325Jon

Thank you! I plan to join the low impedance guitars club soon! Regards, Jon

Hi gang, I have a Les Paul Professional that had some modifications done to the electronics before I bought it, and I've been musing over the optimal way to plug it into an amp. I had no idea about the transformer cord being needed, and the guitar usually sounded a bit lackluster, but sometimes sounded AMAZING. I believe I have determined that it sounds amazing when using a nice, short guitar cord, and lackluster when using a longer cord. The electronic mods are as such: The decade knob has been removed from the circuit and one of the tone knobs also doesn't do anything. There is "something" under the hood that looks like a transformer, which suggests to me that somebody could have modded this guitar to behave like a later Les Paul Recording, which had an internal transformer and was thus able to use a normal guitar cable with it. It appears to have been re-wired by somebody who doesn't use a soldering iron for a living, leading to all manner of speculation over why it intermittently sounds good/bad. I am thrilled to have discovered that it sounds good with a short guitar cord plugged into it. Jazzy, spacious, neat... But I also have to wonder whether I'm doing things right. Do you think it's worth ordering an A95U? What kind of signal should I be expecting just plugging the guitar into an amp the regular way if the guitar weren't modified? After all, I'm getting a pleasing sound without the A95U -- how unusual is that?

Thank you, all! Great advice to get away from Guitar Center. I took the guitar to a veteran tech who had the thing playing like butter in no time. I'm in Seattle, where the weather has been going from cold and rainy to warm, clear sunny skies in three-day blocks since the beginning of September, more or less. I'm hoping that the first two adjustments at GC got the goonies out and that this setup has the guitar in good shape for a spell. It sounds as though I shouldn't be too surprised if there is a little more drama along the way what with being a brand-new and thinner instrument, and a volatile winter season looming. I am lucky that the atmosphere in my jam room is fairly stable. Again, I really appreciate all the advice and I had the BEST time rocking out on this guitar today! Regards, Jon

Hi, I haven't owned that many brand-new guitars in my life, so I don't know how typical my situation is. I've been playing since the late 80's, most of the instruments I've owned have been used or vintage, most have had lowish action and rarely needed truss rod adjustments to stay nice and playable without significant issues. A couple of years ago I went absolutely stark raving mad and sold what had been my main guitar for decades -- a '72 Gibson ES 325, which sparked a flurry of buying, selling, and trading instruments to try and find a new main axe. At one point in the process I had a brand-new Fender, at one point a brand-new PRS, along the way plenty of used instruments including an '08 Les Paul Special with p-100's, which almost became the big winner but I didn't quite bond with it. A few days ago I bought a 2019 Gibson SG Special, which I am loving in all regards except for trying to get it set up ideally. It seems pretty touchy in response to minor truss rod adjustments, and it's difficult to get the strings down to what I would consider "low enough" without something fretting out. When I initially played the instrument in the store I was bowled over by its resonance, the balanced and very pleasing tones from its two P-90's, and the feel of the neck and fingerboard. I became a little concerned when I started eyeballing things and saw how much relief the neck had, and noticed how easy it was to bend the neck (by hand a-la "iron man" or simply by unintentionally pulling or pushing on it while playing.) I asked the salesman at Guitar Center to examine the relief and he agreed that it was excessive and had his tech make a couple of quick adjustments both to the bridge and to the truss rod, to get things ballpark. This resulted immediately in very sweet lowish action (I'm not one of those people who measures things, but I think you have some idea what I mean when I say lowish -- where you would expect the strings to be on a quality electric guitar that's set up nicely). That was great, but by the next day after the guitar had had some time to get used to the adjustment, the neck was bent the wrong way (I forget the technical term for this) and fretting out at the low F on the high E string. I took the guitar back to Guitar Center and they re-tweaked the truss rod, resulting in proper relief but slightly higher action than I would like (not that it affects the playability of the guitar, which, by the way, is very enjoyable). So I am really quite happy with the guitar but I am curious how high-maintenance of an instrument I have just purchased. Like I said, including the brand-new Fender and brand-new PRS I have bought, I really haven't come across an instrument that needed frequent truss rod adjustments to remain playable. Have I just been lucky? Or is it possible that there is something wrong with this SG, and am I looking at a future nightmare of truss rod tweaks just to keep the thing playable. Factors I see to consider include newer woods possibly being more pliable than woods in vintage guitars, and SG's being more pliable in general than a lot of other guitars. One other observation: having been a frequent visitor to guitar stores over the last couple of years, it seems that new electric guitars are typically set up with higher action than they would have been decades ago, if I'm not mistaken. What's up with that? OK, thanks for reading this far and I will stay tuned for your thoughts.