Garcia's SG

[Mr.Burns]

So i was at a music srtore in Carlisle PA called the Woodshop (excelent place and owner if anyone is in the Harrisburg area, he does repair/mods) and i played an Epi SG Custom (cream with 3 pups) i was a bit surprised at how UNversatile it was. Not much of a tone difference between all 3 pups. I was using the neck pup to try and get a Garcia sg tone, and it just wasnt there. Maybe it was the pickups. But i was playing through a Super Reverb so that was a treat.

The SG is Gibson's idea of a plank guitar, it would make sense that the Epi could only be equal to the sum of its parts. Planks are Fender territory. Those pups are crammed in there so tight that it would be easier to get a range of tones from 3 different pups than 3 that are all the same. Maybe this is evidence to support the theory that two HB's is better than three. On an Epi SG, anyway.

[drewfx]

My experience with Epi's is that the PU's can be all over the place from very good sounding to mudfests. I actually have a 3 PU Epi SG and it was definitely the latter (I changed the PU's).

[TI4-1009]

I was temped by a few Epis but I held out for a real Gibson. There's a reason the Epis cost a fraction of a Gibson. You get what you pay for.

[Jerry1996x]

I was temped by a few Epis but I held out for a real Gibson. There's a reason the Epis cost a fraction of a Gibson. You get what you pay for.

IMO, I think that only applys to pickups. Gibsons quality has declined for sure. You could buy an Epi, put gibson pups in it, and it would be just as good. And half the price.

[tigerstrat]

As a lefty player, every LH Gibson I have ever picked up had a crap factory setup, compared to Epi's that are generally set up pretty nicely. Of course Heritage has them both beat by a light year.

[Mosfed]

I think the main thing you pay for in a Gibson over an Epi is the quality of the neck. A mate of mine is on his 3rd Epi with a warped neck. BUMMER.

[TI4-1009]

I was listening to the 1969 Fillmore West (Live Dead) run yesterday and enjoying the "variable hair" on Jerrys SG sound. Pretty sure he didn't have a pedal at that point (correct?), so it was coming from the guitar/amp combination. Was interesting in light of the sounds I get from my "new" SG- The humbuckers can be crystal clear, hairy, or dirty just depending upon volume and attack. I obviously knew that before, having guitars with single coils and humbuckers, but I was surprised how easy it was to come close to "that sound" with the SG.

I think we tend to go for and build guitars that shoot for the very clear area of Jerry's playing- what he moved into more after the SG (think split middle Super Distortion), and with those we have to add dirt with pedals to try and go back to the 68-70 sound. I have just been surprised how easy it is to get that sound with the guitar he was using at the time (duh!).

[Smolder]

I was listening to the 1969 Fillmore West (Live Dead) run yesterday and enjoying the "variable hair" on Jerrys SG sound. Pretty sure he didn't have a pedal at that point (correct?), so it was coming from the guitar/amp combination. Was interesting in light of the sounds I get from my "new" SG- The humbuckers can be crystal clear, hairy, or dirty just depending upon volume and attack. I obviously knew that before, having guitars with single coils and humbuckers, but I was surprised how easy it was to come close to "that sound" with the SG.

I think we tend to go for and build guitars that shoot for the very clear area of Jerry's playing- what he moved into more after the SG (think split middle Super Distortion), and with those we have to add dirt with pedals to try and go back to the 68-70 sound. I have just been surprised how easy it is to get that sound with the guitar he was using at the time (duh!).

For the most part, I think you're right. In '67 gibson would have been putting T-tops in them which were a relatively consistent lower wind version of the humbucker. For his '61 LP SG, the pick ups were heading towards more consistency, but much like the 58/59/60 humbuckers varied quite a bit because of two things... when they ran out of alnico 2 they used others... and the wire windings varied as well. They didn't fully realize the impact of those variances on really really loudly amplified guitars.

Putting modern burstuckers aren't going to get you your all that close.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the SG guitar itself is only a part of getting that sound. That it is a flat mahogany plank demands that we pay extra attention to the pickups.

[mijknahs]

Here is a clip of my Faded SG Special going straight into my vintage Twin Reverb with (only) one JBL D120 (reconed in '79). Power tubes are new Tung-Sol KT66s. I decided to use the SG at a gig instead of my regular Jerry guitar.

Sorry, the music starts at 26 seconds:

http://archive.org/details/ToreUpOverYou

[TI4-1009]

Intersting thread on SG board about 69-era pickups:

http://www.everythingsg.com/forum/gibson-sg/19313-identify-these-pickups.html

[claytushaywood]

I'm gonna have to disagree on the merits of the sg faded guitars. The fretboard for one is nowhere near the quality of a standard or a 61 reissue. The grain is abominable on those lower end gibsons and the terrible fretwork makes your left hand feel nowhere close to playing a higher end sg. The nicer sg's have a much tighther grain on the rosewood that definitely feels and looks much closer to ebony than the brown open dried out crap they put on the lower end sg's, it seriously looks like you can put your fingernail in some spots of the fretboard on those guitars. I wish I could love the special faded's as I love the thin finish and they do resonate like a mf'er.

Maybe I just had good luck and played a killer 61 reissue that guitar center had listed at $1200 (rather than $1600 I believe)... I wish it wasnt true but in gibsons there is a much bigger difference than finish and hardware and pickups between models. The wood is quite different.

I guess my point is dont by a faded gibson without playing one first. Play a 61 reissue or a derek trucks pro model or better yet a 90's standard or 61 reissue. The construction aint even in the same ballpark IMO

[claytushaywood]

And i just found out that those crescent moon inlayed sg's (someone mentioned one above) apparently were built with ebony fretboards! man i am really missing the days of ebony... fuck this obeche shit

[wolftigerrosebud]

The grain is abominable on those lower end gibsons and the terrible fretwork makes your left hand feel nowhere close to playing a higher end sg. The nicer sg's have a much tighther grain on the rosewood that definitely feels and looks much closer to ebony than the brown open dried out crap they put on the lower end sg's

I've had issues with mine with the fretwork and the board that are so bad I don't pick it up anymore at all. The QC is pretty inconsistent, but I think a lot of people have had better experiences than mine, too. There's definitely some truth in what you're saying.

[Smolder]

If you've been playing a while you know the difference... and with a lower end guitar (fender, gibson or anyone else) a trip to a local luthier and $100 later you in good shape. Plus, a pro that you can depend on gets the hundred bucks... not a major corporation that trickles $4 down to the factory worker.

[wolftigerrosebud]

Well, in my case, at least, I took mine to the best luthier I know of in the South Florida area. He determined that, even though the fretwork wasn't so great, the problem was with the wood of the fretboard which made it un-fixable (short of replacing the fretboard). The wood had become so misshapen (over a period of 4 years of light playing in an air-conditioned house -- I didn't even play it for about 3 of the 4 years up to that point) that the amount of neck relief he'd have had to add to make the fret buzz go away would make it unplayable and would put it at risk for further warping in years to come.

It's too inconsistent to trust IMO -- there are guitar makers that make set-neck mahogany body guitars with PAF-style pups that have better QC and lower prices than Gibson in the sub-$1000 range and beyond. They just don't look as cool as an SG, necessarily.