![]() ![]() ![]() So this is Phil X's actual signature guitar in its coolest form as far as I am concerned - the shiny chrome variation - with the 'X' embossed in the tailpiece are of the body. Controls : 2 500K CTS Volume Pots, 2 500K CTS Tone Pots, 3-way voicing pickup toggle.If you were designing such an instrument form scratch today - with all the intelligence available and latest production methods, you would not place the input jack in said position, nor would you engineer such a flawed headstock shape. As I've said in the intro, I really don't like the old-fashioned headstocks which look cool, but are woeful for tuning stability and therefore totally flawed on modern instruments - as is the straight-up placement of the input jack - which just looks ungainly and gets in the way. You may consider the Epiphone variations too - which generally overall have tighter quality control, but less quality parts overall, and deliberately come with a slightly uglier headstock shape - which is just madness in my opinion. There's no doubt that these are great sounding guitars, but with Gibson's rather wonky quality control - it's a real pick-and-mix out there to find a 100% quality-made version with no blemishes or finishing issues. ![]() Note that even when paying such a premium, Gibson sneaks in a lower cost Richlite fingerboard (compressed dyed paper) rather than including a more classic Rosewood or Ebony type. If you are considering a proper SG - then I suppose that you'd best start at the top with an original Gibson - here in one of its prettiest versions - the Custom SG in Gloss Ebony with shiny Gold Hardware. Guitars are listed with original first, then followed alphabetically by brand: Note that the typical Neck construction for an SG is a Set-Neck, while there are a number of guitars here that are bolt-ons for reasons of more efficient (lower-cost) manufacture as well as a slightly brighter and more attacking tone. And you almost never get an SG with one of those - they are pretty much all 99.99% hard-tails. I am also a fan of modern Tremolo bridges - not the Floyd Roses - but say a PRS Tremolo Bridge or Ibanez SynchoniZR. In fact there are only two properly modern SG variations here, and one of those still has the stupid old-fashioned straight up jack placement - which knocks it out of consideration. Of this selection of 9, there are several here that will give you that essential sort of classic Gibson SG tone, many here are more reliably made and of more consistent quality, while there is only one really that fulfils all my requirements. There are lots of more rounded doublecut equivalents - like say the PRS Mira or Classic Santana style, but the sharp pointy horns are much more of a rarity.Īnd much to my disappointment, the ’copies’ are generally too faithful to the original format - carrying too many of that guitar’s flaws forward - including the dumb input jack placement and the archaic and unergonomic headstock. So overall there are fairly slim pickings. Most of the companies that make various Gibson-shaped clones as such don’t make the SG-style. Unlike the squillions of S-Style, T-Style and LP-Style clones - which pretty much every guitar manufacturer has its own versions of, the SG is a somewhat rarer beast. And the classic Gibson style fanned book rectangular shaped headstock is typically a disaster for tuning stability - because of the odd angles the strings then enter the grooves of the nut - unless you choose something like a Dietrich Parts String Butler - which is still a band aid of sorts. I really detest the pop-up position of the input jack - which is usually straight down into the face of the guitar - totally impractical and archaic really. There are however a couple of downsides with this format which really put me off. Classic colourways for this model tend to be Cherry Red or Black! Preferred control layout here also tends to be volume and tone dials per each pickup with a 3-way toggle pickup selector. These are classically all-Mahogany sort of PAF humbucker affairs with typically Set-Neck 24 and three-quarter inch scale length, and classically Rosewood or Ebony Fretboards. Even though my favourite body shape is still the Strat or S-Style Doublecut format, I do still quite like most variations on that theme - including the sharp pointed ’devil’s horns’ of the Gibson SG shape - as most famously rocked by AC/DC’s Angus Young. ![]()
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