Gibson SG Modern (Trans Black Fade)

OK, it's not perfect. But it's a bloody excellent SG that can sing you a lullaby or roar obscenities at you. It's a dream guitar for me and I love playing it.

First of all, the sound. With coil split, you really get a wide variety of sounds, and they are all great. I actually spend most of my time using both pickups, with bridge split. Switch to split neck alone for more punk-rock sound. Add a Klon clone (with switch in middle position) for silky-smooth, driven sound. Or just play both pickups without any effects to let the burstbuckers shine. Pure humbucker goodness.

The guitar looks absolutely stunning - the maple top in blue is amazing paired with chrome. Note that the way it looks makes the guitar slightly heavier than typical SGs (it's maple+mahogany glued together, instead of just mahogany as is usual for SGs).

The neck is really comfortable and playable. It takes a moment to adjust, it is 24 frets after all. Surprisingly though, I experienced almost no neck dive myself. I mostly play standing up and the leather strap was enough for me to counter the potential neck dive.

I rate craftsmanship and materials a bit lower (4) because there were some tool marks on the binding on the neck that I really didn't like. The nut looks like it was cut hastily. There were some small flaws in the lacquer. Ebony is not top quality and will dye your fingers for the first few days.

It came set up really well, but I did have to adjust the truss rod myself. It's not surprising, it came from a pretty dry warehouse to a bit more wet environment. If your guitar buzzes when it arrives, give it one or two days to adjust in the case, then adjust the truss rod a tiny bit (I needed 3/16 of a turn).

Finally, the listing on the website is incorrect, this guitar does not come with locking tuners.

All in all, an excellent instrument. For the price, I would expect craftsmanship to be a tiny bit better, but otherwise great.

Way better SG than my 1986 custom. Pickups are clear even without splitting mics.
It might be the maple top or not, but it has a some softness which I was looking for.
Looks good too!

Well you may think that this is good review, however, 2 weeks after receiving this I'm now noticing a large amount of buzzing from the 6th (E) string on this guitar when played in the first 3-4 frets... less so on the 5th string. Not a great experience so far and I am now inclined to speak to the store about this as having paid over the retail price for this I'm a little disappointed... this is a new guitar and has supposedly been setup before delivery....

Excellent service and price