Let's talk SGs / Modern Gibson quality

[Pepe Silvia]

I am a bit of a Gibson noob, and I've never owned a Gibson.

I keep hearing stories about how Gibson quality has been in a tailspin for years, and ive played plenty of cheaper Gibsons with sharp frets. I really want an SG Standard, however I have never been a fan of the 498T or whatever pickups. So I would have to budget for new pickups, I really want Lollar Imperials, however that's another $350. I can get a newer SG Standard for a little but more with the 57 Classics but how are the new guitars?

[zhivago]

All guitars are different...I know it is a cliche, but it really is true.

So it is hard to really discuss quality.

For what it's worth, if I were at a guitar shop and found a resonant Gibson, that felt good, but had sharp fret ends, I would buy it and then spend £50 to get the fret ends sorted by a professional.

In the grand scheme of things, ie holding onto a guitar for years, it feels that £50 is a good investment.

Sometimes if a guitar has great fret work, but is then placed in a dry environment, the wood shrinks, and fret ends can be exposed again. This can also be a bummer, but what can you do sometimes? (aside from humidifying everything properly - which is a challenge in itself).

Should the frets be perfect on every guitar - especially the expensive ones? Sure. But if I liked the guitar, I'd just get the fret ends sorted and move on.

Pickups are of course a different thing, but I really doubt that modern Gibson humbuckers are so bad to warrant a swap to Lollars which are amazing boutique pickups.

my 2p.

[Larry Mal]

I've owned dozens of Gibsons and have never gotten a guitar that wasn't what I thought it would be. Your thread is about to explode with the usual debate of people like me who love Gibsons and are very happy with the guitars and those who complain about some perception of poor quality control. Which of those is accurate? Well, to some extent, they both are, so you can wade through hundreds of repetitive and probably unhelpful posts of that nature or you can just buy one of the things and see for yourself. I'd recommend the latter.

But, to speak to your other points, things like fret ends should really not be something that you judge the guitar on. It's a part of the guitar that is in constant flux anyway and Gibson sends it out from the factory to a very different environment potentially and of course the wood contracts and the frets don't. This is exacerbated by whatever conditions and care the guitar sees in whatever store it ends up in for however long it sits. Again, that's just something that would happen. If you want to be on edge about Gibson quality and look for a fatal flaw in something that can be quickly remedied with a simple file and fifteen minutes then maybe you should figure that into your approach,like, make the store you buy it from do that filing for you or pay someone else to do it.

I know what you mean about the 490/498 pickups, although I have those on my Les Paul Studio and have decided to keep them there. They really aren't bad for what they do, and they are far more versatile than I had given them credit for all these years. That being said, they are somewhat of a one trick pony, and if I was buying another Gibson with humbuckers it would not have those pickups in it to be sure (or I'd pull them).

The Classic 57's are good pickups, I would prefer the Burstbucker Pros, however, which are scatter wound and irregularly wound whereas the Classic 57s are equally wound. This gives the Burstbucker Pros a little more edge and excitement, or at least that's the idea. Bear in mind that there are Burstbucker Pros, and there are a few other variants of Burstbuckers that are numbered 1 to 3 and they get higher wound with hotter output the higher the number and even the 1 is hotter than the Pros, again if I remember correctly.

Here's some advice you didn't ask for, but if you are looking into Lollar look into the El Rayos, which blew me away when I played them. I intend to get a guitar with those in there one day.

But, if I was buying an SG, I would get one with a thicker neck on there because tuning instability is very real with SGs and that will help somewhat. For some reason it's a guitar in which a thicker neck works with, also, although I usually don't prefer them.

Also, some Gibsons now are being released with an ABR-1 bridge rather than the Nashville. I'm not sure where that works out with the SG line, but I take it as a real step forward that Gibson is putting better hardware on their guitars now. They are putting out some guitars with locking studs on the tailpiece, also, which is again them making a clear and obvious improvement.

I love Gibsons, and the pickups are always very good with them, but the hardware has always left something to be desired and I usually change that. You might not give a shit about that, but I mention it because in my opinion it's Gibson quietly stepping up the quality of their guitars. I'm a Gibson fanboy but despite all of that I still was pretty stunned and excited to see that they had started putting out guitars that I could have just opened the box and felt no need to change a single thing about the guitar.

