I usually try to post my reviews after using the products for a long time. But this time, I had to already post this here.
I'm pretty disappointed with the Gibson SG Standard 61. Just a quick background, I own multiple guitars (around 10 and the number keeps changing) and also own an Epiphone SG Custom Ebony which I got from Thomann as well.
After spending some years with my Epi, I decided to invest in a proper SG by the original company. These custom colours are really pretty and I went for the Silver Mist one.
The guitar came in a Thoman box (without any original Gibson box, not sure if this is the case) enclosed in a Gibson hard case.
As soon as I opened the box, I started smelling the nitro! :) This was a new experience as I never owned a guitar with a nitro finish.
Everything was super sweet until I started looking into the details. The first thing I noticed was the action and intonation. After I tuned this up, I waited for some time for the guitar to acclimatise in my living room. But the action was way off, so I slightly adjusted and played it for some days.
Intonation wasn't also set up properly. G string's saddle had to be moved further away as it was pretty sharp.
The next thing I noticed was the joint section of the neck and fingerboard across the neck. There were many areas both on the upper part and the bottom part of the neck where the smooth joint wasn't present. One could really feel the edges and it was clearly not taken care of well.
This doesn't impact the playing but when I compared this issue with my Epiphone, I was pretty surprised as Epiphone had almost perfect fretboard and neck joint across the neck. There was only a spot where you could feel a tiny edge. Other than that, it was super smooth and you couldn't feel the joint sections.
With the Gibson, there are several areas and only the centre of the neck (upper bound) has smooth joints.
There were also tooling marks and a couple of white dots left by the manufacturing process on the fretboard. The area on the first fret and the last fret had some glossy-looking areas on the fretboard (looks like sprayed with nitro?)
The nut seemed to be properly cut but there were two dark areas (just like the rosewood board) merging into the board on the 1st and 6th fret.
As this is an instrument from their standard segment, I would expect minor issues and possibly ignore them.
However, the tuning stability was really disappointing. Although the tuners worked great, there was something wrong with the pattern of strings going out of tune. I'd expect a fresh set of strings going flat in time and then settle down.
But some strings would go sharp and some flat. After a couple of days, it was still the same situation. Based on my experience, I strongly believe this is a nut problem.
The pickups sounded great, no complaints at all. They sound so big, full and fat and I could get extremely sweet tones without any problems.
Overall cosmetics, finish and craftsmanship are OK. But I'm not sure if this is really OK for the price tag.
One of the other problems that I spotted was the nitro finish. As I mentioned, I never owned a guitar with a nitro finish. As far as I know, guitar players praise this over poly finishes.
However, it is so sticky on the neck and I often find my palm having a hard time removing from the neck. Maybe this is how it goes but it is not something I can live it.
Maybe this needs time for maturing and settling down so it feels better? No clue.
Another minor thing that I need to mention is the switch. As far as I know, the switches on the SGs are perpendicular to the ground and if you are not used to this, it may be a problem.
I usually move the switches by opening the control cavity and seat them so that I can naturally push and pull them aligning with my right hand's natural plane.
But this time, it wasn't possible as the switch was tightly seated by a cable there. Since I had already given up on keeping the guitar, I didn't want to play with it.
I think it's still a great guitar but I would never buy any Gibson SGs without trying it in a store or ideally trying multiple ones in longer terms.
My Epiphone SG doesn't sound as full possibly due to the pickups. But it feels better to play and this is very annoying. I expected a lot better feeling and playing experience with the authentic one!
Personally, I don't like LPs as I find them very difficult to play due to their design. SGs on the other hand, are possibly one of the easiest to play and comfortable instruments. I think both SGs and LPs are iconic instruments with some inherent design flaws.
However, this shouldn't be an excuse for such a huge guitar brand to play-test their instruments rather than just do a basic setup and ship.
My advice to the readers is that if you have the chance, try as many SGs as possible, or own them as long as permitted in a return window and then make your decision.
Or go for the Epiphones and while you are purchasing, add Thomann's PLEK service, you will probably end up with a way better guitar with a lot less cost.
I'd like to thank the best music store in the universe, Thomann for making this possible! I had the chance to try and return just because it didn't work out for me!
