msaint
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Posts posted by msaint
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The earlier Eppies, prior to them being manufactured overseas, were of the same quality as USA Gibsons and are nearly impossible to find, and if one can be found in good condtion, it will be far too expensive for the average Joe to afford to purchase. But the one in this photo is definitely a beauty no matter where it was made.🙂
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True dat. I think the smell of a new Gibson is what hooks most people more than it's aesthetics or playability.
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True dat. Fender has followed suit and are now being just as greedy. However, with Fender seldom does a customer ever encounter QC issues.
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On 5/30/2022 at 3:13 PM, Sgt. Pepper said:
I'm glad I waited 3 years to find out about you having a great SG. 400 guitars. Does Rick Nielsen know about this?
I'm just a 76 year old hippie from the Laguna Beach Brotherhood. I owned guitar stores in Hollywood, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa during the '60s and '70s and have been collecting them since the late 1950s. I love Gibsons so I collect them and hoard them. Luckily I have a big mansion to store them in.
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11 hours ago, mihcmac said:
Hey Bill haven't heard from you for a long time, looks like you posted this about 4 years ago. I buy almost all my guitars online and basically you take your chances when you don't actually touch the guitar before buying. If I don't like something I bought I work them until they are playable, then sell them.
I would not try 3 times to get same thing and as I said I don't return anything.
Peace Bill
John....
I'm 76, been collecting, selling and repairing Gibsons and Strats since the late 1950s. I owned guitar stores on the west coast off and on for 50 years, so yes, I have more than 400 guitars, mostly Gibsons and Fenders. Luckily I also have a big mansion to store them in. I'm just an old hippie from the Laguna Beach Brotherhood that loves Gibson guitars.
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On 9/27/2018 at 6:33 PM, Wild Bill 212 said:
Hello fellow PLAYER's, the problem with buying Guitar's ON-LINE is about to becone apparent
I did happen to see @ AMERICAN MUSICAL SUPPLY an EXCLUSIVE 2019 'GIBSON USA 'SG' Standard w/3 Pick-Up's/Sideways Tremolo, ALA BILLY GIBBONS 'Li'l RED', so I ordered one as it is as close to a CUSTOM SHOP GIBSON as a Guy like me can get.
The 1st one arrived set-up pretty decently but the Guitar had a defect on the Fret-Board @ Frets 1 & 2 and after taking the Guitar to a GIBSON AUTHORIZED SVC. Center (Where I was told:"Send it back...", in no uncertain terms !) I had to send the Guitar back to AMS.
SO, the 2nd 2019 'SG' Standard w/Sideways Tremolo Guitar arrived and the SET-UP on it was atrocious. Other than turning the Guitar into a STOP-TAIL STANDARD the Guitar would never do as it is designed to do.This meant that if I wanted to keep the Guitar I would NEVER have the option of playing it as Billy Gibbons plays 'LI'L RED' and that is with the Sideways Tremolo Arm in the retracted position.WTF ? UGH !!!
I took the Guitar to the SVC Cneter that I took the 1st one to and was told, AGAIN, in no uncertain terms to "Send it back.......",and that I was correct, the Center-Block was mounted in-correctly....... so back it went !
SO, now I am waiting for a REPLACEMENT Guitar to be shipped to me from AMS. BUT GIBSON Failed to send me an acceptable one TWICE and rolling the dice a 3rd time on that Guitar was just something I thought better of doing.
I guess the moral of the story is that :"YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR", and I am definitely NOT going to get a Custom Shop level GIBSON for $2,000 from GIBSON USA.
WOULD ANYONE HERE TRIED FOR A 3RD TIME TO GET AN ACCEPTABLE 3 Pick-Up/Sideways Tremolo 'SG' STANDARD ? ?
I have the 2019 Exclusive Original SG in dark aged cherry with the shark tooth Vibrola Maestro that I bought from zZounds in 2019. Utter perfection and playability, has '57 classics and sounds marvelous. I put on a Wilkerson roller bridge and Kluson Keystone locking tuners and haven't had a tuning issue since. Since I have more than 400 guitars this baby has gotten no playtime at all, but I have been offered $2,500 for it on several occasions of which I turned down because this axe is a rarity, only 350 of them made and is of custom shop grade...plus I've never seen an SG of this quality. I paid $1600 for it in '19 and they're already selling for $2500 and more if you can find one or find someone willing to sell. IMO this is the best SG the company ever made and I don't blame owners for not wanting to sell them.
