Gibson SG Menace Electric Guitar

July 27, 2007 by Jo Minor 


Always wished you could afford a real Gibson SG electric guitar? The all black Gibson SG Menace might be the one you can finally afford, as it retails for only $1199.00. It has a real menacing look, too. Of course you will get that rockin’ tone you expect from an SG.

When you discuss with anyone about your favorite guitar brands, chances are people will either say Gibson or Fender - or a few might say something else. But the bottom line is, Gibson is definitely one of the very best. The quality is excellent, and the company has been around for a long, long time.

Orville Gibson was living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1981, when he started crafting mandolins and guitars in his workshop. His ideas were successful, and he began selling many instruments by 1894. Throughout the decades to come, the company grew in size and reputation as a manufacturer of high quality guitars and mandolins, and other instruments. Designers were progressively finding ways to make the instruments better, too.

In 1937, they produced the first Gibson electric guitar. It was a hollow bodied guitar, which was called a “Spanish” guitar at that time to distinguish it from a Hawaiian steel guitar. It was called the ES-150. The ES stood for “electric Spanish.” Solid body electric guitars were still over a decade away, but a fellow by the Americanized name of Les Paul was fiddling around with some ideas. He offered Gibson his idea for a solid body electric in the mid forties, but Gibson’s management wasn’t interested.

Once Gibson’s top competitor, Fender, had released the highly successful solid body Telecaster, Gibson was ready to talk to Paul. The first Gibson Les Paul electric guitar appeared on the market in 1952. It was a hit, but by 1960, sales were slacking off. Gibson wanted to create something that would compete better with Fender’s immensely popular Stratocaster, which had been released a few years earlier. Their designers came up with a thinner bodied, double cutaway they eventually named the SG, which stands for “solid guitar.”

Many of the greatest of the rockers down through the last few decades have chosen some variation of the SG as their main axe. It has a body of mahogany, which has excellent resonance. The set neck is made of mahogany, too.

Advantages: The Gibson SG Menace electric guitar has better tone than a Gibson Firebird and better playability than a Les Paul. For a genuine Gibson, this has got to be one of the best prices going. The SG body style is lighter in weight than the Les Paul, and has kept people rocking for a lot of years.

The Gibson SG Menace works really well for playing in lower tunings, such as drop B. It will give you crunchy low end sound and will scream for you when you are playing the highs. It has a thicker neck that is good for shredding. If you set the neck pickups volume at 0, you can set the toggle to the middle position and use it as a kill switch. And it is a very good looking guitar, right down to the brass knuckles inlay. It sounds good and is sure to get you noticed.

Disadvantages: A few people have found the neck and the frets to be a little rough. And you might not like the fact that it does not have any fret position inlays anywhere except on the fifth fret. In general, SG’s tend to be a little bit neck heavy, and this one is no exception. You might need to move the strap pins to deal with this. Also, it is really designed for rock, so you might want to use something else for jazz or blues if you’re into those styles.

Gibson SG Menace specs:

  • Mahogany body with double cutaway
  • Mahogany neck
  •  Peghead pitch: 17 degrees
  • 0.818 inches thick at the first fret
  • 0.963 inch thick at the 12th fret
  • 5/8 inch heel length
  • Neck joined at the 19th fret
  • 24.75 inch scale length
  • Total neck length: 18.062 inches
  • 22 frets
  • 1.695 inches wide at the nut
  • 2.260 inches wide at the 12th fret
  • 60’s style neck profile
  • Ebony fingerboard
  • Brass knuckles inlay at the fifth fret
  • Black chrome hardware
  • Tune-o-matic bridge with stopbar tailpiece
  • Black speed numbered control knobs
  • Black chrome Grover tuners
  • 490R Smoky Coils with brass stud neck pickup
  • 498T Smoky Coils with brass stud bridge pickup
  • 2 volume control knobs
  • 2 tone control knobs
  • 3-way pickup selector switch

Related websites:

Buy Online Under $800: Gibson SG Menace

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