And then they declared bankruptcy.

Anyway, hope this helps at all, Gibson is great, SGs are very cool, don't get too worked up over the internet buzz about a lack of quality control on Gibson's part just go for it and deal with a bad guitar if you get unlucky which is always possible. Chances are more than good that you'll get exactly what you are hoping for.

[Larry Mal]

Actually, while I'm on here, I thought I'd look up the 2018 SG. Here's what I like about it, regarding the uptick in quality that Gibson has been doing.

1) Locking Grover tuners, I'm a moron for locking tuners, most people don't care all that much but to me that's absolutely Gibson moving towards better quality regardless,

2) There is an aluminum tailpiece on this guitar, that's a $15 part that I would not have to buy, and yes it makes a considerable difference. Much better than the older Zamak hunk of shit, but not that big of a deal,

3) There is now an aluminum Nashville bridge on there, I still hate the Nashville bridge, you probably won't care at all, either way the aluminum represents a big step forward in quality over the Zamak that they had been using.

4) The pickups on these are something they call "61" pickups but I don't know anything about them, they are probably vintage voiced and probably very good.

I'm not really trying to sell you on this guitar, just following up on what I had said before about Gibson quietly stepping up their quality in ways that they didn't really make a lot of. Far from being in some kind of quality control tailspin, they had been working on making the guitars better in various ways across the board with things like rolled fingerboard edges, deep frozen frets that are supposed to last longer, and finer grit sandpaper on the finish. None of these things are all that big of a deal, but Gibson had been working to improve the product over the last few years.

[Pepe Silvia]

Actually, while I'm on here, I thought I'd look up the 2018 SG. Here's what I like about it, regarding the uptick in quality that Gibson has been doing.

1) Locking Grover tuners, I'm a moron for locking tuners, most people don't care all that much but to me that's absolutely Gibson moving towards better quality regardless,

2) There is an aluminum tailpiece on this guitar, that's a $15 part that I would not have to buy, and yes it makes a considerable difference. Much better than the older Zamak hunk of shit, but not that big of a deal,

3) There is now an aluminum Nashville bridge on there, I still hate the Nashville bridge, you probably won't care at all, either way the aluminum represents a big step forward in quality over the Zamak that they had been using.

4) The pickups on these are something they call "61" pickups but I don't know anything about them, they are probably vintage voiced and probably very good.

I'm not really trying to sell you on this guitar, just following up on what I had said before about Gibson quietly stepping up their quality in ways that they didn't really make a lot of. Far from being in some kind of quality control tailspin, they had been working on making the guitars better in various ways across the board with things like rolled fingerboard edges, deep frozen frets that are supposed to last longer, and finer grit sandpaper on the finish. None of these things are all that big of a deal, but Gibson had been working to improve the product over the last few years.

Where are you seeing that they are "61" pickups? Gibson's website says 57 classics. Also the new ones have the 60s neck profile which is a thinner profile, which is something you recommend against.

[Larry Mal]

Under "Electronics", it says "61R" and "61T".

Which I don't know what that means, I don't know what those pickups are. Unless they are these. But like I say, I don't really know.

But they sure aren't the 490/498 combination, that's for sure. You'd have to look into that.

And I'm not really trying to sell you on that particular guitar, just talking about some things I like about it and how it reflects on Gibson's commitment to quality. You hear all the time that they are just pumping out garbage without a care in the world, but they've been working on making the guitars better and they were good to start with.

If it was me buying an SG, and I have been thinking about it quite a bit, I'd get one of the models from a few years back that had the thicker neck on it, like I say. I spent a good amount of time with my friend's model that was that kind, and I thought it was great. Thicker neck and all, he still didn't find it to be any too stable with the tuning. But, it was light, super resonant, inspiring to play. It felt great. Nice wide neck on there across the nut.

It would come with the Zamak bridge and such, but I'm such an old hand at pulling that stuff off there by now it wouldn't be on there for even a day or two.

