sg standard vs late 60's sg neck angle ?

[electricskychurch]

compared to my les paul's or sg61ri's my sg standard pu's don't have the same angle to the strings , they are not totaly parallel to the strings.

i was wondering if the 67' to 70' SG's (with large pick guard surrounding the pu's and replacing the pu's rings of the earlier sg's) were having the same neck angle as the actual sg standard ?

did anybody find a way to place the pu's in a more parrallel position to the strings (especialy the bridge pu ) ?

it seems i have a fuller sound (with more mids) on my guitars where the pu's are really parrallel to the strings compared to this sg standard ( i had some classic 57' pu's in all that guitars when i compared )

[Mynameisfritz]

What year is your Standard? And how big is the angle of the '61 RI?

This is an interesting topic because I stumbled over it from another point and didn't think about it in ways of parallelity to the strings. Let me explain: I have an '74 Standard and a few months ago a got a '68 Standard. After I got the '74 a few years ago I realized that the small neck angle of these instruments raise a few issues, the most important one being the fact that you have to screw the neck PU under the PU frame to get a appropriate distance from the strings. My '68 is a totally different instrument, bigger angle and although in consequence the strings aren't parallel the strings, this thing sounds so amazing. In a word: the '74 is a cheap sucker against the '68 - period. I guess one of the main factors is the wood - very resonant - and the totally different construction here. So I think that the parallelity between strings and PU's is a less important thing when choosing an SG.

[electricskychurch]

your answer is interesting as well bro !
my SG is a 2002 (the last ones to use an ABR-1 bridge unlike the new ones with the nashville.
i couldn't describe the neck angle on my sg standard but i think it's been pretty much the same from the 90's and on if i don't make any mistake .

yes , it depends on several other factors than the neck angle obviously.
from what i read several times (and from the pictures i saw ) it seems the 70's gibson guitars are not good guitars for most of them !
i mean they were not made the way the original 50's and 60's ones were made !
they used some sandwiches maple slice in the les paul's between two pieces (when the body was not made out of even more mahogany pieces) of mahogany, stopped to use the long tenon for the les paul guitars...

also they changed neck angles again, hardware, shape of the guitars and the list goes on and on !

from what i saw , the last nice SG's were the 1970' (despite the volute ) and maybe the very early 70's ones (i don't know precisely when they changed the sg specifications and look) , at least until they changed the sg to walnut color, back to the small pickguard ...

i'm not sure if the pu' specifications changed as well between 1970 to mid or late 70's ?

one thing i noticed is that the end of the neck (where it meets the pick guard) doesn't seem to be lying the same way on the body of the late 60's sg's compared to the actual sg standard's !
it seems the neck is thicker (the fret board ), coming out of the top of the body where it meets the pickguard more than the actual sg's.
i have no pictures to illustrate that but i noticed that on some late 60's sg's i saw in a shop and despite i'm not sure about how to describe that difference, i remember there was a difference (correct me if i'm wrong guys !) .

i'd love to have a late 60's SG with large pickguard (and obviously an earlier one as well , with smaller pickguard and neck joint at the 21 st fret) !
Lucky you !

[electricskychurch]

on nearly all my other gibson guitars (96' les paul 59 ri , 97 les paul 59 ri , 95 or 96 les paul 54 ri , 2x late 90's sg 61 ri's , 2002 les paul std) the neck angle is smaller (except on my sg classic with p90 that has a different neck than the sg standard, less round and my 97' sg special post 67' custom shop made with a body like the sg standard but with p90's that was made by a gibson amployee for himself and there are no other like that available directly from gibson catalog actualy from what i know) , so the pu's are more parrallel to the strings ,the pu's rings helping them to be in that position but on the sg standard, there is no pu's ring and the neck angle is different .

i didn't say that sg standard doesn't sound good but as i had istalled some classic 57' pu's in all my gibson guitars (the ones with humbuckers) at that time, i could compare the differences between the guitars more easily and i realised that one has a thinner tone in the mids (and maybe less output or is it a feeling due to the fact there is less mids ?) than my other gibson guitars with pu's parrallel to the strings , although i don't know if it's the cause but when you see the strings are much closer to the bobbin with the slugs than to the bobin with the pole screws, then, i suppose it's a bit like an unbalanced winded PAF in a way (with more turns on one bobbin) !
i also noticed that but in a smaller proportion , with my SG Angus young ( where i had put a classic 57' in the bridge as well, instead of the angus young bridge pu that was too modrn for me, nothing related with the stock pu's he uses ! ) , guitar that has the same sort of angle as the sg standard )

it's right that for my 2x les paul 59' ri's, i havbe very short space available to set up the pu's height as the neck angle doesn't allow me to put the pu's higher than the pu's rings (just the sides are slightly coming out as they are lower than the pu's ring center height).

i looked in my " beauty of the burst " book, where there are many original 58, 59 and 60' les paul pictures and i saw some like mine and some where the the pu's could be set a bit higher, letting them coming out a bit more of the pu's rings; despite it's never much higher !
my sg61 ri's have more space available if i want to keep the strings farther from the pu's.

