Boston Joe
New member
Re: Gibson Firebrand?
I had an SG Firebrand that I bought in a pawnshop year ago. At the time I was still learning the ins and outs of what constituted a sonically good and playable instrument; yet I understood that the instrument was sub-par. Though I was settling, it WAS a Gibson-- my first Gibson-- and it was just so inexpensive. Walnut with an ebony fretboard. The wood never seemed stable enough to stay in tune. And the sound was very dark, harsh and muddy. I was never able to get a good sound out of it, and I tried lots of pickups and amps. It was even worse in the studio when I was doing a dry run for rythm tracks. Some years later, I played with a guy who had the exact same model. He played it though a Fender head piggybacking a 4X12 cab.The Fender amp did color the sound hence it was more tolerable, but I'm not in that camp that relies on the amp, pickups and outboard effects to compensate for flaws in a guitar. Low output pickups are probably the way to go for such a guitar.
Jeroen said:
I had an SG Firebrand that I bought in a pawnshop year ago. At the time I was still learning the ins and outs of what constituted a sonically good and playable instrument; yet I understood that the instrument was sub-par. Though I was settling, it WAS a Gibson-- my first Gibson-- and it was just so inexpensive. Walnut with an ebony fretboard. The wood never seemed stable enough to stay in tune. And the sound was very dark, harsh and muddy. I was never able to get a good sound out of it, and I tried lots of pickups and amps. It was even worse in the studio when I was doing a dry run for rythm tracks. Some years later, I played with a guy who had the exact same model. He played it though a Fender head piggybacking a 4X12 cab.The Fender amp did color the sound hence it was more tolerable, but I'm not in that camp that relies on the amp, pickups and outboard effects to compensate for flaws in a guitar. Low output pickups are probably the way to go for such a guitar.
