capmaster

Would be interested in looking under Derek Truck's personal SGs' Lyra cover. Perhaps he is hiding some dead weight there for improving the balance? For sure an insider tip to fight neck heaviness of Min-ETune SGs!

Around the 1980s, one of the largest music retailers in Munich was under one roof with ISO, the Gibson distributor for Germany these days. I know for sure they had at least one black Victory guitar for sale. I say "at least" since due to these special connections they sometimes even bought the entire Gibson production output of several months. Players came from far away to buy Gibson guitars there, for the variety of options as well as for the prices.

This is hard to generalize. To my experience, maple necks just lag much more when adjusting them. Sturdiness will also depend on neck profile and individual piece of wood. The two sturdiest necks on guitars of mine, rated through the share of support by the truss rod, are made of mahogany. All in all, when comparing seventeen mahogany and sixteen maple necks, they are very similar in taking up forces over time but the maple ones tend to vibrate stronger.

It's hard to decide between maple and mahogany neck in general. Maple seems more vibrant to me, but I also experienced that fretboard material and neck shape contribute a lot to the overall behaviour. Both timbers allow for making very fine necks. I think the entire instrument is what counts in the end.

This won't help when dealing with intonation problems but may turn out creating lots more fun.

Hmmm... for precise intonation adjustment, I use exclusively harmonics. 12th fret flageolet has to match 12th fret fingered note, 19th fret flageolet 19th fret fingered note. In case there is a 24th fret, one will have to compromise, perhaps except very heavy gauges like .014" - .060" or so for standard tuning. For comparing results of adjustment and tuning, I also use them. E. g. B2nd fingered at 5th fret has to match E1st open, and E1st fingered at 7th fret B2nd 12th fret flageolet.

The linked pic shown in your post says AA to my eyes. Great that they came featuring ebony fingerboards. Guess these contribute to a distinctive punch and a bell-like chime. Sadly, none of my guitars came with an ebony fretboard.

I sadly also had to find out that Hercules stands are not nitro-safe. Two years ago I radically switched to these linked below. My precious instruments are worth them to me. I own two of these: http://produkte.k-m.de/en/Stands-and-accessories-for-instruments/Fretted-instruments/17513-Three-guitar-stand-Guardian-3-black-with-translucent-support-elements and two of these: http://produkte.k-m.de/en/Stands-and-accessories-for-instruments/Fretted-instruments/17515-Five-guitar-stand-Guardian-5-black-with-translucent-support-elements For those who want to save space, don't use the stand for acoustics, don't own vintage or Floyd Rose vibrato instruments, and don't need that much room for the straps left attached to the guitars, this one might be fine, too: http://produkte.k-m.de/en/Stands-and-accessories-for-instruments/Fretted-instruments/17525-Five-e-guitar-stand-Guardian-5-black-with-translucent-support-elements

Don't know if all the fretboards came bound, but those I saw at a dealer in Munich around 1982/1983 did. These axes simply looked awesome with their uncoloured high-gloss finish. Damn - should have had the money to buy one then... :(

This seems sensible because despite of the necks tend to behave about the same, hollowbodies react much faster to environmental changes. Massive or semi-hollow guitar bodies will always lag, typically with more delay than their necks.

Neither guitar nor case are soaking. Their humidity is not very different from that in the room. It's all about physics, in particular mass action law and thermodynamics. This way they make easy money selling humidifiers. Any humidifier will get dry under any reasonable circumstances, even if guitar, case, furniture, speaker cabinets or whatever are long rotten and moldered.

Regardless of body design and construction, shrinking fretboards and thus fret sprout will affect all guitars with unfinished fretboards the same, and those with finished fretboards slightly delayed. So I think it is a good idea to take care for instruments of any make.

Very good point, L5Larry. For those who don't want to specify their location exactly, I think approximate geographic data will do for rating the climate. In my case, they are circa 48° north, 11° east, 565 metres above sea level.

