All user reviews of 4/5 for the Gibson SG Gothic

Bought January 2003 for £475.00 (Pre-Owned)

The guitar is so well made it almost plays itself! The sound quality is fabulous and the build quality very good (in most areas). The guitar can produce a whole spetrum of different tones and just goes absolutely crazy with a large valve stack. It seems an altogether excellent guitar and I would recommend this model to anyone looking for warp factor 9.

The finish; Oh dear. Matt black looks fantastic on anything, especially this guitar, but the lacquer that has been used is completely inadequate. The slightest knock or bump results in a white "bruise". More to the point, the problem is greatest at the base of the machine heads, where the pressure of actually tightening them in during manufacture has caused bruising around each machine head. Not good enough from the world's finest electric guitar manufacturer.

Construction is second to none - no apparent problems. I've owned many guitars and this one has as much quality as any I've ever played, (more in some cases). A proper case would have been nice, rather than the, albeit high quality, gig bag it came with.

I'm a Gibson freak, so I'm (slightly) biased, but I don't regret my purchase at all. I love the little beast. I'm so impressed that I'm on the look out for agothic Les Paul and explorer to complete the new family. Go and buy one now!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Gibson SG Series Gothic has been used by myself for some blues, I purchased it used for around 550 usd at a local store. I am actually surprised that I got it for that price because brand new it cost over a 1000 dollars. The Gothic models of the Gibson series has a star inlay on the fre board long with a picture of gibson on the back of the head stock. I remember getting this about a year after they came out so around the year 2001. I ended up passing it on to my younger brother who was just starting out at the time.


UTILIZATION

This is a great guitar with a very nice feel to it when your using it. I didn’t really like how the frets where especially with the open E buzzing. But besides that I havent had any issues or complaints about this model. I really love how its all gothic black on black. Its just adds a nice look to it and I got a lot of compliments from other musicians when I as using this years ago.


SOUNDS

There are 22 frets on it and it just feels like a real natural classic guitar. It produces a fat sound that was used in a lot of music from the 80’s and early 90’s. But I really like it with blues it gives that real clean sound that I have grown to love over the years.


OVERALL OPINION

Overall, you cant go wrong with this guitar, it also holds its value. I have seen many of these still be held at a very firm price today over ten years after it was produced. It is also very durable, You can bang it around without worrying about it getting chipped. Just don’t bang it around too much ! But it can take some abuse and not look bad. Its very easy to maintain as well. This guitar is well worth the money, its very stylish , sounds and looks great! Find one and buy it.

This was Gibsons first attempt at making a metal SG. Back then Gibson thought if they painted a guitar black it automatically became metal. Not really but it looks cool anyway. This SG Gothic is pretty much an SG standard with a black finish. The later Gothic models actually came with good pickups to give it an actual metal sound. With this guitar you get a mahogany body with a set mahogany neck. The neck has an ebony fretboard which only has a single inlay at the 12th fret. You get 6 non locking tuners with a non locking tune-o-matic bridge. Standard SG pickups with standard controls. But it has a black finish.

UTILIZATION

This guitar plays decently well. The black finish is a bit smoother than a fully gloss finish so the neck and body feel fast to the touch. The ebony fretboard is nice and smooth. No inlays may hurt some players but there are always side dots. The guitar is pretty neck heavy like most SG's. This is because the neck is set so far out on the body. This also gives good upper fret access..

SOUNDS

With the average pickups in this guitar the tone is pretty average. Like I said this is an earlier model. Later models come with active pickups, some even had EMG's which are many times better than these pickups for metal. These pickups do not have a metal voicing. They have more of a classic rock tone than anything else. The bridge is a bit crunchy and has a bit of gain to it but is pretty insufficient for metal. It is not very smooth either so it does not have the best clean tone. The neck pickup is a little better in the realm of a clean tone but it can get a bit muddy. It is smoother for lead playing and you can get some bluesy and even jazzy tones with it. If you are getting this guitar for metal like it is intended you will probably want to swap out the pickups for something with more output.

OVERALL OPINION

There is nothing really gothic or metal about this SG. It is just a black SG standard. If you were to swap in some metal pickups than it would be a great metal guitar. If you are looking for a metal SG I would recommend the Gothic 2 or the Gothic Morte guitars. Both of those come with active pickups specifically designed for metal. If you can get a good deal on one of these get it but know that they do not have a sound that matches their metal image.