if anybody has some pictures of the late 60's sg's , where the necks meets the body and pickguard, as well as the neck angle and pu's angle to the strings, it would be nice

[demonufo]

The neck angle on those particular SG's (I thought they were from late '68 through to '74 but I could be wrong) was waaay different. The necks weren't any thicker, but they did sit a lot more proud from the body. A guy a used to play with had one (and he swore blind it was a '66, he just couldn't be told!!!) and it was a pretty dreadful feeling instrument. Just not enough pressure on the bridge due to the lack of relief on the neck joint. He loved it though, so I guess it's all down to personal preference (and he never used the neck p/up either)
Gibson certainly made some damned good guitars in the late 70's, some of the high end Les Paul's were real good, if bloody heavy!
As for pickups being parallel, I always preferred the sound of a bit of bias towards one of the coils. In fact on some guitars with high output p/ups, I like a lot of angle on the bridge in particular. I must admit though, I do prefer the neck p/up to be flatter.

[electricskychurch]

yes, i didn't know how to say it but "seats a lot more ..." seems appropriate ! LOL
personaly, i don't use high outpu pu's, i don't really like them ( i tried the 496/500T, 490/498T, angus young signature pu); i prefer the PAF style pu's and the 50's- 60's style single coils for tele's and strats ) .

from what i saw, the SG neck joint moved from the 21st to the 19th fret in 1965' - 1966 , more or less at the same time they replaced the small pick guard and pu's rings with the large pickguard surounding the pu's and they changed the peghead angle froml 17

[Mynameisfritz]

Hey ESC, you're talking about so many guitars, I get confused!
Ok, many aspects that like to be covered. I have litte time at the moment, but I'll post some detail pics of the '68 soon. Would like to see some from others too.

it seems the neck is thicker (the fret board ), coming out of the top of the body where it meets the pickguard more than the actual sg's.

That's the main point, compared to my '74. The '68 has a very stable neck joint too. No worries at all here. The neck is quite big, but it's ok, not uncomfortable.

I got to have some sleep now.

[Mynameisfritz]

As you can see the construction of the '74 is pretty simple here, and not as solid as the '68. They introduced walnut already at least in '68 or '69. Maybe it's a '69, I don't know exactly, but it has no volute and no 'Made in USA' under the serial number.

[electricskychurch]

thanks for the pictures bro , great !

it seems your sg with small pick guard would be a pre 70's if it doesn't have any volute !
depending how thick is the neck , it could be a mid 60's or earlier !

i will post some pictures of my sg's as well but later tonight as i'm going to a huge festival (100 000 persons on 2 days !) with many nice international bands.

from the pictures you sent, it seems i was right, there is an extra small piece of wood betweeen the rosewood fretboard (underneath it) and the top of the pickguard.
you can see they have forseen and included that piece of wood on top of the body where it meets the neck at the top end of the pickguard, to elevate the neck as they changed the neck angle.

on my 2002 sg std there is not that little extra wood on the top of the body to elevate the neck and make it sit higher !
the pickguard is directly at the same height as the fretboard in fact !

i recorded my guitars recently playing the same riffs, to compare them and whatever pu's (classic 57' or wcr darkburst bridge pu ) i had in the bridge position of that sg std, the sound was not as plain in the mids as the other guitars with pu's parrallel to the strings .

i read somewhere (was it seth lover in an interview ?) that when you raise the pole piece screws of the pu's it makes the sound a bit more scooped (from what i remember) .

i'm not sure walnut was a stock color on the sg standard before the early 70's with the sg deluxe

[electricskychurch]

here are some pictures of my 2000' SG 61' RI , 2002' SG standard and 96' & 97' les paul 59 ri historic collection .
the 2002' sg std has a classic 57 in the neck and WCR darkburst bridge pu in bridge pos.
the 2000 SG 61' RI has some WCR Betset.
i recently replaced the classic 57' pu's with some WCR crossroads ( CR) in the 96' and some seth lover sh55 in the 97' but i might replace the bridge with a CR bridge pu in that one (or more precisely a darkburst neck pu i will put in bridge position ; it's nearly the same as a CR bridge pu)

[electricskychurch]

i don't know why my pictures don't appear directly in the topic , like yours; i'm jealous ! LOL

[908ssp]

Because they are too big and you don't use your caps key.

[electricskychurch]

what caps key ?

[Mynameisfritz]

it seems your sg with small pick guard would be a pre 70's if it doesn't have any volute !
depending how thick is the neck , it could be a mid 60's or earlier !

Wait a minute.
The first pic is the '68 with the big pickguard. The second is the '74 with the small pickguard. So what are you talking about?

[electricskychurch]

"As you can see the construction of the '74 is pretty simple here, and not as solid as the '68. They introduced walnut already at least in '68 or '69. Maybe it's a '69, I don't know exactly, but it has no volute and no 'Made in USA' under the serial number."


sorry, i was thinking you were talking about the 74' when you wrote it has no volute !

ok, and i had not seen the pearl block inlays instead of the trapezoidal ones !

if your sg with large pickguard has a very thin neck, then it might be a 69', if it's not that thin, it could be an earlier one.