The Gibson Dove is a flattop steel-string acoustic guitar made by the Gibson Guitar Corporation since 1962.

History

KT Tunstall at Glastonbury in June 2005 cropped

The Dove was Gibson's second square-shouldered dreadnought, after the introduction of the Hummingbird in 1960. First made in 1962 in

Kalamazoo Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropoli ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, it was based on the

Martin Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austr ...

D-style dreadnought. Both Gibsons have solid spruce tops and engraved pickguards. The Dove has solid maple back and sides instead of the solid mahogany used for the Hummingbird, and a longer scale length (25.5" vs 24.75"). These make it a louder, brighter guitar than the Hummingbird. The double parallelogram fingerboard inlays, the two doves on the bridge, and the dove on the pickguard are mother-of-pearl. The original Doves had Gibson's metal tune-o-matic bridge, which seemed like a technological improvement at the time but had negative effects on tone and volume. The Dove has factory installed LR Baggs active electronics powered by a 9-volt battery. In 1968 the internal bracing of the Dove was made heavier. This sturdier guitar was less likely to be returned to Gibson for warranty work, but its volume was reduced and tone negatively affected. In 1985 Gibson's new owners began to address the quality issues that were affecting the company's products and reputation.Kevin Maney.; ''Guitar-playing Harvard man turns Gibson around''; USA Today; 02/21/2006. By 1992 production of Gibson acoustic guitars was shifted to Bozeman,

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

Models

Models include the Dove Performer (with a Fishman Prefix T Pickup), the Dove Quilt (limited to 20 made with a quilted maple back and sides), the Doves in Flight (with extra ornaments), and the Elvis Presley Dove, based on the 1969 custom Dove that Elvis used in the early 1970s.

References

External links

* {{Gibson Guitar Corporation

Dove Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

Products introduced in 1962 1962 in music