New Mystery Guitar Revealed...details at 11

[JeffB]

It arrived today after a mixup in shipping.....was supposed to be here Friday.

Unfortunately, I have to use the website pic as I'm @ work. I'll take actual pics tonite to post.

Gibson Firebird Studio (glue in neck, not neck through). Cherry red finish, chrome hardware. Looks MUCH nicer in person.

I only had a bout 10 minutes to doodle with here at work....but here's my intitial impressions

1) A couple of *slightly* sharp fret ends...but nothing major or troublesome

2) PRETTY piece of mahogany. Very nice grain. 1 piece too, I've heard many of these studio's are two piece?

3) Neck profile is quite nice. A tiny bit rounder than my Epi Les Paul +, not as big as my McCarty or Les Paul 50's neck. VERY fast and still small but substantial..not sure I've handled a Gibson neck that feels like this one.

4) arrived in TUNE. A good sign always in my opinion ...kind of a "superstitious" thing with me in reality... :laugh2:

5) Acoustic tone is FANTASTIC. Very resonant like my McCarty though not quite so bright or "jangly". Clear and full though. I cannot wait to get this plugged into the Rivera.

6) No glaring flaws in craftsmanship. Neck joint/glue line looks great, controls are smooth, etc. Tonite I'll really go over it in detail.

7) action and fret leveling seem great.

This is going to be my not quite so vintage sounding "workhorse". 90% of the time I'm playing 70's/80's hard rock/metal with quite a bit of gain, and this seemed like the perfect choice to me. I'll most likely be putting in new pups (something a little hotter than the PAF styles I normally use), a tone pro's bridge, new wiring kit/pots perhaps, amber top hat knobs etc. Stuff I was just not sure of/afraid to do to my Les Paul (it's too nice to beat up/modify) I was going to get an Explorer, but wanted something different, and I've never had a Firebird...so...

BTW, anyone know what value pots are in this thing? I've heard 300K?

Anyone else have one of these guitars?

 

[pac112]

Re: New Mystery Guitar Revealed...details at 11

congrats!!

 

[sosomething]

Re: New Mystery Guitar Revealed...details at 11

I'm kinda gassing for one of those. They're a bit weird to play sitting down, but that's a non-issue in a live band context. Very cool, man.

 

[grams]

Re: New Mystery Guitar Revealed...details at 11

cool, nice looking and everything sounds right Can't wait for an amp description and piccies

 

[JeffB]

Re: New Mystery Guitar Revealed...details at 11

Thanks folks

I took about a half hour during my lunch hour to play with it, get a bit more down to the nitty gritty as far as finish/details.

Again, the reosnance unamplified is VERY good. This guitar vibrates (edit, not sure what happened with this sentence, LOL) through my chest. The tone is loud, open and defined. Even unamplified picking dynamics are easily noticed. BTW...I actually thot it was pretty comfy sitting down to play. I hardly ever play sitting though as I just don't play well like that so take my view with a grain of salt.

Finish wise, I can only see the most minor of minor things and it's just in a spot here or there. For example...there's a pinhead of extra glue where the nut meets the neck at the low e-string side. The neck joint also has a just a teeny bit showing on the backside. These are things I REALLY had to look for, and even if they were a bit worse, I wouldn't care. For a $1000 guitar I'm not looking for perfection, just overall high quality and tone. Once we hit the $1500 range though, I get supa-picky

The nut itself is cut extremely well. Prolly the best I've seen on a recent Gibson.

The only thing that remotely even kinda sorta bugged me is the tuners (Grover minis)...stiff, and a bit difficult to zero in. However, they are brand new, and may just need some time to "break in". It still didn't really bug me. Just the only nitpick I could find.

I LOVE the neck. Better than my LP 50's and just as nice, though diff than the McCarty.

We'll see how she sounds and really plays tonight through the Rivera. I'm not terribly hopeful for incredible tone as I know the 490R/498T combo is utilitarian at best, I'm just looking for sustain and "potential". I know with some aftermarkets pups...DiMarzio, Duncan, whatever, this should be a really nice sounding guitar based on what she does unplugged.

Ugh..c'mon 3 oclock