Yamaha SG

Stevepage

Just played one at Coda and while it looked like a really well built guitar, it left me feeling a bit flat. Sounded a bit dead acoustically and plugged in it seemed the pickups were very weak. 

What's everyone's opinion on these?

sweepy

Try an old one, throw the pickups in the case and fit something decent and you are sorted. I haven’t  played one of the new ones but I’ve owned an 80’s SG1000 and SG2000, lovely Guitars but even with warmer pickups they sounded a little brash and harsh to my ears

djspecialist

I agree with @sweepy on the pickups.  My '77 SG2000 now has a set of Oil City Tubesnakes which are a world of improvement over stock.

guitars4you

sweepy said:

Try an old one, throw the pickups in the case and fit something decent and you are sorted. I haven’t  played one of the new ones but I’ve owned an 80’s SG1000 and SG2000, lovely Guitars but even with warmer pickups they sounded a little brash and harsh to my ears

Agree - Great guitars - The pick-ups are on the harsh side - Maybe great for punk/indie etc - I owned my SG since 78 but most of the time it has not had the original p/ups in it - Bit even with vintage flavoured p/ups the overall voice is more harsh than smooth - Great build quality and IMO a nice guitar to play

Stevepage

sweepy said:

Try an old one, throw the pickups in the case and fit something decent and you are sorted. I haven’t  played one of the new ones but I’ve owned an 80’s SG1000 and SG2000, lovely Guitars but even with warmer pickups they sounded a little brash and harsh to my ears

That's the thing it was an SG1000 from 1984. Played well, would have been better if it was fitted with heavier gauge strings though 

guitars4you

Stevepage said:

sweepy said:

Try an old one, throw the pickups in the case and fit something decent and you are sorted. I haven’t  played one of the new ones but I’ve owned an 80’s SG1000 and SG2000, lovely Guitars but even with warmer pickups they sounded a little brash and harsh to my ears

That's the thing it was an SG1000 from 1984. Played well, would have been better if it was fitted with heavier gauge strings though 

Can't remember when they changed the SG1000 - the original SG1000 had the same size/depth body as the SG2000 - Almost as though the 2 guitars were actually to closely spec'd  - Yes there were some differences like the sustain block under the bridge on the SG2000, but essentially both were a top spec'd guitar, both with an ebony fingerboard and they looked so similar  - Sometime in the 80's the SG1000 became spec'd with a thinner body as they tried to make a bigger differential between the SG1000 and SG2000 

Obviously the new SG1000 is lighter - Easy to spot which is which - Personally I prefer the original spec'd SG1000 but you'd pay more for one

jeztone2

I have an 83 SG1000. I swapped out the pickups for Bare Knuckle Cold Sweats and it sounds huge. Really girthy.

The pickups can be a bit meh. But also the bridge design does adds a lot of top end brightness. Hence bands like Big Country and a load of goth guitarists used them back in the day. With the coil taps, they clean up better than a Les Paul IMHO.

I did have an old 70’s SG700 that sounded a bit dead, so I moved it on. 

The finish is really thick on those guitars. So I’ve always wondered if they had a thinner finish, would it improve the tone? 

57Deluxe

The sounds available from the SG2000s coil taps are diverse, but I have always found the output of the full buckers overly powerful in anything other than a home/studio noodly environment - they are no probs if you are using 80s style saturated processors. They can indeed give that Les Paul sound as used to be the selling point/claim back in the day and are beautifully made/proportioned although mightily heavy. But, would I change them? No.