The sad state of Dobro® in 2016

[Brad Bechtel]

Remember the Dobro® resophonic guitar?
Go to http://dobro.com and note that the domain name is now for sale.
Go to http://gibson.com and try to find any mention of "dobro". Go ahead, I'll wait...
Go to http://www.epiphone.com/Products/Acoust ... grass.aspx - note the first bluegrass instrument listed is a lap steel.
Ah, they have three Dobro models - two round neck guitars and one square neck model.
Nice job, Gibson.

[chris ivey]

that's ok brad. it just makes dobro players that much more special!!
look what happened to guitarists once eveyone alive played one.

[Jeff Mead]

But $599 for a square neck Dobro with a fitted Fishman isn't such bad news is it?

Seems to have got some good reviews.

[Howard Parker]

On the other hand I note that Gibson's lack of interest in the Dobro was largely responsible for the growth of innovation by all of the other contemporary reso builders.

There wasn't a large "boutique" business before Gibson bought OMI.

So..It's all good!

h

[Jerry Overstreet]

I think Brad is referring to the Dobro® branded instruments. I know when I got interested in spider resonators in the 70's, Dobro was all I knew or what I was able to find. I bought a new one. Later, I learned about RQ Jones, Quarterman cones etc. and realized I could have done better. Even my current RD52 is a better instrument than my first 60D.

Jerry Douglas and maybe even back to Josh, people were showing the instrument in a more modern light and other builders were meeting their needs.

I don't think OMI or Gibson did very much to capitalize on the better and/or large body baffled instrument market and lost out to Beard, Scheerhorn, et al. That's the way it appears to me.

Still, the history of that company is very important and I hate to see what's happened to them in recent years.

[Howard Parker]

At the time the Goldtones and Wechter/Scheerhorns were introduced the least expensive Dobro had a street price of $2,600.

The U.S.A. designed imports turned out to be better designed and some models retailed for around $600.

The market for student instruments turned on a dime and the market just exploded.

h

[Mark Eaton]

Brad started the same thread on Reso-Nation.org and perhaps a half dozen other sites.

I sure don't want to start here from scratch, this is a variation of what I posted on Reso-Nation:


1. If memory serves, dobro.com was never used as Gibson's domain name for the product line, so it being for sale wouldn't seem to be relevant to Gibson's ownership.

2. Gibson instruments are produced in the U.S., and relating to what Brad posted above, the Epiphone subsidiary is for instruments primarily produced in Asia. The Dobro Hound Dog under the Epiphone banner is still alive - though I wouldn't add "and well," because I want no part of one myself. But it's already been like this for about three years.

If anything positive came out of the whole debacle over the years, it's Gibson running the good name of Dobro into the gound so that small builders could gain a foothold in the marketplace.

But they picked the worst time in history to to screw this up after purchasing OMI Dobro in 1993 and moving the operation to Nashville in 1998. More folks have likely taken up the instrument in about the past 10 years than maybe the prior 30 or more years combined.

They have gotten back to producing a limited quantity of high quality mandolins at Gibson.

Dobro was never really Gibson's to begin with, they paid money for guitar plans and the ultra cool headstock logo along with some parts and machinery. The Dobro logo is still one of classiest stringed instrument logos of all, IMO. They did still produce them in Huntington Beach for about five years prior to moving to TN, but as has been discussed here in the past, maybe one employee total made the move to Nashville when the doors were locked and windows shuttered in "Surf City."

The real shocker to me is the fact that Gibson does not produce banjos in the United States. There was a time when they pretty much owned the higher end banjo business.

[Howard Parker]

"Hindsight is 20/20"

-or-

"In life, timing is everything"

Gibson is a never ending source for interesting and quirky factoids.

h

[Mark Eaton]

The difference is Howard, they were right there in the thick of it after purchasing the company in the '90s and had they done a better job of "minding the store," they could have owned the thing in the same way they used to own the higher end banjo business.

But like the kicker in the NFL playoff game for the Vikings last Sunday in missing a "chip shot" field goal for the win against the Seattle with almost no time left on the clock, Gibson choked.

[Jerry Overstreet]

I didn't mean to belittle the original Dobro label. I think without the Dopyeras, there might have never been such an instrument. As I understand it, the brothers invented and pioneered the resonator guitars. Certainly there are many examples, particularly early builds that are revered and considered treasures to own.

I just feel that later editions of the label didn't keep up and meet the demands of working musicians and the modern sound.

There's nothing wrong with the traditional smaller sound well guitars. In some instances, they are preferred as in JD's "Earls" band. Right now though, the bigger and/or baffled instruments seem to be getting all the attention.