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On 4/19/2021 at 6:52 PM, NighthawkChris said:
A vagina on a guitar... I like my guitars but not where I want to F them. That’s what I do with vaginas... not with a guitar. Oh man imagine the issues that guitar will give you once a month until it hits menopause. Then it’s vintage! What a way to redefine binding bleed!
Lol!🤣
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On 1/17/2022 at 10:49 AM, MarkR said:
Hi Twang Gang,
I see what you and Larsongs are saying.
I'm used to dialing in my LPs to a volume of about 6-7 and leaving tone alone.
With the 33 DOT In the center position, when I pull volumes down to 5, and tones down to 3, it finally sounds like a 335 to me, and I can hear the guitar past the pickups and electronics.
It's great.
I don't think I should have to strangle these pickups that much to stop the screech.
I'm probably heading the '57 Classic route and would greatly appreciate pros/cons/preferences and observations. And any different recommendations.
Thanks Again Everybody,
Mark
Gibson has so much ambiguity and QC issues due to their greed, that one never knows what those pups are going to sound like. I love Gibson guitars, I owned a guitar store in the 1960s and 1970s in Southern Cal and used to sell them, no greed or QC issues back then. Today when I buy a Gibson I don't even bother to listen to what it sounds like because I always have a pair of Lollar's already waiting for the guitar when it arrives.
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On 1/13/2022 at 6:56 AM, MarkR said:
Hello All,
My name is Mark. I recently purchased a new ES-335.
It's new PY22 DOT Ebony.
I've played many ES-335s over the years and this one doesn't sound anything like them to me.
The T-Top pickups are "ice picks" to the ears and the body of the guitar sounds and feels like it was dunked in a vat of lacquer. Thick and fairly dead.
The result seems to be a plastic sounding box with ice pick pickups.
I know they say the Murphys are much better guitars. Maybe they still sound like traditional ES-335s.
I'm not sure why Gibson make such a shift away from traditional 335s with their base model?
Was there consumer demand for a thinner twangier sounding version of the 335 ? 'Cause you can get a Gretsch for that.
Just wondering what you experts here think.
I'm not sure what to do with this thing at this point. It's been relegated to the closet.
Thanks In Advance,
Mark
I just bought a brand new 2021 ES-335 Figured from zZounds, and it came with a broken tone pot and won't stay in tune even 1 second. With tax and their processing fee it cost over $4,300. It plays and sounds wonderfully but can't stay in tune long enough to get through a song's introduction. zZounds reached out to Gibson for a replacement tone pot....ain't heard back from Gibson yet. Seems like the only way to get a good Gibson anymore is to buy it from the CS, which of course prices the poor man out of the equation and out of the market. A damn shame.
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3 hours ago, kidblast said:
it is hard to argue with a word like vagina,.... but still.... I can't say I'd appreciate one on my guitar, I mean, the distractions I have are already bad enough...
Lol, true dat.
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8 hours ago, kidblast said:
well go to the Guild forums and sing their praises over there.. stop wasting your time here...
Sorry, I only take orders from my wife.
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5 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:
This thread stared in 2013, but if they start making electric guitars with vagina's on em, I'm gonna start playing electrics again.
When you say it better be a good one are you talking about the guitar or the vagina?
Lol, the vag of course.
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Lol, yes it would. I copyrighted the name long ago. But would a girl band look better wearing the name as opposed to a male one?
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Lol, good sense of humor. But yes, the Guild Starfire VI is a wonderful guitar, much better than its Gibson counterpart.
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When I say "rolled", I mean the sharp right angle is "softened" just enough to smooth the edge without sacrificing any fretboard real estate, sort of like the high end PRS's. I'm thinking you're referring to a rolling like Fender does on its fingerboards, which in my humble opinion is a little too much, especially in their higher end models.
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On 12/30/2013 at 7:39 PM, 06sg said:
I'm new here, and this is my first post, so please bare with the length, it's necessary.
PART 1:
Last year, I purchased a used, 2006 Gibson SG Standard. I had been looking for a solid bodied guitar, that was in a price range I could afford. I'm not a serious player by any means, but can sometimes get obsessive about how an instrument behaves, acoustically. I get so annoyed whenever I go into a store, and a salesperson says, "What? You don't want to plug it in?" If a guitar doesn't respond well acoustically, plugging it in won't make any difference.
Pickups, bridges, machine heads, nuts, electronics etc, can always be changed, but the inherent physics and properties of the wood, neck joint, weight of the guitar, straightness of the neck can't. If those traits aren't there to begin with, then it is what is, amp or not.
