Gibson Midtown Standard 2015 Ebony

Hey it's a Real Gibson! What more really needs to be said?! Except the price is only slightly more than it's Asian little brother. But even more important is it's capabilities. The Midtown fills a very important spot. If you're into the more dark and focused tone of a Les Paul, because of the design of the Midtown, routed out solid mahogany back, you can dial in the same dark focused sound. But what about the more traditional semi hollowbody like the 335 or 339? The Midtown is still a semi hollowbody guitar. So yes! You can dial in those tones also. Actually a 335 is a bit more airy in the mids and a 339 is more focused in the mids. The Midtown reaches right between them both. You can achieve quite easily, the sloppy airy vintage sounds a 335 is famous for. And while the 339 can't come close to the openness of a 335, the Midtown can. Let's face it. As guitar players, it's always about the tone. The Midtown does it all. Light open air for smooth clean jazz and overdriven blues, to shred heavy hard rock. It has the same slim taper neck the Les Paul players are familiar with. So shred away. Same scale length and playability of a more traditional semi hollowbody, so bend them strings. But let's talk about pickups. The Midtown has Burstbuckers in both the bridge and neck. Probably some of the most versatile pickups in the Gibson line, when coupled with the body construction. And that's VERY important! Because everything has to work together as a complete system. If it doesn't, you lose your versatility. Burstbuckers are the closest thing you can get to the original PAF's. The same pickup so many other companies strive for. And like I mentioned a complete system, these pickups are coupled with 500k ohm pots. Next to windings and magnets, the pots are next most important for tone versatility. The higher the ohms, the more effect it has on the output of the pickups. This is a tremendous guitar. Get one while they are still available. Then plug in and play with the knobs. Literally dial them in. Most amateur players just spin everything up to 10 and then screw around with the amp knobs. Most of your tone comes from the guitar, not your amp. I play blues and jazz. For my tone I find the neck set at 8 and the bridge at 6-7. If I spin up to 10, my tone is gone. There really is that much of a difference in these amazing guitars. From a ultra clean jazz to full distorted heavy metal beast. It does it all. Ok. Tuners. I don't know if there is going to even be a 2016 Midtown. My Midtown came with the G-Force tuning robot. Towards the end of the production year, the G-Force was removed and switched to standard Grover tuners. I've heard people say they love the G-Force, and I've heard some people that have never tried it, decry the robot in favor of tradition. Personally, I love it. Like I said, I play blues. The blues uses a lot of different tunings. Open tuning. DADGAD and many others. No, tuning is not difficult. But it can be time consuming. If I can push a button and strum once and within seconds, I'm playing, why not? It has 15 slots built into the memory. 10 are used up for your traditional tunings, and 5 are open for any kind of custom tuning you might want to create. Again, it's all about versatility. I would highly recommend trying it before passing judgment. I use it a lot. But give it a good 6 months. If you don't like the incredible accuracy and speed, Gibson and Tronical, the maker of the G-Force were very forward thinking in the design. There are no extra mounting holes in the headstock to attach it. Meaning you undo 6 nuts and the unit slides off the back. Then go ahead and put on a set of Grovers or Klusons or Gotohs. Whatever flips your burger. But give the G-Force a chance to prove itself. It's really an amazing device. And at 40:1 ratio, it's much more accurate and stable than the above mentioned machines. The Midtown is the epitome of versatility! I wish I could afford one in every color!

grate guitar for most music styles ,very nicely finished. 10/10

Very well thought guitar from Gibson. Better ergonomics than a Les Paul. Pickups are top class and work well with the rest of the guitar. Put 12s on and it is jazz oriented with very good separation of the notes.
Minor imperfections on the finish but I understand it is common case.
Thank you Music Store for making it possible to acquire my first Gibson!