[Pepe Silvia]

"The new SG Standard embodies all the tone, feel, and look of the original rendition of this legendary guitar, with features such as a slim ’60s profile neck with a smaller early ’60s headstock, the original early ’60s pickguard, dual ’57 Classic™ humbucking pickups"

[Larry Mal]

I don't know what to tell you:



you sure you are looking at the 2018 model? You clicked on the link I posted above, that's what you are reading?

[Pepe Silvia]

Gibsons website is pretty terrible. They have pages for every model doing back to 2014. When you Google search "Gibson SG Standard" it takes you to the 2017 page. The 2017 has the 57 pickups. 2018 has 61. The SG I am eyeing up is a 2017. I messaged the seller to see if I could try it out.

[Larry Mal]

Right. I kind of like how they archive things, but it can be confusing. I went to the 2016 model first when I was looking up these changes.

I doubt there's all that much difference between the '57s and whatever the '61 pickups are.

Anyway, let us know how it goes. SGs are great. With a little love and upgrading they can be even better. Hope any of what I said was at all helpful.

[Grey]

Do they not offer the full-size pickguard option anymore? Too bad.

I like SG's, I have a '97 Standard. They did a run of P90 Standard's a few years back so if the one you're looking at doesn't pan out you could maybe take a look at one of those if you want to try a different sound. They've actually done a number of different pickup configurations on different SG model years, there was a Standard that had a mini-humbucker firebird pickup in the neck and i've often thought about trying that on mine.

I don't know much about their latest and greatest, but buying used is a better deal 99.9% of the time, the only tradeoff is wether or not you'll be able to play it first.

[Pepe Silvia]

I really like the old SG Classic with P90s but I am telling myself I need a humbucker guitar and am limited myself to 3 guitars. JM, Strat with a humbuckers sized P90 in the bridge and an SG Standard. I think that covers everything

[onebigholiday]

2013 SG's would scratch your itch... 57 Classics, small guard and great quality. Had one in white... Miss it, but it was over abundance.

[Despot]

SGs...

I'm with Larry on this - thought I'd probably be in the camp that has had more issues with new Gibsons I've tried out than he has had. But overall I think Gibson still make some really great guitars, though I subscribe to the 'try before you buy' mantra on them these days. Unless it's from the Memphis factory, in which case you're good.

SGs are out of Nashville - so if you can try, try. The issues are rarely structural or major issues though - it's sharp fret ends (as Yannis has said) and in my own case cosmetic flaws by and large.

Pickups - whether it's the 61 or 57 Classics, you'll be fine. 57 Classics are my least favourite pickup on any Gibson guitar ... other than a SG. On a SG they sound pretty great. Go figure - I've no clue why that is. My friend has a '61 reissue SG (small guard, original headstock shape, vibrola etc) with 57s and that thing sounds incredible through my amp/pedals whenever I've tried it - to the extent that I let him use the nice old '60s ES335 I had at the time when we last met up and used his SG for the evening. I've no experience with the '61s, but if they're Alnico V and scatterwound/asymmetrical windings they'll be fine - you're into burstbucker territory there. Expect a sort of classic rock sound I imagine. They're aiming for that early '60s PAF/early Pat No sound - a lot of pickup makers try to emulate that (the Riff Raff from Bareknuckle comes to mind). As someone who has an original of that sort of pickup in a guitar (in my ES345), I can tell you that if they've gotten close to that sound (and I suspect they have - others have managed to nail that sound so it's well do-able) then the easiest thing to say is 'think Rolling Stones' neck pickup sound.

[DesmondWafers]

I guess I'll voice my experiences with modern SG's. The first one I bought was a 2016 model, which was perfect. The next 3 all had issues, from relatively small, like paint flaws, to structural issues. Two had bridges drilled in the wrong spot making intonation impossible. All 3 bad ones were 2017 models, I just gave up after the third one.

All 3 had finish issues on the neck, looking like some variation of this:



That wasn't even the worst one, but it's the only pic I can find. I didn't return it for that, but I was pretty disappointed that something like that passes QC.

For what it's worth, the 2016 one was amazing, one of the few guitars that I would buy back if I could. Definitely play it in person first, or at least buy from somewhere with good returns.