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gibson sg

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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Orange OR15

Spent last Sunday at the Birmingham Guitar Show here in the UK, it was a great day, the place was buzzing and there were loads of stands.

ATB had their display of vintage guitars including two 1960 Les Pauls at £300k! There was a nice 1962 ebony block SG. First time I see one of them in person. All in all it was a feast for our eyes.

As I walk past the Orange stand… it comes to my mind a distant memory of me using an Orange at a rehearsal place and quite liking it. So I stopped to see what they had, it wasn’t much… but one of the guys from Orange approached me and talked me through their collection, they had this OR15 heavily discounted because it was in black tolex and apparently hadn’t sold well.

I was with a friend who was lugging his 69SG which he offered me for trying out the amp, these places tend to be loud and it’s hard to really test anything out… but as soon as I plugged in and hit a note… I knew I was buying this thing.

It sounds like something between a Marshall and a Mesa Boogie, it has the Marshall growl but the mesa boogie sustain and body. I heard that Orange amps tend to be a bit on the darker side. This could be true… but speakers play a big part.

I plugged it in to some 4x10s

It sounds great, it complements the SG really well, it also has great response at al volumes, it doesn’t fall apart if you abuse the gain or the volume.

It’s not made in the UK as it’s not top of the line but still it is a great amp, this black edition i saw it retailing at anything between £550 and £600, I paid £349 at the guitar show!

If you are looking for a small amps that can kick like a mule… try this one out, it’s more manageable than the SV 20 H as it has a master volume and gain knobs, which means you can probably get a clean-ish sound for pedals.

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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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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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The mini mighty Marshall SV20H

These are cute, aren’t they? Like little monsters before they get angry and start roaring!

The SV20H is part of the new series of Marshall, attempting to deliver classic rock sounds at friendly volume levels, they also have a re-vamp of the jcm800 called Studio Classic.

The SV20H is a 1959SLP but with 20 Watts instead of 100, or… a 1987x at 20 Watts instead of 50.

It also has the ability to go down to 5. Now… you might think… oh good, I can use this at bedroom levels… wrong!

5 watts is borderline ok for a rehearsal, the full 20W is loud enough for a gig and no microphone required for the cabs.

The SV20H is an awesome bit of gear, the tone is there, the classic Marshall tone we all want.. is there, I used to have a 1987x and sold it on, It was heavy and I was always carrying an attenuator I also sort of fell out of love when I bought the Mesa Boogie 295 + the studio preamp.

I honestly think that the SV20H is an improved version of the 1987X and also a friend of mine has the same feeling… and he owns an original 1987.

It cuts through better… it creates better feedback.. more responsive, better clarity. It’s an improved Marshall, companies seem to have taken the chance to make things better and not just repeat history… I also cover this subject on my latest Gibson SG Custom Shop.

Technology is better than 50 years ago, this doesn’t mean we live in the future and we stop using the same concepts as before, there’s no need to revolutionise the gear we use… but… better components, more reliable, and more importantly… better testing environments, more time… smarter people and… a bigger customer base always gives you more feedback. There is more competition than we ever seen before and brands are listening.

Rock On!!

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New AC/DC album Power Up!

I don’t really do album reviews and I’m not really a critic but… I’ve been waiting for an AC/DC album for 6 years! So I think I’ll try to express what this album sounds like, spoil alert… I love it!

Finally! AC/DC is back in the game, I suffered so much seeing Brian leaving the band, then Cliff, then Malcolm passed away, I saw Angus grieving his brother and it just shattered me, but I knew Angus can’t stand still, I knew he was itching for new things, I saw them live around 9 times and I know that Angus belongs with a guitar hanging from him and running around a stage.

The news came earlier this year (covid year) that AC/DC was about to release something, they are the quietest band ever! No one knows anything about them until they decide they want to be heard.

Alright… so… they release the single “Shot in the dark” instant AC/DC sound, sounded great but it was a bit too radioey, next… “Realize” came out… again… sounded awesome and unmistakably AC/DC, however… it was too radioey again.

I pre-ordered the album of course, I got the one that lights up! Looks awesome!

Ok… album arrives… oh wait… I don’t have a cd player… well.. I actually bought the album also on itunes at 5am that day and started listening to it.

Because I’m such a huge fan of AC/DC… thing take me a bit longer to process, the album sounded great, but the songs were different, Brian sounded awesome, Cliff can definitely be heard! And the drums sound like Phil of course, what about Stevie and Angus?. I’m amazed of how well Stevie has delivered so far, he not only sounds great.. he also adopted Mal’s style of playng!

