Gibson Dusk Tiger

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:46 pm Post subject: Gibson Dusk Tiger

More info has just arrived:

http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Les-Paul/Gibson-USA/Dusk-Tiger.aspx

BobTheDog · Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 1:17 pm Post subject:

From the warranty:

GovernorSilver · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 1:16 pm Post subject:

Perhaps they are not confident in the durability of those servo-motors.

I suppose you could sell it used before the year is up and get most of your money back. Wink

DrJustice · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 1:52 pm Post subject:

Apparently that is the general Gibson warranty for products outside the US. I thought one year warranty for "parts and labour" was not uncommon(?).

DJ
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BobTheDog · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:51 pm Post subject:

I must admit I would have expected 5 years, its a fairly expensive guitar!

In the England by law retailers are responsible for faulty good for 6 years so I should be able to get redress from the dealer is something goes terribly wrong in that period.

Do they not have these laws in the USA?

BobTheDog · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 4:04 pm Post subject:

Ah looks like I am going to have to wait till 18/02/2010 for mine!

How does it take over two months to get from the USA to here?

DrJustice · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:13 pm Post subject:

BobTheDog · Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 7:30 am Post subject:

My Dusk Tiger has arrived in the UK Smile

Unfortunately I am in Denmark Sad

DrJustice · Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 7:43 am Post subject:

BobTheDog · Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 9:18 am Post subject:

Update for you on Thursday night Very Happy

BobTheDog · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 2:25 am Post subject:

I have been playing with the guitar quite a bit now and I must admit I really like it.

Basics
====

It looks better in real life than on the photos, the body is actually quite small but the depth is around the same as a LP.

The neck is pretty narrow for a LP which is good for me.

Even though this is meant to be a 'Light' guitar it is still pretty heavy compared to my other more svelte guitars.

The finish is not that great, the top and neck are good but the actual body has a rugged unfinished feel to it, also mine has scuffing on the underside. Not at all up to the quality I would expect for this amount of money. Also the etching on the truss rod cover is pretty bad, looks like it was etched by a weak mouse on acid!

It resonates very well with pretty long sustain.

The setup was perfect out of the box, intonation is also perfect. The setup is fairly low and the strings look like 10s to me.

The first issue is that it doesn't yet have a manual, one is apparently on the way and is being proof read at the moment.

With the gizmos turned off the guitar acts like a standard LP with two hum-buckers with volume controls but differs by having a shared tone control.

The Gibson site shows the neck PU as a P-90h and seems to say it acts as a single coil but it sure sounds like a hum-bucker to me. The bridge PU is a Burst Bucker 3.

Th PUs sound pretty good to me.

The extra knob is the MCK controller, I have only worked out the basics so far.

The system operates in four different modes with different functionality, identified by the
display colour:

• The Tune mode (blue) offers tuning selection without changing the current sound
• The Sound mode (green) offers sound selection without changing the current tuning
• The Preset mode (yellow) changes both tuning and sound.
• The Function mode (red) offers access to special functions and system behaviour.

When you first pull the MCK out it goes into the blue tuning mode, a blue letter in the middle signifies what tuning you want, you turn it to pick a tuning from this list:

BobTheDog · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 3:14 am Post subject:

You can set up the yellow patches using the "Gibson Chameleon Editor" this allows you to set up the pickups and place EQ on both the normal PUs and also the Piezo pickup.

The neck pickup can set set as a single or hum-bucker.

The bridge pickup can be set as a single, hum-bucker, double coil parallel or double coil out of phase.

This gives you 16 combinations of pickups (including the piezo), this combined with the pickup selection knob and pickup volumes gives a large control over the basic tone.

On top of this you have two four band parametric EQs, one for the mags and one for the piezo. The EQ combined with the pickup settings are what makes this guitar a bit special I think.

Ableton Live 8 Gibson Studio Edition is included, as well as well as a full version of NI Guitar Rig 4 Pro.

Now onto the RIP which is the stupid name given to the audio/control interface.

A stereo lead is used to connect the guitar to the RIP, 8 channels of audio are multiplexed down the stereo lead to the RIP which then works as a basic 8 channel to 2 channel mixer and a 8 in two out audio interface. The RIP is also used as an interface to the guitar to save presets, update firmware etc.

