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Stringed Guitars

Created by a passionate guitarist, containing a bit of gear reviews and news

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AC/DC

Gibson SG GT

Yes.. another SG! I haven’t bought an SG for a few years I think… and I stumbled across the GT version, which I knew nothing about apart from the fact that existed.

So… for the official info.. you can go to SG Wiki: https://solidguitar.fandom.com/wiki/SG_GT

I love that website! They actually used one of my guitars for their pictures of a 71 SG :).

Anyway.. it is just like any other SG? Mmm kind of… but of course the tailpiece gets all the attention, I originally thought it was just a cover for the regular SG tailpiece, but no… it’s a whole thing that is bolted to and through the guitar! And ma man is it heavy! It feels heavier than my other SGs. Pretty cool design which attempts to resemble the bonnet or a car.

The Pickups are the 490/498 Alnico II. To me these are great pickups, I’ve been raving about Alnico II and Alnico III for a few years… preferring them over the Alnico V pickups.

The neck… I haven’t compared measurements but it feels chunky and not as slim/taper like a 61 reissue, just about the perfect size. You might have seen on other recent posts that I’ve discovered that chunkier necks seem easier to play…

The frets… this has caught my attention, they are quite thin… good height and crown… but they are thinner to what I’ve been seeing on standards and custom shop… There’s usually not a lot of info on frets used on different versions.

The inlays! These are not your usual mother of pearl… these are “mirror” inlays… of course probably made of plastic… but they add to the cool chrome look of the guitar.

All in all, I’m very pleased with it, it plays great and it sustains nicely. A definitely good addition to the SG collection.

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Boss Katana Artist Gen 3 (Combo)

Alright, this might be the most reviewed amp on the internet right now… so of course… I ended up buying one.

If you have read any of my other posts… you will by now know that I’m a simple guy… guitar + amp and nothing else (maybe the solo dalas tower…) but… in summary… I don’t like buttons, knobs, etc. give me something simple so I can go straight to the action. So you might wonder…. why even bother with the Katana? well.. I wanted to buy something different.

let’s get the first thing out of the way. This amp does not sound like a tube amp! but.. that is not a bad thing… tube amps always sound different… why? think about this… if you are old enough as me… you’ve heard music on tapes… or even vynils…. do they sound the same as the cd? or the same as spotify? No… should they sound the same? No… it’s a completely different technology…. what is the draw back of a Tape? well.. it ends up stretching… every time you hear it.. the tape degrades, the same with the Vynil and the CD…. but.. Spotify (quality aside) gives you the same exact sound every single time. The Quality? well… it’s easy.. Spotify has to compress a file send it over the internet… put it on your laptop/phone.. and then play it out… so.. even though it’s all 1s and 0s… there are algorythms behind.. the quality suffers but it’s scientific.. we know how much it suffers and we still choose it.

Tube amps are the same.. every time you play them.. they will wear.. they will sound different if there’s high humidity… if it’s cold… if it’s too hot.. if it’s been pushed around.. maybe the tube isn’t well placed in the socket… and you never know what makes it sound appealing… maybe your biased isn’t set to what the manual says… but you still like it…. and if you go in to try to fix it… you might not like it anymore…

I have and have had over 50 tube amps… I play in an AC/DC tribute band… i’m not an expert on tubes and amp building… but I know my sound when I hear it. And the Katana… isn’t my sound… but… it is still a great sound.

The Speakers / Cab: The Artist combo comes in an oversized cab.. which I love! the speaker is superb… it’s clearl not a regular guitar speaker because it doesn’t need to be broken in… it sounds as good as it gets right out of the box. the body of the sound and the tight end is unreal… you’ll need a 4×12 to get that sound

The Sound itself: I’ll probably end up using just one setting on this… “pushed” + my guitar volume, And that’s ok… but hard to accept when they offer “hundreds of options” I hate options.. I hate fiddling with knobs and apps.. I hate buying a rock album and getting a balad… so… I want an amp that can do one thing right at least. The Katana gives you a great break up sound with very clear bottom end at most volumes

How does it react with the guitar: I find that the amp works nicer with single coils… with humbuckers.. the guitar volume behaves differently compared to a tube amp.. I have to get used to that.

