Michael Poulsen Gibson SG GT

I would suspect that if you called Gibson and was willing to shill out a few thousand dollars, they could hook you up. Im not certain if they have a custom shop. I will warn you though, Gibson guitars have a totally different feel to them. I personally hate them.

Like boom said, contact Gibson. They have custom shop and will be willing to make one for you I would imagine but as boom said its not gunna be cheap and from my understanding Gibson can be very arsey with custom models at times and refuse to make it

that is very true but typically when doing things through a custom shop you can get everything dead perfect to how you want it but I personally couldn't justify getting a custom made guitar due to the cost and like you said, not being able to play it first

I fully agree!

Measurements. You can have the make an exact neck profile you want, especially if there is a certain guitar you like and can make a mold or send in the neck. If I was going to spend $4000 on a custom guitar, I would make it my own and do have everything custom. My own drawn body, neck, headstock, and even bridge. Guitar companies can't make you a custom bridge per se, but it would be worth it to me to find a boutique craftsman and have them make me my own designed bridge. Over the years, I've drawn up a few body models just in case I ever get to make my own.

Halo guitars has a nice customize flash program on their site and for 2-3000 bucks you can have them make any shape you want. They have extra slots for special requests and such.

http://www.haloguitars.com/store/custom-guitars.html

my SG has an enormous neck... they are all variable and have been since their inception in 61. I played a lot of SGs, various submodels from various years to find one that had a 59ish neck, wide string spacing, good balance and had a loud and pleasant tone unplugged.

Or you can call Gibson custom if you have 3 to 5 grand you are not using. They will make you EXACTLY what you want. Of course at that point you could call a small builder who does Gibson clones.

Gibson custom's vintage RIs are close but not quite. There have always been guys building copies of vintage Gibbies better than Gibson does, but if you've never played an original you would not know which is right. I am not saying vintage is better though. I feel a modern SG standard schools any of the SGs made before the neck joint change as well as a lot of the 70s and 80s ones from the dreaded Norlin era. But you see what I'm saying. Gibson is not the Gibson they were. Different location, difrent equipment, different methods and different people. Depending on if you want something old school or a modern model YMMV with small luthiers who work with Gibson designs. Keep in mind that the famed D'Angelico jazzboxes were just improved, one-off Gibson copies. D'Angelico admitted many times he admired those designs and just wanted to take them and give them a master craftsman's attention to detail and some up-market touches... or look at a guy like Slash. The appetite guitar was a small builder's careful copy of a particular 59 LP. It was more accurate than anything Gibson was building at the time.

But if you want a modern SG with a big neck, get a Gibson. You don't have to go crazy. They are around. You will pay about a grand. If you want something to vintage spec (piss poor neck jint and all) with a big 50s neck they are also around from Gibson Custom, but harder to find as most SGs had medium or slim-taper necks and the custom shop makes most of the RIs with the more common neck shape. They make them though. I played one in a sam ash of all places. Neck was huge, total 61 spec. Nice guitar, but I thought 2.5k was steep for a used SG with the wweak neck joint. See, only SOME of the early LP branded SGs had thick 59 type necks and none had 58 baseball bats if that's what you want. You would have to contact the custom shop and spend a lot to get that.

But I am rambling. To me an RI is a cone anyway. I don't get precious about this stuff. Give me a guitar that does what I want and I will buy it if the price is right! I think some vintage designs were in need of improvement anyway and the SG is one of them. New SGs are better designed guitars, its just the electronics, mahogany and rosewood thata re inferior

I will warn you though, Gibson guitars have a totally different feel to them. I personally hate them.

A totally different feel than what? They are one of the big 2. One of the oldest guitar manufacturers in the USA, period. Everyone plays fender and Gibson, Boom. Except for shredders and thrash metal types, but virtually everyone has played lots of gibbies and considers them to be the norm in set-neck electrics. Whether we love them or loathe them, that's the truth. This is not true in basses where Gibson has always kinda bit the big one, but in guitars? Gibsons feel pretty normal. Gretsches, Guilds, Hamers, PRSes... so many guitars borrow Gibson ideas and the feel for so many of their models. I am not telling you to like Gibsons, but you run around the site acting like no one else likes them or even plays them (or that theya re uncommon and no one tries them in a store to know what the Gibson style is all about) when pretty much everyone who doesn't play in a hair band or slayer tribute band has owned and gigged at least 1 Gibson model.... it would be more accurate to say rickenbackers are a 'totally different feel' as they are not like Gibsons or Fenders and though they basically invented electric guitar their company has never had a the market share even during beatlemania when their 12 strings dominated the airwaves. That's a different feel for ya.

Seriously I am not sure where you get this stuff.

I am not saying Gibson makes a universally great product, but since the 20s Gibson has been a standard for jazzboxes and since the 60s a standard in solid and semi-hollows (which they INVENTED). I am not sure what your yardstick is if Gibson is "different." This is for better or for worse. I am not a universal Gibson lover and their business practices have been, and even under modern management can be, deplorable.

hey, I have seen those oddball GT SGs around now that I saw a pic of that poulsen guy. You can find 'em, they probably have some with bigger necks too given the GT supposedly has the 61 neck carve. Should be cheap too, the GT is NOT popular as fancy SGs go for some reason. I would think you could get one for about $1500 thru ebay. Buy from power sellers with a no questions asked return policy. You may lose a few bucks in shipping if the 1st oe isn't a fit for you, but you'll get a good one eventually. Youa re not going to find on in person though...

Gibsons are absolute trash in basses and in the guitar world they have amazingly fat necks. There are a couple of other companies that make their necks huge as well. Peavey and BC Rich do this. My opinion "and what you read into as the absolute opinion of all players worldwide Jimmy" is that in my own experiences with this company's products, they suck.

