I pre-ordered this guitar with the hopes of it being one of the best guitars I've ever played, and I simply didn't get it. A bit too pricey for me not to like everything about it. After the honeymoon phase of getting a new axe, it ended up just being slightly forgettable, and although it is a pretty good guitar, it does have its share of flaws. Starting off with the things I liked about this guitar, it looks beautiful in person, the coil tapped pickups have a surprisingly nice sound when the tapped feature is engaged, the pickups sound pretty similar to those of a Strat. The humbuckers are a little underwhelming though, and the bridge humbucker naturally sits close to the strings, and is difficult to adjust to the right height where you don't have to sacrifice tone output. The guitar was set up fairly nicely, action was pretty good. The Gibson GFORCE tuner is something that takes a while to get used to for sure, and doesn't always tune correctly the first time. A buddy of mine tried tuning it to whole step down, and the E string perpetually got stuck tuning itself down and back up because it could not find the note. The polyurethane finish on this guitar is very easily scratchable, and the Gibson strap that comes along with this guitar is very hard leather and within minutes created surface scuffs on the back of the guitar. Like I said, too much money to charge for a guitar that will scuff as easily as this. I also prefer the old school pick up selectors. The new one is… read more not bad, but it just feels kind of wobbly and loose. I also didn't prefer the placement of the strap button, when I put it strap on here, it felt like everything was shifted to the left and it was very difficult to stay centered and grab a hold of some chords on the lower frets. The guitar is really easy to play sitting down, but standing up gets tricky. I can't see myself gigging with this guitar because of this in all honesty. It's a very light guitar, and I prefer that due to not having to sacrifice stage presence while using a guitar. The case candy that comes along with it it quite nice, and the case is hands down the best case I've ever owned.

Sound
The coil tapped feature sounds better than the bear humbuckers.

Features
In theory, the most useful feature would be the Gibson GFORCE tuner, but it is not very user-friendly. So to that, I would say the coil tapped pickups.

Ease of Use
Getting great sounds from this product is very easy. There is definitely a learning curve, with the strap button placement and the Gibson GFORCE tuner. It is perfectly fine to play sitting down, but standing up gets tricky.

Quality
The product is made well, with pretty good reliability, cosmetically it probably will not last very long due to the easily-scuffed polyurethane finish.

Value
I debated purchasing this guitar over the LTD Horizon III, I went with this guitar due to the features and look, and I am regretting not choosing the Horizon III.

Manufacturer Support
I have not had to deal with Gibson directly.

The Wow Factor
The only appeal of this product would be the look and the coil tapped humbuckers. Other than that, nothing sets this guitar apart from the competition.

Musical Background:
8 years. Guitar, bass, drums, piano/synth. Jam at home and gig in bands.

Musical Style:
Rock, hardcore punk, Christian, emo, pop punk. read less