My guitar teacher said that the SG is probably Gibson's thinnest sounding guitar that

[TheSandman]

About 3 weeks ago, my guitar instructor and myself were discussing guitars. He told me that the SG is probably the thinnest sounding guitar that Gibson makes due to the thin body.

I for one tend to disagree. When I think of thin sounding guitars, I do not think of SG's. I think of another type of guitar that's discussed about at Strat-Talk.

SG's to me have a sound that no other guitar has. It has it's own sound. In John Tuggle's words from Learning Guitar Now, ".... There's no other guitar that sounds like that. Kinda like a strat and Les Paul combined."

 

[bwotw]

Agreed. With the same pickup, they don't sound that different from say, a Les Paul. The tone is in the same ballpark, but where the LP is smooth and rounded, the SG is a little rougher and middy. At least, that's been my experience with both with the same pickup (498T) in my rig.

As far as being the thinner sounding of the Gibsons? Not if you count juniors, specials and Melody Makers. And even if they are the thinnest sounding Gibsons, they're still fatter sounding that a Fender design, even if it has humbuckers.

 

[dbb]

That teacher must not spend much time playing an SG.

 

[GTSG]

Bias opinion, which being a teacher may make the opinion more plausible, but its still an opinion and painting with a broad brush. I know next week he'll amend the statement to strictly humbucker Gibsons, then, when that doesn't stand to reason, we'll be at SG vs Les Paul.

The bridge pick-up on a SG is not thinner than a 335 bridge, for example. You see I have an opinion also. And a plausible one.

 

[Col Mustard]

a person who 'thinks' SGs sound thin:

•probably doesn't own one...
•may not have ever played one, or may not have played one through a decent amp...
•might not own an EQ pedal, or know how to use one
•perhaps spends a lot of time on MLP, thinking they're cool there...
•may tend to believe (and repeat) what others say, without checking or caring
•may even be a good teacher of some forms of guitar playing, but may have a closed mind or large gaps in his 'knowledge" ... large enough to drive a truck through.
•may have never listened to Derek Trucks, or Frank Zappa... or ______________ fill in the blanks yourself
•also, such a person might have a discussion with someone else who 'thinks' SGs sound muddy, and who also shares the above virtues
...and end up finding a kindred spirit and a beautiful friendship ...and all without needing to learn anything.

listen to the SG in this video

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOibtqWo6z4[/ame]

 

[smitty_p]

About 3 weeks ago, my guitar instructor and myself were discussing guitars. He told me that the SG is probably the thinnest sounding guitar that Gibson makes due to the thin body.

More Les Paul propaganda. Unfortunately, many believe and perpetuate it.

Some time ago, one of our members put a recording on the forum comparing a Les Paul to an SG. He had also posted the same on MyLesPaul.

The results? The SG and Les Paul could not be reliably distinguished. Interestingly, we did better than the guys on MyLesPaul.

I have searched for that link and cannot find it. Does anyone else know where it is and can post it?

 

[Susihukkanen]

I believe you were looking for this one:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv5PJfmt_dM]GUITAR TONE - GIBSON LES PAUL VS GIBSON SG - YouTube[/ame]

 

[smitty_p]

I believe you were looking for this one:

Susihukkanen,

Nope, that's not what I was talking about, though it was a very good and interesting video! It was very revealing. As expected, the two guitars are nearly the same.

What I was referring to was a thread started some months ago by an ETSG member. He posted a couple of recordings (no video), but didn't say which guitar was which and asked the forum to guess which recording was made with the Les Paul and which recording was made with the SG. After, a few days he revealed the answer. He had said that he posted the same "challenge" on MLP.

Anyway, the two recordings sounded very, very similar. In the end, when he revealed the answer, he mentioned that the ETSG forum had guessed more accurately than MLP, though we still weren't entirely accurate.

I've searched for that thread on ETSG, but I can't find it to link to it.

 

[smitty_p]

I found the thread! It was done by forum member, mdubya, and compares a Les Paul Studio and SG, both of which had P-90's. In re-reading the thread, it seems some could distinguish some difference, but could not confidently say which guitar was the SG or the Les Paul. It was interesting to read that the guitar which several members thought had the "thicker" sound was actually the SG!

http://www.everythingsg.com/forum/gibson-sg/18966-sg-classic-vs-les-paul-studio-50s-w-p-90s.html

But, if you really want to know the difference, a member of The Les Paul Forum says this:

"Generally, SG's sound pointier and in many cases, more red than LP's."

I thought that was kind of funny.

 

[sneakerpimp]

all these My Little Pony guys sound the same.