The Features: I have no idea… but dude… this amp should have the freaking bluetooth and a footswitch included! come on! at least a simple one to go from clean to the drive section

Should you buy it? I guess so…. I wanted a combo amp that I could just plug and forget about it.. I was between the 1974x, the Fender Tonemaster and the Katana… but… the Katana fits for the new project I’m working on.. I might need a bit of delay.. I might need some reverb.. I might need some fuzz… but what I definitely need is an amp that requires 0 maintenance, that I can load in the back of my car with one hand… and have the tone I had at home.

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To Fuzz or no Fuzz – Solodalas Orbiter!

I’m not an expert on the fuzz world, but I always wanted one… when you watch those late 70s AC/DC videos, Angus guitar sounds like if he had a fuzz… barely turned on.

We all know that Angus never used a fuzz, but maybe the combination of poor recording quality or whatever other combination of stuff… makes his solos sound like if he had one.

So when Solodalas released his Fuzz… i got excited! Cause I know these guys are honest to the vintage sounds and they don’t really over do stuff… it’s always kind of sutile… but exceptionally noticeable! Kind of a weird balance.

I’m using this pedal in addition to the EX Tower, not to add more distortion nor fuzz… but just to push the amp and the tower a little but extra… like a hot biased tube.

This pedal apart from achieving great fuzz and sputter fuzz tones… gives you very nice and homely overdrives and sustain that is to die for!

I love this thing! I kinda wish it didn’t exist cause I’m not a pedal guy… I always try to minimise stuff that can go wrong in my rig…. i hate cables and stomping on things… but I’ll make this work… maybe velcro it to the amp or the top of the tower, because like all of their products.. it is something to always have ON.

The tone cleans up nicely when you roll down the guitar volume.. like if it wasn’t there.

This is a pedal to be bought! I absolutely love it!

Thank you Solodalas Team!

Orbiter Fuzz Pedal
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Gibson SG Special faded

2nd special SG in my collection, the first one was the ebony board one and this one.. was an accident.

I tend to place bids and then forget about them, 99% of the times I usually lose the bid… but this time it was collection only and the guitar was filthy

Look at that fretboard… filthy!

So based on those factors, no one really placed any bids and to my surprise… mine won :).

I went to pick it up not being too excited as I really didn’t want it, having so many standards and custom shops… I wasn’t excited about just a special faded.

But you know how it goes… when you least expected is when you are surprised the most (not always!). So I pick it up… take it home… and the next day I went for a cleanup, man… the amount of sweat on this fretboard, i had to scrape it off, then do lemon oil, then scrape a bit more…. Even the back of the neck had to be scraped! Being unsealed wood… they seem to pip up a lot of dirt.

Once the fretboard was clean

So once I finished with the neck… I did a good clean to the body, and then…. i used the instrument food from Monty’s guitar, again… as being unsealed wood… I was excited to try the clear instrument food.

It really made the grain stand out

I also used the coffee one on the fretboard because it give it a nice shade and males the pattern stand out.

After like 2 hours of cleaning and changing strings… I plugged it in, I loved it instantly. The neck is chunky just like the ebony special, the frets are well defined and on the big side, the pickups… Alnico II 490/498. i love these, much better than Alnico V which I believe the SG Standard comes with.

These specials are becoming my favourite! They do rock, you can beat them up a bit more , they are just a rocking machine with nothing fancy on them.

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Are Mods worth it?

Debatable! Of course… probably the most debatable subject on guitars, us musicians are weird people, we love one thing today and hate the same thing tomorrow and we start tweaking things until we go “oh man.. I loved how this thing sounded yesterday “ we are almost never happy with what we have for more than a week.