[Howard Parker]

Mark, I understand completely, more than I care to tell.

Yes Jerry, Gibson failed to pursue any innovation meaningfully and completely misread the market.

h

[Ken Pippus]

Well, that all may be true, but they completely abdicated responsibility on quality control!

[Jack Aldrich]

I got my 8 string Dobro in 1977. I went down with my pal and fabulous repairman Larry Brown (r.i.p.) and talked with Rudy and John about their guitars. John told me that they were made of plywood because all of the sound came from the resonator. Untrue! Dobro's had (and still do, IMHO) a bad habit of thinning out as you played up the neck. This doesn't happen with other makes of resonator guitars who sound great up and down the neck. I still have the Dobro, but I don't play it very often. Most always I play on my Dave Krause koa and spruce resonators, which wound wonderful. I believe that this tone improvement is why most working resonator guitar players don't use Dobro.

[Jack Aldrich]

That's "sound", not "wound" (hmmm.... maybe Freudian slap, eh?)

[Jeff Bollettino]

Go to http://dobro.com and note that the domain name is now for sale.

In case anyone is interested, they're asking $20,000 for the domain.

[K Maul]

All the more reason to use the term 'dobro'( small d) instead of "reso"or "tifkad" or such nonsense.

[Andy Alford]

The dobro guitar and I have been good friends since 1976. It is an instrument that can always brighten my day. It open doors and has taken me to venues that I would only dream about. It help pay my bills for years. Are the dobro's that are being made today better? I have watched the development of the guitar to where we are today. My gratitude and respect lie at the feet of the Dopyeras,without them there would not be the instrument I love. The guitar has developed but the Dopyeras are my heroes. Brad takes a lot of time to help us on this forum, reso hangout, and his page of steel. His ideas carry a lot of merit in the steel guitar world. Brad thank you for your time and work.

[Howard Parker]

All the more reason to use the term 'dobro'( small d) instead of "reso"or "tifkad" or such nonsense.

I instigated "reso" in about 1995. I was launching an email discussion list on the guitar. I had intended to name it "dobro-L" using the common list nomenclature.

As I was a legal minded corporate type back then I had an interesting conversation with Gibson's corporate legal beagle explaining the benefits of using the brand on the Internet, etc.

He was not convinced to say the least and I named the list "resoguit-L". The rest..as they say. (Gibson was in a litigious mood in those days)

Now, Bangs Tapscott of Bgrass-L fame, an interesting character in his own right, latched on to the whole legal discussion (actually a funny rant) and in mocking Gibson came up with "TIFKAD" (The Instrument Formerly Known As Dobro) and the acronym entered the musical lexicon. The term is definitely meant as a put down.

Those were the good old days.

Resoguit-L is still running with an anniversary in March I believe. It's either 20 or 21 years old. Hard to fathom.

h

[Mark Eaton]

Yes, resoguit-L has been around a long time - goes back back to when internet-based forums were called "lists."

Howard, you wrote earlier that Gibson completely misread the market - I don't see it that way. I think it's more like someone who couldn't hit the broadside of the barn with a .30-06 from 50 yards.

When the Gibson/Dobro Phil Leadbetter maple model first came out it had a street price of around $1900, and if the thing delivered it would have been a best seller in that price range. The guitar had the goods many players have preferred for a number of years now - modern large body, solid wood, post and baffle construction. Uncle Phil endorsed it, and it had "Dobro" on the headstock. Players wanted the guitar to be good. Gibson just couldn't get it done consistently. I've thought on occasion, "what if Gibson had the Dobros made at their acoustic facility in Bozeman, Montana?" Ren Ferguson was the head man there for a lot of years, and I have played some stellar acoustics that came out of Bozeman.

I'm guessing that when the move was made to shutter the Dobro factory in California and send the division to Nashville and put it under Gibson's O.A.I. (Original Acoustic Instruments), the idea was to go with quality like Gibson's American-built mandolins and banjos made there. But since a Dobro is still a type of guitar, it might have fared much better in Montana.

I shared the following here a few years ago. Jerry Douglas posted this on his forum in March 2013 after i started a thread about Dobro and the end of its time in California and subsequent move to Nashville. I'm sure he spoke with many people in private over the years about his failed Gibson signature model, but he kept it mum in public. Perhaps some sort of "statute of limitations" ran its course by 2013, so Jerry freely shared his disappointment, it bears repeating here:

Yeah, those were the days huh? When I got to the Huntington Beach shop, there wasn't a single guy in there that played a lapstyle dobro anywhere. Mike Replogle did give it the good old college try though. I liked him. What happened after that pi$$es me off to this day.

