As you might have seen, I'm after a new guitar. I have a friend who has a load of guitars and amps, so I piled round there for a night of testing yesterday.
Most of the testing was done on a 2 amp rig, my jcm800 2203 and his jcm800kk. Although we started off on the kk and jubilee. The jubilee is a great amp!! We had his 1959hw on for a bit too.
Here's my "review" of the notable ones.
Gibson SG Gothic - although I'm not a huge fan of SG's due to the playing position, I thought this one sounded the best. I think its a combination of that ebony fretboard and gibson 500t pickup.
Gibson flying V. . A really fun guitar to play, great for fast palm muted thrash stuff and a familiar sound and feel. I think this was a close 2nd to the SG gothic. I kept getting this one back out of its case!!
80's gordon smith GS1 - Nice simple, light, sounded great. Would make an excellent gigging guitar, Fantastic quality. Comapct, simple, not much to go wrong, solid, played and sounded great. Didn;t really grab me as an exciting guitar to play though.
Hagstrom double cutaway - This one looked great and had a familiar feel, I loved the smooth dark fretboard on it. Fun to play, but felt a bit cheap.
Gibson SG junior - nice light guitar with a chubby neck. Great for lower gain and edge of breakup type sounds.
Gibson explorer - This one really did have "that" sound. It effortlessy nailed the thrash/metal sound with literally no effort. Fast palm mutes too!! Nice neck and sounded great. I could not get used to the shape and playing position though, it felt really weird!!! Huge guitar with a tiny playing surface!!
Gretsch white falcon - Stunning and very flashy guitar to look at, Not as trebly as I was expecting, and a nice neck to play. The middle position is where "those" sounds are, but for mid breakup sounds I'd have chosen the SG junior over it. Big guitar to play and you can't see the fret markers through that gold flake!!! Sounded surprisingly good with a load of gain on too.
My conclusion?? I probably need to get a single cutaway guitar. My friend loves double cutaway guitars but I just can't quite get on with the playing position.
The flying V nearly had me converted, but I'm just not sure I can carry a guitar like that off!! Plus they're quite big!!
I think the combination of mahogany body and an ebony fretboard with hot pickups like the 500t's are where its at for me.
If I could find something single cutaway with that recipe I'd be set!!!
Comments
I recently got an LTD EC-401 with EMGs from a fellow forumite and something like that might fit your bill very well?!
As noted they're not usually expensive to buy, often you can get the full set second hand for a decent price.
If you like the tone you should have a go on a US PRS Tremonti if you see one. His signature bridge pickup isn't a million miles off a 500T, and they play very nicely.
Pictured here before I strangled the pickups. Incidentally, when I got it, it came with a 500t and 496r and I thought they were fine pickups - tight, and I really liked what I'd call the ceramic sizzle/grind up in the high mids. Only swapped them out because they were quite high output and a bit too raunchy for the way I play.
The only downside to the body shape is that fin far left - it's got so many knocks and scratches now from all the times I've bumped it into drum hardware, mic stands etc. On the other hand, they look so cool. For me an Explorer is a kind of Art Deco/ '50s american diner/ car culture style shape, rather than a metal pointy guitar thing.
Does the Gretsch have Filtertrons? I've been shocked at how good they sound when you lay on the gain.
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
Theres a few ec1000's for sale near me but they're all EMG loaded.