@Granny Gremlin
Seriously. If Gibson would just reissue the thunderbird, the Rd, the eb0, grabber and ripper, and a few other choice basses, they'd sell like hot cakes. Make the bodies out of basswood, agathis or other cheaper woods and give them solid colour selection. The company already has the recipe to make great basses, they're just so poorly managed....
Yeah, except, TBirds were in production until recently (and no, they ain't the same as the vintage ones, but they were good and sold well; the pickups were a strong point). The RD Standard was reissued as the Kris Novoselic sig a bit back. Short lived and poor choice IMHO - they should have reissued the RD Artist, though I am not sure of the IP status of the original Moog circuit in those - if it won't have that (hopefully redesigned a bit so as to be smaller/shorter signal path with modern multilayer PCBs etc) then don't bother - that's what made those basses awesome (I love mine). The EB3 (2 pup version of the EB0) was reissued as the SG bass and sold rather well for a few years until Henry J pulled it. It was a good bass, but the pickups were TB+ (i.e. same as TBirds, but diff covers) vs the original mudbucker and mini. Probably wise from a biz perspective, but there were people out there who would have preferred the old stuff (many of them had vintage mudbuckers or Dark Stars transplanted into them) - at least the mudbucker (which is a sidewinder just like 70s F and Tbirds.... just much more massive). The Grabber never sold well and was a gimmicky affair with that sliding pickup and a shit bridge that was a poor Fender copy, but the Ripper and the G3 (those original Bill Lawrence pups were awesome; also used in the S1 guitars) which had the same body shape are classics and well regarded. The EB4/5s like
@laristotle 's above were actually a good bass and sold reasonably well; not too expensive (surprised the hell outs me). Most of Gibson's other new designs were bad ideas (tried to go too Fender; then bought Tobias and ran it into the ground - that never made sense to me; not their style of instrument); they should stick to the classics ... or at least things in that vein.
You also forget the EB2. They did the Midtown, but it's not the same. I want mudbucker, short scale, arched top and back, no silly post modern f holes and short scale. Problem is it'd cost 6K.
I disagree about using basswood. Changing the wood (most of the above are all maple, which is reasonably cheap if not figured) would not save much money; the ones that were honduras mahogany, should remain so despite higher cost (though , and I am no expert, if there are similar sounding/looking/feeling woods out there, I wouldn't be upset if it lowered the cost.... nothing else I have ever held resonates like my 65 EB3 though).
The main problem is Henry J's attention span. If a model doesn't succeed in a single year, they pull it and change their approach. They need to think more long term with a planned and phased approach. Start with a solid foundation of TBirds, ad an EB3/SG bass in the next model year and keep going like that. Slow and steady. Don't prematurely ejaculate and dump 4 new models on the market cuz the single model last year did well, when you don't have the customer base/following. It's feast/famine/left field with them.
Also the orange peel finish issues starting a decade or 2 back (on basses more so than guitars, though sometimes on those too) are completely unacceptable at their price point. Not to mention sending a clear signal to bass players that they were second class customers.