The spartan mahogany $1700 guitar went to $5300 by the time they were finished with it. And NO two sounded the same. Everytime I taught a fellow to set it up right, they would move him to the Electric division or cleaning toilets or something. Many great guys like Mike, Todd Wright, and Charlie Derrington worked in there where the mando, banjos and Dobros were made. I asked all of them at one time or another if they would let a Loar copy or Mastertone go out like that, and never really got an answer that satisfied me None of them could make the dobro thing work out. It's a real shame too. Tim Scheerhorn and Paul Beard both gave their time to get it all on track for the same reasons I did: to make Dobro a great brand again. Or at least somewhere a beginner or intermediate player could get a decent guitar for a good price to keep them stoked until they could graduate to a Beard, Scheerhorn, Clinesmith, Guernsey, Rayco or other such boutique supercharged resophonic guitar.

I was so bummed out for a solid three years because all I heard was how bad they were. Like I built them. It seemed there was nothing we could do to make it past the first few that were pretty good. I have three that blow trees down. But they were set up by the guys that do that kind of thing. One I have covered with signatures that will go on the kids inheritance pile. I tried but failed on that one. I won't do that again.

[Howard Parker]

Sure, there is no end to the stories. I've got lots of them. Stuff I witnessed and directly experienced.

Bottom line for me is that I don't worry about Gibson or Dobro®. Their misfires were directly responsible for a new "golden age".

For that I am thankful.

h

[Edward Meisse]

In contrast, John D's first enterprise, the National people seem to be doing pretty well for an acoustic steel guitar company. This is likely to create a stir I know. But I don't see any new golden age for Dobro style guitars. And I think it has to do with the fact that players of National guitars are a more diverse group musically speaking. I think it is unfortunate that the, "Dobro," has gotten stuck in the bluegrass rut. Nothing against bluegrass or its proponents. I love the stuff. But it is a narrow niche. I loved what Mike Auldridge did with the 8 string swing album and am disappointed that more of that sort of thing didn't catch on. Acoustic steel guitar (as I have begun calling all versions of acoustic steel guitar including Weissenborne, National and .... for lack of a better name, Dobro) needs to diversify the musical genres with which it is associated and the sounds that it makes......unless its proponents are happy in a narrow and apparently shrinking niche. The Dobro debacle, I think is only the tip of the iceberg.

[Bryan Bradfield]

I followed the trail of links that Brad Bechtel posted. Here is an interesting development, at -

http://www.epiphone.com/Products/Bluegr ... -Neck.aspx

" ... the full warm tone of the Hound Dog Deluxe Square Neck is enhanced and projected by a new proprietary nickel plated Dobro® cone ... "

[Howard Parker]

I respectfully disagree with much of Ed's post.

The "dobro" is used in many genres these days and the number of young players that I hear out there is pretty astonishing.

Boutique builders have made remarkable improvements (imo) to the original Dopyera design and the characteristics of the guitars have changed dramatically to better fit the requirements of contemporary players.

Demand for quality hand crafted instruments has pushed pricing upwards but there is no shortage of customers for high end instruments commanding $3,500-4,500 price tags. Tim Scheerhorn can still get over $10,000 for an instrument that he occasionally builds and has licensed his design to National for guitars in that $3K-4K sweet spot.

I worked "ResoSummit" for Beard Guitars a few months ago. Spots for over 100 players sold out in a day. There was a waiting list.

We worked our butts off and sold a very good number of "high end" (see above) instruments.

This is a good time to be in the "reso" business and a great time to be a player.

h

[Rockne Riddlebarger]

I play a Gibson-made Jerry Douglas model Dobro made in 2001. I have modified it with a Quarterman cone and a Fishman Nashville bridge p'up and open soundholes. I bought it new and it has been a quality workhorse. It may not be a high end Scheerhorn or Beard but run thru a Fishman Aura it sounds really good live and plays fantastic. I think Gibson (and OMI) tried to make too many model variations instead of making one or two really quality guitars.

[Jim Pitman]

I bought a new OMI Dobro in 1973.I have found the key to making the OMI small bodies sound really good. Unglue the cone and replace the bridge with ebony topped maple. Reinforce the neck to body joint with a couple of screws down on the neck heel as low as possible from inside the guitar. This will allow you to back off the screw that secures the neck extension piece that anchors to the back wood inside the sound well.
The change in tone is dramatic. I hypothesize the back vibrates much better without carrying the load of the neck tension providing more bass.
On several occasions I've considered buying a modern large body resophonic. But when I try one out I don't see the improvement in the tone that would justify spending the money.
Also, I must admit giving up that "Dobro" logo would be difficult.