity to educate that audience...
 

adorshki

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First of all, let me apologize if I'm coming across as hostile. I'm not really hostile, at least not towards any of you guys. You're my people. I might be excitable...
I empathize with ya totally.

OK, imagine it's something like 1950 (feel free to correct the dates; I'm just going for a general sequence of events.) Magnetic pickups on archtop guitars is old news. It's so old that you realize that the giant acoustic box might not even be necessary. Actually, even that's old news as solid lap steel guitars have been around for a while and that crazy left-coast company Fender is selling quite a few non-acoustic electric guitars. You've got a tight relationship with Gibson - you've sold a lot of records made with their instruments and they want to make you happy, so you approach them with the idea of a solid electric guitar. Now this is Gibson we're talking about. They're not going to bolt a neck to a piece of 2x12 lumber like that other company.
OK at this point, since I don't know how familiar you are with Les Paul's accomplishments I'm gonna take a guess that's a tongue-in-cheek observation on a par with some of the ones I come up with.
But just in case it wasn't, from the "usual source":
"The Gibson Les Paul, one of the world's most popular electric guitars, was inspired by Paul's "Log".
Paul's innovative guitar, "The Log", built after-hours in the Epiphone guitar factory in 1940, a 4" × 4" chunk of pine with strings and a pickup, was one of the first solid-body electric guitars..In 1941 he created a prototype instrument, known as the Log, which he fashioned from a four-foot wooden board...Although Paul approached the Gibson Guitar Corporation with his idea of a solid body electric guitar in 1941, it showed no interest until Fender began marketing its Esquire; this later had a second pickup added and became known as the Broadcaster. (The Broadcaster was renamed the Telecaster in 1952.)"
All of which tends to affirm the previous observation that the Les Paul was actually largely designed by McCarty and Co and that Gibson probably simply wanted to associate the guitar with a hot recording act of the era:
"Additionally, Gibson's president Ted McCarty stated that the Gibson Guitar Corporation approached Les Paul for the right to imprint the musician's name on the headstock with the intention of increasing sales".

In any case, as pointed out, when something becomes such an icon it becomes a kind of universally accepted reference point for comparison, whether or not the comparison is appropriate or not, as couple of guys have mentioned.
And you also bring up that well-known paradigm of industrial design: that form follows function (as it should), so things that are designed with a given task in mind often wind up having very similar forms.
In fact violating that principle is the primary source of one of my pet peeves: Dysfunctional Designs.
 
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