Roots tone

Sent this to Beez for pickups installation yesterday. Had been playing it all morning. It's my Grassroots G-SG. Obviously a Gibson SG copy but it's darn affordable.

Someone sold me these Gibson 57 classic pickups for cheap. I had forgotten about these pickups as these were kept inside the pocket of one of my guitar bags which had deteriorated over time. Was about to throw away the bag last weekend when I found these. I dislike Gibson pickups, especially the neck model; they sound muddy as heck at high gain settings. I decided to swap out the default G-SG pickups as they sound below expectations especially when I have lots of distortion dialled in. These remind me of those cheap Ibanez GIO pickups; next to lifeless. Told myself I got nothing to lose by putting Gibson pickups in there. 

Surprisingly, these sound impressive. Even the neck humbucker did well, lots of definition in both clean & driven settings. These would sound interesting in split mode for sure but the 2-conductor wiring means there's no chance to hear that happen.

Olympia 10 - 46 for this guitar.

Not quite

I was in the mood for a Gibson- birthday present to self. I went over to the guitar store to try the 2017 SG Standard because it features a pair of 57s. Within the Gibson circle, there's quite a following for these pickups so it's time for me to find out what the hype's about.

It was paired up with the Marshall DSL 100 as depicted here.

The guitar wasn't well set up. OK, so maybe it wasn't set up at all. It could also be that the neck reacted to the colder room temperature. The action at the 12th fret was beyond 3mm & it might be due to both a high default action & the neck bow. Upper fret finger gymnastics were unpleasant. The neck profile per se is, in my books, one of the best Gibson has to offer in terms of comfort & playability. I always believe that the neck to body thickness ratio defines an SG's goodness & this is a fine example.

The '57s- judging from this performance, they aren't my thing. It's got that under-wound chemistry that some would find astounding. I just can't stand how they sound very restrained under high gain performance. You might argue that these are meant to crunch, not crush. In the metal realm, they might fit the bill if you pedal doom; a coarse-sounding tone with high tendencies of fuzzing out. With that said, palm-muted notes are simply not this guitar's forte. When it comes to restrained goodness, the Seymour Duncan '59 might be the standard to beat. I didn't allocate a clean time for the tone test, I didn't intend this to be a clean machine to begin with; I prefer Strats for that.

Left the store empty handed.

Gibson: Les Paul Traditional Bigsby

Em... here's something 'new' by Gibson, the Les Paul Traditional Bigsby. It's a Traditional series Les Paul, sporting a B-70 Bigsby whammy unit & a pair of '57 Classic humbuckers. I've nothing against Bigsby-equipped guitars (or its derivatives), just that it's a pain choosing a case/ bag for them- fitting issues.