When I first bought the SG, I liked the weight, feel of neck, basic feel in my hands. It did resonate slowly however, and it felt kind of like "plunk" or dulled when I hit the strings, no volume, sustain or snap. However, I knew certain things could be changed to greatly improve the resonance, sustain, and general snap of the guitar.
Fast forward a month later. I purchased a Faber Tone Lock bridge, replacing the crappy Gotoh Nashville style cast bride. It's saddles feature retainer wire, not clips. Although it served its basic purpose, it sucked in comparison to the Faber. My link
With the new Faber Tone Lock bridge installed, a new bone nut — properly cut, 500K pots all around, and a new bridge pickup, the guitar was considerably better than stock. It now spanks, sustains for days, and produces much better fundamentals and harmonics that just wasn't possible with the stock components.
PART 2
After having the guitar for well over a year, I still like it very much. But, I've had the opportunity to play a slew of other guitars, Gibson, and non-Gibson.
I have several gripes with Gibson about the SG Standards and previous SG 61's reissues. Namely:
construction methods, wood selection and build choices when it comes to the following:
Headstock size
Neck straightness
Fretboard Material (ebony VS rosewood VS Richlite
Neck shape (50's rounded, or V shape etc.)
Neck joint & heel construction (length of joint), (shape of heel)
Fret wire size (medium or jumbo)
Body thickness
Type of wood used
With that said, after playing other guitars, SG's, LP Standards, LP Traditionals, Gretsch guitars, a Dean USA Z Time Capsule, an Ibanez AR3 25 and a few others, I've come to the conclusion that the Gibson SG Standard and SG 61's re-issue style guitars are in need of some changes, or "alternative" offerings, that aren't "custom" shop offerings.
It's one thing to keep something "vintage", or in line with what people perceive as "vintage". I understand it from a marketing point of view. But as someone who plays guitar - even just as a hobbyist, a lot of these newer SG's feel like toys. They are so light, that they can't sustain like a more dense, substantial instrument. The neck joint construction is far too minimal. In my humble opinion, these are guitars that could be so much better if a few areas were revisited and re-tooled, yet in keeping with the vintage look and expectation that people have of these guitars.
I find it exceptionally frustrating, that Gibson will typically change the "look" of the SG, but won't ever release a newer or ACTUALLY improved design from a players perspective. The case in point is the new SG SPECIAL: My link The copy title reads:
"Hit The Stage In Style", and "Don't Sell Your Soul"
— Are you kidding? It almost reads like a JC Penny commercial. Butterscotch Vintage Gloss??? I'm terribly suspicious that Gibson has hired someone from Apple to head their marketing team, or maybe Martha Stewart?
SG Standard VS Ibanez AR325
I recently played a new Ibanez AR325. A guitar at a lower/midrange price compared to a Gibson SG. At a price point of about $599.00, the Ibanez AR 325 is a guitar I probably wouldn't buy. I have no experience with it, no brand devotion, etc. Having said that, I recently played one in a store — acoustically, and despite it not being setup properly, it had an extremely pronounced midrange/upper midrange snap, that eludes even my modified SG standard. The resonance in the body of the AR325 was felt simultaneously in the neck and body, with a very tight SNAP and explosive focus. The feel for a less expensive guitar was phenomenal.
Upon closer inspection, I realized that the neck is much straighter on the AR325 than on my SG, yet both guitars use a similar ABR style bridge. The thumbwheels on the AR325 were positioned much closer to the body without significant fret buzz or rattle - hence the straightness of the neck. The genius design of the heel on the AR325 was immediately noticeable when I played it. SEE: My link
After playing the AR325 for about 10 minutes, I realized its strongest features were:
Straighter neck
Exceptional heel construction
Jumbo frets
And yet, it's weight is almost identical to my SG Standard, a little over 7 pounds, and although the body is wider at the tail, the thickness of both bodies is very similar.
After playing the AR325, I looked for it online, and found some of the ad copy. It says, "Three-piece neck is ultra-rigid for exceptional performance. Multi-ply necks are ultra-rigid, which means they help transmit string energy to your guitar's body faster and better."
That is an extremely accurate description of how the guitar felt when I played it. It had exceptional sustain, an upper midrange snap, you didn't have to dig into the strings to get the guitar to respond. It spanked with resonance and an immediate energy in the body, producing that fantastic elliptical string effect.
Immediately after, I also played a newer Gibson SG Standard in the store. The overly light weight of the SG's body, the lack of density and focus in the tone, lack of mid/upper mid snap, and much slower resonance in the neck/body left me feeling disappointed with the feel. And I'm sorry to say that this experience has been repeated many times with the SG line.