Well… sort of, we get used to a sound and this will sometimes stop causing an impression on us… when something blows your mind out it’s because it’s new… fresh… different. But we often just get bored and our brain sort of fills in the blanks and the sound just becomes “standard”.

I’ve experienced this many many times. Now… I’m in a different mind set… I have enough guitars and amps that I can just switch stuff around when it’s just not working… this made me understand that sometimes one thing sounds better than the other, it could be us… could be placebo… could be voltage, humidity.. who knows! But… I try not to tweak things (apart from volume, treble, mids, etc) I’ll just swap guitars… and try again.

I stopped modding guitars (as much as I can) the guitar has to feel right… if it doesn’t… there is no mod that will make it “better” or more suitable for you, and once you break that “mod seal” there is no going back… and there is no end on the amount of mods you can do!

One of my Custom Shops sounded just slightly darker than others and there was something about the volume pot that I didn’t like… but I love the guitar… it feels like home… but that volume pot…just.. was weird. So I changed it with a vintage spec 550k ohms, and boom! There it was… missing piece.. feels perfect.. never touched it again and I play it a lot!

I had another custom shop.. that came with 57 plus humbuckers.. which I hated.. too nasal and bright.. I went ahead and purchased some custom buckers and installed them… got rid of the 57s. It sounded better… but I still wasn’t getting along with the guitar… it felt “stiff”. I ended up selling it because when I kept “rotating” guitars… that one never ended up pleasing me.

I’m a true believer of “magic dust” inside the guitar… the good ol’ mojo… if it has it… then maybe some minor tweaks will be acceptable.. if it doesn’t have any “magic” or mojo… then I think no mod will make it much better.

I even try not to open the control cavity if I feel that the guitar is perfect… because you know what? “Ignorance is bliss” if you open that up and you notice something that you don’t visually like… you’ll want to change that.

Just today.. I bought an SG Special that I just love how it sounds! But the pots where a bit stiff because the guitar was filthy!! I did a whole clean up… but pots were still stiff… I opened the control cavity to put some contact cleaner… and guess what… there’s a PCB controlling the pots… I just put the contact cleaner to loose them up and close it quickly before I convinced myself of “upgrading” to one of those fancy wiring kits.

To mod or not to mod… that’s the question… go for the small upgrades… maybe a pot… maybe a bit of a clean… but you know what the best upgrade is? a new set of strings :). And a guitar that feels just right. If it doesn’t feel right.. it is not for you… sell it and buy another one

Most recent purchase
Another underdog
An unbeatable custom shop
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Pushing 2 Amps with one guitar

So… when you see AC/DC live… you see tons of guitar cabs, and you have to wonder… how are these people pushing all these cabs??

Well… That I don’t know… however… you can do this at home pretty easily, given that you have more than one cab.

My recent OR15 purchase was because I wanted to use 4 cabs for a specific gig, and I either had to carry my mesa boogie which is a 295… meaning 2 amps.. 95Watts. Or… I have to buy a new amp to go with my SV20h

Well.. I bought the OR15 and then I remembered I had this Y cable which splits one signal into two different 1/4 inch jacks.

Pretty basic, right?
Worked like a charm!

I can now push 4 cabs with these two amps, they also sound pretty similar.

I had one hiccup with the Orange as the cabs are 8ohms each and the OR15 has a minimum of 8ohms load… so.. Palmer sells a device that allows you to connect cabs in series or in parallel, meaning that 2 x 8ohm cabs can turn into a 4 or 16ohm load.

It’s tiny!

I attached it to the back of the Orange with zip toes tot the grill and I plugged everything in, neat and tidy.

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Gibson SG CME/Andertons Exclusive

Last week was my 40th birthday, I spent a great week with my wife, my kids (I didn’t have kids when I started this blog) we did all sorts of things, but every year I buy something for myself… like a self-present… however this year was a bit different because I already have everything I wanted.

