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Gibson hits Trump Guitars with cease and desist for resemblance to Les Paul body design
(consequence.net)
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
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The entire design is a feature. Take the strat. None of it was accidental or using existing common features when it was designed. I don't particularly like the look of the design, but I can respect that every inch of it has a purpose. My favorite part of a strat is the shape on the bottom back which isn't even visible but makes it comfortable to play in a sitting position or while moving around in a standing position without hitting a sharp edge. The same applies the front top which allows you to rest your lower arm on the body without hitting a sharp edge. The cut aways are self-explanatory but keeping the horns also serves a purpose of balancing the weight and also makes it possible to rest on a leg when sitting. The headstock is ugly big, but it is necessary for the weight distribution.
Both Gibson and Fender had issues with their headstocks. The 3rd. string always goes out of tune before the other strings, because of the distance between the tuners and the nut. Notice the fix by Fender placing a lock on 1st & 2nd strings, otherwise those would be even worse. Musicman solved that by designing a headstock that is even uglier, but actually works by minimizing the distance. They rightfully patented that solution.
The Les Paul design has none of that, obviously because it came first, but also because it's designed for something else completely: Sustain. The entire purpose of the LP design was to make a long, clean and loud tone.
Copying that and slapping a MAGA sticker on it is a fucking disgrace to everything called guitar design. Nobody serious about guitar design gives a fuck about the colour or visual appeal. It'd be even worse if it was the visual aesthetic that was patentable. I'd definitely call dibs on an all black guitar then or the manga shit that everyone is sporting right now. In my opinion that is hardly worthy of copyright.
Explain the Flying V.
The Flying V was Gibson's reaction to the Fender Stratocaster, which was the first electric guitar to break away from the standard hour glass shaped body used for pretty much all string instruments until then. Gibson wanted in on this evolution and chose to go all in with the 3 futuristic shapes Flying V, Explorer and Moderna, while still maintaining the neck-through from the Les Paul and sharply angled headstock.
They did some improvements to the tuner locations on the headstock and made the upper frets accessible by the body shape instead of simply copying Fenders cut aways.
However, all 3 designs failed completely at the time, selling less than 100 pcs. They were too unconventional for the intended market of jazz and blues players, which already had a preference for other Gibson models like the ES series. It didn't really offer anything that didn't already exist. Gibson learned the hard way that the spacey design was not the reason for Fenders success. It was all about the comfort. Gibson later made the SG to address this.
It wasn't until the 1980s that heavy rock guitarists embraced the radical shapes, which was absolutely for looks. Hendrix made a notable live appearances using the V prior to that, but it's well known that he primarily recorded using a Stratocaster. I'd guess he used it live because of the humbuckers being better for that.