I really wish Gibson would incorporate some of the design concepts of the other vendors, into their own designs, whether those vendors are considered significant competitors or not. These design concepts make such great sense, in terms of the physics behind them. It would be such an amazing guitar if the SG responded in a similar way to the Ibanez AR 325, or the Dean USA Z Time Capsule series, which although has considerably more wood to the body, a completely different shape, the CONSTRUCTION approach to both guitars is exceptional.
Imagine a revamped SG Standard with the following:
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- An alternative wood, black walnut, maple cap. (If keeping the same thickness as current models.)
- More substantial heel (similar to a Dean Z Time Capsule, or the Ibanez AR325)
- A 3 piece maple neck
- Much straighter neck angle - like that of the Dean Z.
- Oversized Gibson headstock
- Ebony fretboard (not Ebonized rosewood)
- Wider body like the early 70's models
- 50's profile neck with a V, (like a LP Traditional meets a Dean Z Time Capsule neck)
- Slightly thicker body with mahogany and maple cap,or walnut with maple cap.
- Guitar jack on SIDE of body, not on front
- 500K pots, no more 300K
Thanks for reading.
I just purchased a brand new Gibson SG Standard Bass in ebony for $1500, but actually $1700 with tax and handling fees when all was said and done, and I must say that I'm really fuming that the fretboard edges are right angled and sharp and not rolled. I have twenty six Gibsons ranging from the economically faded SG and LP studios, to a 1958 LP. With the exception of the '58 and several other of the older models, the fretboards are either rolled or at least the sharp edges are dulled. However, this new Bass' fingerboard doesn't even pretend to be anything other than a sharp knife in the hand. I'm really tired of the way Gibson consistently chooses to screw its customers around and around, and at the very highest prices at that! I'm through with them forever, unless they make a guitar with a vagina on it, and it better be a good one too.
I also purchased a 2019 Blonde Guild Starfire VI for $1400 that puts all Gibsons, I've ever seen and played (I'm 75 years old and played the chittlin circuit during the early 1960', and later a studio rat for Capital and Decca) including the ES-355 to shame IN EVERY WAY! And it's Korean manufactured. Far better quality, infinitely superior playability, infinitely superior pups, and infinitely superior tonal quality. Sounds like heaven through any kind of amp or pedal too, and they make Gibsons look, sound and play like garbage. Since I first picked the Starfire VI up and played it, I haven't even thought about a Gibson. I'm going to sell them all and just get several more Guilds, they're so much more superior in every way.
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Thanks.I think my stock pickups in my sg standard sound great until I hear my faded sg with the 490's.Some reason the faded kinda sounds more vintage,I guess is the word.Here are both guitars played one after another volumes,tones,etc all set same for both guitars
Niiiiiiize Plexi! Excellent demo too!
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Put a Bigsby B5 Vibramate Vibrato system on it. They retail for about $145-$180 and worth every penny. You won't have to drill holes in that beast, nor will you have to deface and devaluate it in any manner. Plus, you can remove it and reinstall the original bridge that came with the axe anytime you desire, and you'll never even notice the difference. This vibrato system will also improve both sustain and playability. The crescent moon, ebony fret board versions are very rare and limited, and can command prices up to $1500 in good shape.Hello, I just posted a similar question. I have a 2003 or 2004 gibson v faded with dots. The thing that makes it unique IMO is that it has an ebony fretboard. I am trying to find out what they are worth as I haven't seen another one like it. I think the moon inlays on yours are cool. My V sounds great and I doubt i'd sell it. I got it at an unheard of price used with a gigbag. I am actually thinking of buying a hardshell case for it from Gibson. I'd like to install a vibrato like hendrix and Kravitz but i'm afraid it would devalue the guitar. I love the vintage relic look of these faded models. They have gone up in price too. The V is now over $900 new street price. If u like it, it plays well, and is in good shape get it. I don't know i'd pay the new price, but at a used price they are a bargain!!
New 2022 335 DOT Owner - Now I Get That This is a "Modern Interpretation" - NOT a traditional ES-335
in Gibson ES
Posted
Thanks for replying and forgive me for being late replying back to you. I was for some unknown reason, unable to log into this forum. I was only able to log in today, and even then I was still forced to create another password. What I wanted to say was the entire range of these these guitars sound their very best with Classic 57s. If you want to verify this scientifically you can hook it up to an Oscilloscope and view the sign waves as compared to other pups. The way these guitars are constructed, the 57s just seem natural for them. Best way to see for yourselves is to fire one up, wait a few minutes, then listen to how good your axe sounds when playing it thru the 57s as compared to the other pickups.