There still is an SG J with a '50s neck, made of maple in this case, although they changed to the '60s profile for the 2014 model: http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/SG/Gibson-USA/SGJ.aspx

Interestingly I don't like D'Addario guitar strings for the plain ones feeling relatively hard with respect to gauge. I found out that a .009" D'Addario plain feels like .010"s of GHS, Rotosound or Optima Chrome Wounds, the small brand of my choice. As for necks, I am also the guy who likes just a hair of relief, but prefer a slightly higher string action. I get a killer "Shoot To Thrill" open A chord, open G chord and open D chord with an A in the bass on my Les Paul Traditional 2013 with .011" to .050" strings, too. I get it on all my hardtail guitars except for a Custom Shop Les Paul Standard which compresses a bit too much with its lightweight tailpiece. Floyd Rose equipped instruments have a bit more of an airy tone which also is compressed a little too much, and the Frank Zappa "Roxy" SGs are less airy but even more compressed, I think due to the missing string locks and the lower masses of the string suspensions. All of my vibrato guitars are strung using .010" to .046" sets. Compression is not a personal imagination but result of the natural reaction of the entire guitar to vibration. Depending on sizes, masses and elasticities, a big part of the string energy is either eaten up, in particular at dull frequencies, or reflected, in particular at long sustaining frequencies. However, there is a mainly noisy, non-harmonic content in the attack, and this part of the string energy may become eaten up or reflected, too. The first is common for most of the attack noise on wooden guitars, especially very low frequencies, the latter causes extreme string buzz on certain notes. However, there is a third thing which can happen and will result in that compression effect. The inertia and elasticity between string suspensions, nut and bridges make up a mechanical band-pass, also depending on the speed of sound within all the materials. This may "transform" attack noise to tone. Different guitars react at different frequencies as any band-pass will. Some don't only sustain very nicely or seem to grow louder after the attack transient has gone, they DO IN FACT grow louder. In case of my Les Paul with aluminum lightweight tailpiece, this is absolutely stunning in the low and middle frequency ranges. Blown absolutely clean through an acoustic instrument amp, the effect seems definitely unreal, but it's clearly there and can be seen on level meters, too. When adding a chorus, it seems you're listening to an organ for a few seconds. Aluminum lightweight tailpieces are common for modifying hardtail Gibsons. However, I like TP-6 fine tuning tailpieces, and so I sacrificed the stock aluminum tailpiece of my 1973 L6-S, although I had to increase string action significantly. If it fitted my CS Les Paul, I would use it there, too. Does anyone know what tailpieces Angus Young uses? Perhaps he also digs the low string action and high compression provided by aluminum... By the way, steel guitars don't have strong or weak notes usually, and their compression is the most even among all guitars, without a chance for wooden ones to compete. This is a result of the steel guitar's superior rigidity, density and speed of sound.

Sadly, the latter does apply in particular to those instruments where a cure is expensive, and the guitar will never be the same as before once the damage is done. I am monitoring temperatur and humidity with six temperature/humidity gauges all the time, and the four portable ones are in some of the cases during transportation. These and the stationary one in the rehearsal room also tell me the minimum and maximum values afterwards. There never has been a need of humidifying guitars or rooms during thirty-three years. When opening the windows during winter for a few minutes twice a day, and for a certain time thereafter, I keep all of them in their cases.

Hmmm... that's why I wrote a bit more comprehensively about the string issue. If I had rated all guitars in shops as a package including strings, I would have bought Epiphones only. OK, I also would have saved some money...

