So many of my musical knee jerk gear reactions tend to be wrong. I don't like humbuckers. (A '66 ES-335 cured that one.) I hate Les Pauls, unwieldy, heavy, I'll never play a Les Paul! (A wonderful MIJ Epiphone LQ Les Paul ended that foolishness.)
And so on. My longest running guitar assumption was that SGs suck. This I knew from experience, having owned two vintage SGs - an SG junior, an SG special - that didn't do much for me. The junior especially. After that, no more SGs. Yet the body type has an appeal which persists. I found myself wanting to go that way for slide and open tunings. Three Guilds later - two S-90s and an S-100 - I'd found the sounds I wanted but somehow not the right feel and playability.
Finally threw in the towel on the SG thing. Went to look at a 2005 red SG Standard, local Craigslist sale. Beautiful, right out of the case this one was speaking to me. Old, too light strings and a strange little amp at the guy's place, so I couldn't really hear it. Got it home, restrung, action and pickup heights adjusted, tuned up to open E and gave it the once over. Verdict: KILLER slide guitar. I've done my share of SG bashing, Gibson bashing in general, so it's time for to admit just how wrong I was. Really nice instrument! It wakes up bigtime in open tuning. An ideal tonal balance for slide, with fat, singing tones everywhere. Mea culpa.
MD
And so on. My longest running guitar assumption was that SGs suck. This I knew from experience, having owned two vintage SGs - an SG junior, an SG special - that didn't do much for me. The junior especially. After that, no more SGs. Yet the body type has an appeal which persists. I found myself wanting to go that way for slide and open tunings. Three Guilds later - two S-90s and an S-100 - I'd found the sounds I wanted but somehow not the right feel and playability.
Finally threw in the towel on the SG thing. Went to look at a 2005 red SG Standard, local Craigslist sale. Beautiful, right out of the case this one was speaking to me. Old, too light strings and a strange little amp at the guy's place, so I couldn't really hear it. Got it home, restrung, action and pickup heights adjusted, tuned up to open E and gave it the once over. Verdict: KILLER slide guitar. I've done my share of SG bashing, Gibson bashing in general, so it's time for to admit just how wrong I was. Really nice instrument! It wakes up bigtime in open tuning. An ideal tonal balance for slide, with fat, singing tones everywhere. Mea culpa.
MD