I swear, I spend at least 1 hour per week browsing through ebay, reverb, etc. Looking at guitars, just seeing how the market is and what is available, but lately… nothing was catching my attention, I already have 10 SGs, 3 custom shops… a jaydee… I think I’m good in the SG department.

But… never say never…. Well… I never had a yellow SG, and who doesn’t like a TV Yellow SG!? Well… I couldn’t find one… but! Andertons in the UK and CME in the US, did a special run of SGs with some really cool colours, green, pink, black/purple-ish/yellow. So… I found one used and it was yellow :). These are a reissue of the 70s SGs, the square inlays, the neck, the slightly smaller frets, and… they created T-Top replica pickups which are somewhat unique.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger, drove an hour to pick it up, in fact I took my son and we saw some sheep and goats on the way, we had loads of fun.

I got the guitar and I instantly removed the old strings, gave it a good clean, a nice fretboard run with instrument food from Monty’s guitars, a bit of fret polish with nomad products, and man. It looks and feels incredible.

The frets are a bit on the low/small side… I got a heavy hand.. I need to work on this, so not my most comfortable guitar to play, but oh boy! Does it look cool!

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Malcolm Young tribute

Yes… another Gretsch, and this makes 3, why? Because I wanted to replicate both of the beasts versions of Malcolm, the one with the badass bridge and the one with the Burns vibrola.

In this case I bought another 5222 to replicate Malcolm’s beast with the burns tailpiece, the one I bought was purple and it had a bigsby arm, so.. this time I wanted to do a complete overhaul with a professional, what I ended up doing is the following:

Bought on bidding a shiny purple one and sold all the parts, se below the details for costs as I think this is the best way of getting a replica on the cheap

You can see expenses in orange and sales in green.

The mod (£404.35) which included re-finishing in nitro and reshaping of the floating bridge was done by DY Guitars in London which I recommend,m, he also did a bit of ageing.

Re-finishing in Nitro was a must for me. I just don’t like the finish of poly, it feels different…. And cheaper, i’m not too sure if it increases wood resonance and all that crap… but to my touch is just feels nicer and of course the back of the neck feels much better too, this time DY Guitars chose a matte finish which I think makes total sense as it makes it look a bit more worn.

So the total cost of the project was £672 which isn’t bad at all compared to the cheapest replica that costs around £2500

This is how it looked originally
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Gibson SG Special 100th Anniversary

So I didn’t know this was a thing… but it turns out that Gibson turned 100 in 1994, as a result… all guitars built in 1994 have a different serial number pattern, they all start with 94.

This is a Gibson SG Special in ebony with ebony fretboard. I’ve been after one of these for sometime, during the early 90s Gibson used to put ebony boards on SG Specials, I don’t know why, but as you know ebony tends to be reserved for higher priced guitars, so it’s a cool spec to have.

I bought this used a few weeks ago, not only it looks amazing with the dark board but it also has great dot inlays, they are not plain like most.. they have a bit of perloid colouring, which looks great.

Pickups are 490R and 490T, which are not all that special, however… upon doing some research, I found that they sport Alnico II magnets as opposed to Alnico V on the 498 that the SG Standard comes with, I’ve never been a fan of Alnico V, they are not articulate and clear like Alnico III, and Alnico II are slightly stronger than III but a lot less stronger than V, so I was keen on trying these out.

All in all the guitar plays great, the neck profile is like 50s les paul, quite chunky which seems to help my vibrato, the playability is very good and quite slinky for some reason.. and I use 10s.

I recommend you get one of these if you see them out there, I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite SG but.. being the underdog makes it a lot more special and the combination of the Ebony finish with the dark ebony board and the uncovered black pickups… makes it a hell of a looker

You see what I mean about the dots? They have a certain distinct pattern, love them

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