What about Angus? He also sounds awesome but… there’s a general lack of solos…. his solos are shorter than usual (similar to last couple of albums) and sometimes they are more like fills… which do not gain that solo “momentum”

Well.. that was my first impression after the first spin…. I’ve now listened to it probably… 20 times, and I’m more in love than ever!

Man what a great album, apart from sounding incredible, every member is on their top shape! Brian belting vocals like if he was back in the 80s! Phil… well… just being Phil, and the rest of the gang just ploughing through like a freight train!

Every song has something… that makes you want to listen to it over and over, and you still discover more little things with each listen.

“Through the mists of time” made me shed a few tears, great track! Unusual for AC/DC. And according to angus this was written around the era of stiff upper lip! This one is for Mal, and even Brian says he gets the shivers!

“Money Shot” oh man, I love this one, brian is almost rapping again! The beat is great! Guitars are well defined and it sounds tight! At a nice pace.

“Code Red” is this the new “Back in Black” great track, again… Brian’s vocals are just great!

all the other tracks are awesome too! It’s great to hear the band again, this has made me very happy and I can feel some songs becoming classics already.

I still would’ve loved to hear some more signature solos from Angus, but… it’s ok, it’s still a great record that I listen to at least once a day.

THANK YOU!! You turned 2020 into a great year! And you’ve also made all the songs available for free on YouTube, well done! For always being there for us, for being humble but determined and for only caring of delivering the best to your fans.

AC/DC we salute you! And I’ll be attending as many shows as possible next year!

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Gibson SG 61 Standard Custom Shop

Yes… another SG, this one took me a while to get, and I sold a few to get it, I found my self having 9 SGs and only using 3 or 4, it seemed wrong and I wasn’t comfortable with having unused guitars just hanging there.

So I published a bunch on on reverb and sold within like 3 days. I bought a few Marshall cabs and then this gorgeous SG came up for sale on reverb, my first Gibson Custom Shop

What an instrument! I don’t know what they do in the custom shop but playing one of these is like playing your favourite guitar, the one that just fits you…. maybe I got lucky but I doubt it… i think that is the purpose of a custom shop Gibson, to just… deliver what you need.

The finish is perfect, the intonation… perfect, the looks… perfect, the thin nitro finish… perfect, the smell of the case… perfect too! It smells like the nicest Gibson ever, Gibson owners know what I’m talking about.

Sound

It comes with PAF pickup replicas, in theory they use the same machinery used back in the 60s and pickups back then had uneven amounts of turns of wire… because apparently no one counted them, so they also replicated this process and people go crazy for these PAFs! I only just realised this. Owners are always changing pickups around but apparently Gibson Custom Buckers PAFs are probably the only ones that doesn’t get swapped.

The sound is nice, well formed, very balanced, slightly mid rangey, I’m not sure if this is the Custom Bucker or the bumblebee capacitor, the resistance is 6.8 on the bridge and 7.86 on the neck, I think the bridge could use a little more power, but the sound is still great and you can get very sweet sounding cleans and devilish distortion too!

The Looks

So… is it just another SG? Yes… of course, 2 horns, fat bottom and 6 strings, so what? Well… this one has the nice bevels, great looking tuners, the hardware is nickel which I loge because it looks like it’s been there for ever, and the most important of all… it has a very thin coat of nitrocellulose paint… which in theory allows the wood to breathe and resonate more, I don’t really think that’s true or at least impossible to prove… but… I love a nitro finish, it just looks great!

How does it play?

This is what I’m most amazed at, it just play as the nicest guitar you can possibly have, the first time you pick it up is like you’ve had this guitar all your life and you know everything about it, it might be the setup, it might be the size is just right, it might be the shape of the neck… the thin nitro on the back of the neck helps too. I truly don’t know what it is but… they have something different to Standard ones, it feels exactly like my 1971 Standard, like the wood has already settled in the instrument and the wood said “ok… this is my job for the rest of my life… I accept it… and I’ll behave”

Is it worth it?

Ah! The million dollar question. For me… it’s a resounding yes, I bought it used (like all my gear) so I paid half of what it costs new and getting a good deal always makes you feel better about the instrument, but money is relative… and the question here is… does it play twice as nice as a regular standard? I think it does… maybe not twice as good as my favourite Standard…. but it plays nicer than that one too… and I’ve bought many SGs before keeping only one standard…. definitely spent more then 4 thousand dollars on that journey, but the journey was great and it makes me realize how good this custom shop is.

So… should you buy one? YES! Go and play one somewhere… but don’t buy a new one… these custom shop cost a fortune and they lose a LOT of value as soon as you take it out of the shop.

you can see her in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNbn6GB0JI4

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