Hello 06sg, and welcome here. What made me think first was your term slow resonance. You also talked about the contrary, the snap when hitting the strings. This made me wonder if it was about a guitar or about the strings on it. I got to know all these troubles mainly around strings, not guitars. When I bought new instruments, I tended to correct their behaviour for myself, depending on the strings they came stock with. The only factory strings to my favour were those on Epiphone guitars, that's no lie. I don't like nickel wounds, there were weird inconsistencies like a .010" E1st and a .011" B2nd stock on my - SG Supra, and most D4th on brand-new Fenders had rattling windings and so an impure intonation as well as bad sustain. I don't think the guitars you compared were strung with same brand and gauge, so any comparison will lack. I experienced over thirty-three years that the very things fouling up fast transient response are bad or badly mounted strings. Those will never provide a distinctive snap and always cause a muddy tone with fast decay since the impurities will kill the tone. I don't have to deal with lack of response to attack on any of my guitars. Using piezos on hybrid guitars will show how fast a specific guitar or guitar model can be. When playing my SG Supra which is 3.8 kilograms or 8 lbs 6 oz using the piezos through an acoustic amp, it even beats my three Fender Nashville Power Telecasters and my Floyd Rose piezo guitars, one Gibson Alex Lifeson Les Paul and two modded Fender FR Stratocasters, for fast response to attack. When it is about magnetic pickups, my Frank Zappa "Roxy" SGs, either 3.1 kgs or 6 lbs 13 oz, are very fast, too, and my 1978 S-G Standard weighing 3.4 kgs or 7 lbs 8 oz lacks nothing but the dead F4 and the dull F#4. It does so although it has a three-piece neck. In contrary, my 1973 Gibson L6-S has a three-piece maple neck and no obvious dull notes whereas both of my 2011 Gibson L6S with a single piece maple neck under the glued-on maple fretboards have a dull G4 respectively G#4. These are the typical dull notes on Fender Strats, Fender FMT HH Teles and Epiphone Les Pauls, too, whereas Gibson Les Pauls and typical Fender Telecasters with bolt-on neck tend to have a dull A4 or A#4. A distinctive compression after string attack will appear when using a lightweight aluminum tailpiece which also allows for lower string action this way. I do have retrofitted several bridges on my guitars, like Schaller Floyd Rose systems instead of the originals on two Strats, and two Graph Tech Ghost piezo bridges on two more Strats. However, the only Tune-O-Matic bridges I ever replaced were those of the FZ "Roxy" SGs since I prefer Schaller roller bridges with the Lyre tailpiece. I never had trouble with my two Harmonica long-travel 1970s bridges, my single ABR-1 and my seven Nashville Tune-O-Matics. I also wonder what makes you complain about guitar necks. It never has been a problem for me adjusting them absolutely straight. If pre-owners lack care and maintenance, this might happen, and in one case it took one and a half years for a five-piece through neck of a bandmate's bass to recover. He gave this bass twenty years ago to a pal for trading it but got it back later, with the neck bent but luckily not warped. So I come to the conclusion that your 2006 SG has to be adjusted correctly. Finally, every guitar model requires its own playing attitude. That's why I love them. I think that RCT is right here. There's no sense in overthinking something. Every player should decide to play what one likes, and to get the best out of it for one's own taste. Gibson SG guitars are a vital part of the variety provided by the multitude of guitar models on the market. I don't think that SGs are accidentally valued being one of the Big Four solidbody guitars, in order of appearance Fender Telecaster, Gibson Les Paul, Fender Stratocaster, and Gibson SG. That's just my two cents on this topic. Happy 2014 to you all! capmaster

Incredible... this back is just TOO beautiful to remain unseen most of the time. I also like the way they did the bursts around the neck-body junction and the headstock - fantastic! Actually I'm wondering if I dared to touch it, but I think there's no reasonable way other than that to make it sound. So I think I finally would since I also live only once... ;) And of course, I would have to do without looking at the pretty back while playing Thank you for posting these nice pics of this great guitar, Prince Malagant! It's a sublime pleasure looking at them.

Sorry, Prince... must have overlooked yours for a long time. This is the most beautiful HRF III I have ever seen, and perhaps the nicest of all the ES Gibsons I know. To my eyes, yours looks better than the Vintage Bursts Gibsons from the early 1980s. And it looks friendlier to me than black. Perhaps I would have purchased the one a pal of mine sold two years ago if it had been a burst...

The early Howard Roberts models had an oval soundhole, a wooden bridge and a trapeze tailpiece I think. The later released Howard Roberts Fusion came with a stop tailpiece, featuring a TP-6 stock, which was told to prevent feedback. In my opinion, the first HR model was more feedback prone due to the oval hole, not the tailpiece. The latest model, HRF III, came with the "fingers" string suspension. I was the sound engineer of a trio with the guitarist, besides other guitars, playing an HRF III for many years. We didn't have any serious feedback problems, so I think this could be a proof for my assumption regarding the soundhole design. I am definitely a TP-6 fan, but in case of the HRF III, the tailpiece design makes a lot of its easy playability and overall feel I believe.

Congrats on your HRF - HNGD! I think they were discontinued many years ago. I think the tailpiece does a lot to the smooth feeling, especially on the fretboard when bending.

+1

My Telecaster Deluxe Ash and my LP Traditional 2013 are my benchmarks for creating singing notes throughout the entire fretboard. They put out incredibly rich overtones without lacking fundamentals. None of my guitars with a thinner neck can keep up in this respect.

Is there somehow like a general or avarage correlation of looks versus tone, or is it more about region of origin, and of certain tree species? As you spoke about supplies, there should result very different prices, too. Perhaps selected timbers are the reason for the extraordinarily consistent sonic qualities of my Fender American Deluxe Ash Telecaster compared to my other Fenders? Evaluated without dynamics or overdrives, it also beats many Gibson Les Paul guitars for sustain, let alone dull notes, including a Gibson Custom Shop LP Standard Figured of mine.