The 8 channels are Mag, Piexo mix and 6 individual piezo channels.

Also included is a lead for connecting roland 13 pin devices, I have tried this briefly with my Axon AX100mkii and it seems to work pretty well. I need to spend some more time setting up string sensitivities before I am really sure.

One problem I have with the RIP is that the levels to the computer are shit, the mags max is about -24db and the piezos at around -12db. You end up having to amplify in software which brings the noise level up to an unacceptable level. Also the piezo mix has some weird digital noise at -50DB in the 6.5K-8K range. The individual piezo outs do not suffer from this but do have a uniform hiss at around -70db.

Overall I am not very impressed with the RIP!

DrJustice · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 7:57 am Post subject:

Thanks for the update Andy! Very Happy

Good to hear that you like the guitar. It's nice to get a good setup out of the box - since it has been Plek'ed it should at least have perfect frets.

The neck pickup, P90h, AFAIK is a coil stacked humbucker variety of the classic P90. And also AFAIK, there are coil split, parallel and reverse phase options, so there ought to be a true single coil sound in there somewhere.

Surely the RIP is not meant to have those level and noise issues... I hope you can get that fixed. Have you tried it with the VG yet (and/or Axon if you have one).

DJ

P.S. I took the liberty of editing the tabulation in your first report posting. Hope you don't mind!
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BobTheDog · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 8:43 am Post subject:

Antimon · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 9:32 am Post subject:

Great info Andy! You're a great gear pioneer here at electro-music.com. Smile

/Stefan

DrJustice · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 10:08 am Post subject:

BobTheDog · Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 8:20 am Post subject:

Well here is an update:

It looks like I have a duff one as they shouldn't make the noise I have and they are going to replace it.

They are going to send a new one out to me and after it arrives they will collect this one and ship it off to the guys in white coats in the states to have a look at it.

The support I have got from Gibson has been top rate on this, I was dreading it after reading some of the stuff on the internet but it just goes to prove that you cannot believe everything you read.

DrJustice · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 1:58 pm Post subject:

It's been over a month - have you got a replacement yet?

DJ
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BobTheDog · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 3:08 pm Post subject:

Yep, I had a replacement from the shop in a couple of days.

This one is much better but still suffers from noise, for some reason Gibson don't seem to believe in shielding from what I can see.

Build quality of the second is a bit better but still in the £300 guitar quality.

The RIP box and 13 pin out is not good, lots of noise. Pretty hopeless with the VG99.

Overall I would not recommend one.

My Brian Moore 13 pin guitar cost half the amount and is four times the quality.

The gibson does sound nice as long as you don't have any of the electronics turned on and just use it as a normal LP.

BobTheDog · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 3:10 pm Post subject:

And still no manual available, not even sure how to change the strings!

GovernorSilver · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 3:11 pm Post subject:

Man.

Sorry to hear that, Andy.

DrJustice · Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 3:13 pm Post subject:

Dang! That's a bummer. I really hope they'll sort this out. They have to get it right this time FFS. The promise of it is quite enticing...

DJ
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BobTheDog · Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:23 am Post subject:

Thanks guys.

It's a bit of a Love/Hate thing with this guitar, the last post I made was from Hate side.

There are positives from the Love side; The self tuning works well, it resonates and sustains well and it sounds nice.

It just looks like it has been put together by people with no care in what they do, maybe the guys working on constructing these guitars at Gibson are pretty unhappy or something.

As an example I went to adjust the truss rod the other day as the neck has developed a bit of a reverse bow. Both screws holding the cover on have been rounded off by the person that screwed them in, this person obviously didn't give a shit about the guitar or their work quality!

I am sticking with the guitar, I am hoping that the hiss when the MCK is pulled out may be fixed with a firmware update, I am sure it is the eq section doing it and there are meant to be relays in there that disconnect the eq section when it is not in use, my bet is there is a little bug there that doesn't do this. I can live without the eq but the pickup switching I want.

The hiss is not that noticeable when you stick it straight through a guitar amp as the high frequencies just don't get through the speakers, straight into the computer and you really notice them.

I am going to RMA the RIP box as well, mine must be bad I think.

Having read the early DF posts it just seems that DT owners are going through the same old shit.

Cheers

Andy