All user reviews for the Gibson 50th Anniversary Pete Townshend SG

The Pete Townsend SG is an interesting SG model. It is not really based off of one single guitar that Pete played because he played many SG's back in the day. This guitar is supposed to be like the many SG specials he played. It comes with a fancy reliced THE WHO hardshell case. Another interesting fact is that this currently sells for about 1000 dollars cheaper than the normal non signature SG Special. I think someone at Gibson messed up there. The only thing differentiating this guitar from a normal SG Special is the 50th Anniversary logo on the headstock. It has a mahogany body and mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard and 22 frets. The rosewood on this example was really good and could pass for ebony at a distance. The neck is the slim 60s shape which is nice to play. Up top it has mini Grover tuners with a 14:1 ratio. The bridge is a wrap around tailpiece kind of like what you got in the 60s but it has compensated saddles for better intonation. However these are not adjustable. The guitar has two Gibson P-90 pickups and the small early 60s pickguard. It has the typical controls with a volume and tone control for each pickup.

UTILIZATION

When this guitar came out it was supposed to be the budget version of the SG. It had all the playability and came the cheaper and less desireable P-90 pickups. The double cutaways really give easy upper fret access. The 60s profile neck also helps playability. The 50s Gibson neck profile is very big and some people find it hard to play. People call those 50s necks baseball bat necks or boat necks. With the wrap around bridge you are pretty much stuck when it comes to intonation. Back in the day these bridges were even worse when it came to intonation, today even with the compensated saddles the intonation will never be perfect. Gibson will tell you this is part of the SG sound, Ill tell you this is them trying to save money. You can get a fully adjustable wrapround bridge for about 40 bucks.

SOUNDS

People dont realize how great P-90s sound in an SG. It is the perfect blend of aggressive bite. SG's naturally have more bite than Les Pauls and the single coil grind of the P-90 just adds to it. The easiest way to play heavy music with vintage gear is with a set of P-90s. Tony Iommi for years used P-90 style pickups in his guitar and he put out some of the heaviest tones of the era. I think if you are looking to play heavy music on a vintage style guitars the P-90s would be a better choice over vintage humbuckers. The single coil grind gives you decent clarity and they dont get muddy as fast as a set of old humbuckers will. The high end bite and sizzle is almost like what you would get with a set of EMG or other active pickups, and this is 1940s technology.

OVERALL OPINION

If you are looking for an SG Special, you can be really clever and get this instead of the current SG Special reissue. The SG Special reissue sells for about 1000 dollars more than this and it is pretty much the same guitar. There are no real guady signature guitar markings on this guitar so it looks good. The white finish is something you do not see on SG guitars a lot either. If you are looking for something different and dont mind saving money the Pete Townshend SG Special is a great bargain.