The other day, I was at the Guitar Center in Rockville MD. They had this pretty nice blue Tobias five string bass hanging on the wall in their used pile. I will be the first to admit that I regularly shop the used sections of music shops, hunting for deals. In fact, my two major basses I grabbed out of a used pile. Anyway, this particular Tobias was one of the ones made by Gibson and not by Michael. Ergo, it's crap.
I don't know what the deal is with Gibson's acquisitions, but almost everything they buy becomes worthless. Trace Elliot used to be a great Brit-Pop sounding amplifier; now, they're great doorstops. Not to mention that they stopped carrying any kind of amps that aren't for acoustic guitars (see here vs. here). Toby's were great basses (if they weren't, Gibson probably wouldn't have bought them). However, none of the original Tobias staff is making these guitars anymore. And, after a while, Michael started making basses again pretty much to reclaim his own good name.
Gibson's not alone on this. Kubicki sold his design to Fender, and Fender basically dumbed down the electronics and started using cheap tuner wheels.
I'm not sure why manufacturers choose to do this; perhaps to try and squeeze a few more bucks out of the buyers. You might think they wouldn't be so shortsighted; more people may buy, but more people will not get what they are expecting, so more people will end up unhappy.
Article comments
1 - MIke
Gibson did the same thing with the Slingerland brand of drums. Take an old name used by Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa and made it into something that's not the same. Different shells and layups, but they're still using the names of old to sell a product.
Just look over at musicyo.com, Gibson's import arm. All of the great names, reduced to import crap. Steinburger, Kramer, etc.