Gibson Songbird Deluxe Cutaway Review

History:

Purchase: Was searching for a good acoustic electric cutaway at a fair price. Bought at Guitar Trader (mail ordered from San Diego). The price was stupid...$1400, most discount stores were selling them for $1800-2000 (IF you could even find one for sale).

What I Like About This Unit: The guitar was only out of the factory for about two months when I got it. After opening the case, my room smelled like a wood shop! it was sweet. The guitar was very well made and finished. It was a beauty to behold. Mine was a 2002 model and had new features...parallelogram fret markers, moustache style bridge etc. it seems that only a few were called 'Gibson Songbird Deluxes', they now appear to be called Songwriter Deluxe Cutaways.

What I Do NOT Like About The Gibson Songbird Deluxe Cutaway: The rosewood neck was too light in color and kinda clashed with the body. The action was too high (almost unplayable) and needed to have work done on it to make it suit my taste (or anyones I think). The sound unplugged was muddy and uninspiring in the bass and dull and boring in the treble (lifeless). Overall I found the sound to be awfull. Plugged in, (it had electrics on board) the guitar obviously had a fault. The volume coming from the treble was only about a third of that coming from the bass. I called Gibson and they said that it sounded like the ribbon under the bridge was not in place properly.

Songbird Deluxe Cutaway Quality: The construction of the guitar was excellent except for the set up (didn't meet Gibsons standard action as described on their web site) and the faulty electronics.

Summary: I sent the guitar back. I didn't want to spend 200 or so bucks getting the thing fixed up the way I needed. I have a feeling that, 'set up' properly and left to sit for ten years (sic) for the wood to mature, the guitar might have been OK for anyone liking muddy uninspiring tone. Sorry Gibson, but my Taylors blow this away, even though they are obviously not as 'hand made' like the Gibson really seems to be. Also, once you decide on a paricular Gibson model, it is very hard to find a store that has one or two in stock that you can compare. You really need to try more than one out as they are so hand made and there is huge variences in sound between two seemingly identical guitars. Moral of the story: don't ever but an acoustic guitar mail order!

Rating of this product: 3

This Gibson Acoustic Guitars Review Submitted By: Nigel

Date: 2003-02-25