I brought the SG bass to my weekly jam session last night. Here are some comments along with my initial impressions after playing the bass for about 3 hours:
Positive:
1. Everyone loved the look of the bass. Hands down it evoked awe and envy.
2. It played fast and fluidly. The neck was very responsive and had a really nice feel all up and down the fretboard.
3. I got a great tone going direct into an Ampeg combo amp (my apologies, for the life of me I can’t remember the model number). Everyone thought the bass sounded great. I mostly used the neck position only, which delivered a really great beefy sound. (I should point out that I use a pick 99.9% of the time.)
4. Southpaw’s set-up was great. Intonation very accurate at the 3rd, 5th, 9th frets, even holding up at the 12th and 15th as well. I was surprised.
5. Action was perfect for me. Nothing to adjust.
6. Overall, a very fun bass to play—I’m very happy.
Negative:
1. The fret edges were a bit sharp. Jimmy warned me about this and said they did a bit to file them down when they set it up, but they’re still too sharp for me. If I did nothing it would be sort of annoying but OK. However, I’m gonna bring the bass to Mike Lull to see how much he’ll charge to file them down a little more. (I’m talking about the beveled part of the fret along the edge of the neck; imagine holding the neck like a baseball bat and sliding your hand up and down; the fret beveled edges are too sharp when I do this; it’s smooth on all my other basses.)
Notes:
1. I am not going to swap the tone and jack back to the way they should be. I like how the cable rests—see photo above. And it’s kinda cool that it was the first SG bass Gibson made and they made a mistake… makes for a fun story.
2. The bass is stamped 2013 even though it was built and delivered in 2012. I wonder how the serial number will date the instrument.
3. There are some slightly rough feeling spots on the bass, where you can almost feel where the wood was cut/sanded. This is very minor and probably goes hand in hand with having a faded finish instead of the lacquered finish. Again, this really isn’t a big deal… it’s so minor… but I’m mentioning it in full disclosure… it’s something I noticed so I’m mentioning it. Visually you can’t see this; it’s only noticeable when you rub your hand across it.
4. The hard case is kick-ass. It’s like the Playboy mansion circa 1973 in there… all soft and white and fluffy. Although it’s a little odd how wide the headstock area of the case is. I don’t know if this is standard for Gibson cases. Everyone at the jam session commented on it.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with the bass, especially when you consider it was $800. Price aside, I’m still very, very happy.
Let me know if you have any specific questions.