 

[seizure]

I believe you were looking for this one:

GUITAR TONE - GIBSON LES PAUL VS GIBSON SG - YouTube

On this video I can hear the difference when it was on the clean channels. The LP had a bit of a richer tone to it, but once the distortion tests came they sounded pretty similar.

 

[thinkgreen]

I stand to be corrected lol. But imo the thin or thickness of sound emanating from an electric guitar has more to do with the pickups and the wiring, and to an extent the amp. And not in how the guitar was constructed or how think the wood is. I also believe that string gauge n make would make more of a difference than the thickness of the guitar body. That's my 2 penith anyway

 

[AK-78]

I checked out the video posted by Susihukkanen, and the tones seem to jive with my LP (copy) and Gibson SG. LP: Deeper low end, more treble bite. SG: More midrange focus. The last clip of the overdriven soloing, the LP sounded snarlier (treble bite), and the SG had more creaminess. I think I prefered the LP in the clean clips, and the SG in the overdriven clips.
Thinking about it the two guitars have subtly different timbres. Has anyone noticed that we overuse the term "tone", and the term "timbre" has been largely forgotten?

 

[dbb]

Thinking about it the two guitars have subtly different timbres. Has anyone noticed that we overuse the term "tone", and the term "timbre" has been largely forgotten?

I gave up trying to introduce the word "timbre" to music forum discussions about "tone".

Strictly speaking it's timbre, which then has a specific tone color that identifies it as whatever instrument it is.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/timbre.html

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/pitch.html#c1

"If a short pulse of a pure tone is decaying in amplitude, it will be perceived to be higher in pitch than an identical pulse which has steady amplitude. Interfering tones or noise can cause an apparent pitch shift."

In this context a tone is a frequency of pitch, I assume "pure" meaning more sine-wave shaped.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1564522
says
"
Tone expresses the musical pitch.

Timbre expresses the quality of a musical sound (as distinct from its pitch.)"

 

[Susihukkanen]

That old thread was very interesting! I have felt that SGs and LPs with the same pick ups sound so much alike that it really hard to tell the difference. And especially now this P-90 demo -thread was cool because of my last guitar deal. So I'm having a P-90 LP in house instead of that P-90 SG I would have wanted. But since that LP is also fantastic, it plays great and it is cool looking guitar, I threw away the thoughts about P-90 SG. I must say that I felt a bit proud that I guessed those guitars right.. (50% chance to succeed, you know.. )

http://www.everythingsg.com/forum/other-guitars/21162-p-90s-but-not-yet-sg.html

 

[Heket]

SGs ain't thin. My HSS Strat is way thinner, especially through my Lil Night Train. I can't play my Strat through that amp, it sounds like I'm playing next door, but my fat, dark SG loves it. Nothing thin about it. Thinnest guitar Gibson makes? I wouldn't know about that, but I also enjoyed that SG/LP thread and didn't get all of the answers right.

 

[bea]

No, thin is not the right word. In the clean section of the video above it can be heared quite clearly that the timbre of the SG is a bit lighter in the low registers (but i would have a hard time to identify the guitars from alone from their sound). Which IMHO makes the SG slightly better suited for distorted sounds and the LP for clean stuff.

The difference might be caused by the different stiffness of the necks - from a mechanical point of view the most significant difference between the two. And to pickup positions which are, AFAIK, not quite identical. Anyway, what we heared was comparable to the difference to be expected from two arbitrary guitars of the same type.

Quite interestingly we also own a "Cox SD" guitar. This is a nice and fairly cheap chinese SG clone. That one has a very full and warm sound which makes it ideal to be strung with flatwounds like almost no other solid body guitar (its mostly due to the pickups...)

 

[slappy2x]

Everybody has an opinion....and we know what opinions are like....and everybody's got one! He's not right or wrong....it's just preference....

 

[oldrockfan]

One key element on that LP vs SG shootout is they fail to mention what pickups are used in both. I could take two identical SGs or LPs and with a pickup swap... make them sound thinner or thicker. Now IF they got a LP and SG that both had say 57classic/57classic+ pups... then it would be a more fair comparison. I thought in that one video... the LP sounded a little better than the SG overall but not a huge difference. Also... I have to add that I could pull out my LP and SG and make them sound better or worse just by the way I handle my strumming. Little more digging in with the pick on one vs the other can make them sound totally different. Course we all know that from our own playing but I just wanted to point out that even if pups were the same... videos can still be easily biased. We all know that 90% of the guys on guitar forums favor LPs over SGs. We just have to try not to hold their ignorance against them :)

 

[Angry Tele]

hes daft. fire him.