My first experience was with one of their acoustics. It was a $3,000 Gibson. I played on it about a minute and just hated the way it felt and sounded. The audio was muffled and muddy. The feel was uncomfortable and where I would normally place my thumb was a sharp ridge instead of the flat back that I was used to. I next picked up a $1000 Taylor and it blew the other out of the water. Sounded so loud and clear, the neck was familiar.

My second was with a friend's SG Special. He loved it because it was new to him but ended up selling it a couple of years later. My impression was that it looked cool but it felt obnoxiously heavy and the tone plugged in was just not letting me know how much he paid for it. The neck on this one felt better though.

My third was my Epiphone Sheritan II hollow-body. It was horrible. I spent a week trying to make it sound decent and just couldn't. The neck pickup had a horrible muddy tone and was overpowered. If the pot was 1-10, It played nothing on 1 and 1.5 it already covered up the bridge pickup. The bridge pup bright and thin the way a Fender single would have sounded, but was a humbucker. The neck was much like the acoustic I played years back.

Yes, Gibson products have their own feel, regardless of what decade they were produced. A new Ford Model T will have a different feel than a Mustang.

Seeing that you (OP) already have a Gibson and like it, I'm sure you would get close to the same feel you are wanting out of another one. I agree with not getting a clone. I would rather than make my own than to go with a knockoff. Halo Guitars has a place in their custom design tool where you can upload photos and drawings of what you want. Generally, the most expensive guitar you can make through them is about $2000. Nothing cooler than having that guitar that no one else has or can have. I've always thought it would be awesome to have a .22 barrel and receiver built into the neck and body. Kind of an homage to El Mariache.

1st experience: I generally prefer Taylor acoustics to current Gibsons. They sound better and play as well or better depending on the guitars in question. I will take an old Gibson acoustic any time though. Anything up until about 62 is hard to beat. I am NOT a Martin guy. I want to be but I think they are stiff guitars and always have been. I have played a good 100 years worth of Martins over the years and I don't get it. 1930s? stiff, 2010s? stiff. Martin has a very consistent feel. Too consistent. Can't find one I like at ANY price! Current production Taylors are very consistent too. Older Taylors less soo. My dad's friend has an early Taylor I love. I have tried to find a similar model from the 80s for myself but every time I play one its not as good as this dude's tonally or in feel.

2nd experience: the SG specials with humbuckers are an odd duck in the Gibson line. For a while they were Gibson's most affordable USA guitar that was available every year. At first it was a nice guitar for the buck, but as the 90s progressed I liked them less and less. I would describe the neck feel as "incomplete". It feels like all the SG specials made since the late 90s got their rough carve on the CNC machine and went straight to sanding and finishing with no further hand carving by a skilled worker (which is the way non-custom-shop Gibbies get done and is the reason why Gibson has such a wide variation in neck feel even within a model that is available with only one of the big 3 Gibson neck profiles). I have had a number of friends get SG specials since '99 and all of them got returned or sold quickly. They just feel clunky and bad. I do not defend Gibson for letting so many junk examples of their entry-level model hit the shelves. When I say I don't approve of their business practices, that's one of them/ Oddly enough I had a very low end LP special in TV yellow that was a fabulously made guitar that was actually cheaper than the cheapest SG special. They only made that cheap P90 special for a year or 2 about 10 years ago. They were all pretty good and a lot were fantastic guitars for under a grand, so they CAN make a good entry level guitar. They just don't bother every year and that's bullshit. Comparing my SG standard, just a basic SG model made basically the way Gibson has made them since the late 60s is like a completely different guitar than the SG special. At a glance they are the same, but the level of craftsmanship and attention to detail is like they came from 2 different manufacturers. Same goes with the 2 nicer LPs I own/owned versus the late 90s LP studio I briefly owned. That studio felt like they didn't finish carving the neck right or put her together properly, whereas my 80s standard and my fancy platinum edition studio are STUPID nice guitars with perfect neck joints, refined neck carves, perfectly manicured frets etc... the SG special is just consistently bad example of a Gibson and they should fix it up or stop making it as an affordable alternative. Same goes for the entry level LP studio.

3rd experience: epis haven't been made by Gibson since before I was born. Its not a Gibson. The same epi model is totally variable (even in APPEARANCE) depending on who Gibson corporate jobbed the production run out to. Since china got involved they have been universally bad. Or at least EVERY single one I have picked up has been a poor player, muddy, had a bad neck angle, and the frets felt like they needed more dressing etc... theyare a lot like squire. There are periods where there are keepers if you get a magic model from a year when a new far eastern subcontractor was trying to impress the corporate brass who hired them, but in general? A beginner's guitar that is not even as good as a no-name copy (sorry Liam). I know you said your shreaton2 was recent in another thread. The quality on the Chinese semis is PISS poor. They release lots of cool colors so I pick them up once in a while hoping they will be serviceable backups but they just suck a rat.

I am not backing down from my assertion that gobs of players have played or still play Gibson USA guitars and that the Gibson vibe is both a standard and influential. Thanks for adding BC Rich to my list of Gibson influenced guitar because Neck thru BC riches owe a lot to the firebird ;-)

I am not a dyed in the wool Gibson man either. I own 3 fenders I love and some non-Gibson set-necks, 2 of which have no corresponding Gibson model they rip-off. They riff on a lot of Gibson ideas, but are NOT Gibson clones in ANY way. On the pickups in your Sheraton, maybe they accidentally swapped the bridge and neck buckers at the factory during installation. We are talking about cheap far est pickups anyway. Also, if they were meant to copy vintage PAFs then they may not be calibrated (calibrating pickups to position was invented til the late 70s, thanks Hamer!)... original Gibson buckers from PAF to T-Top are speced to be fairly low output and the bridge can sound pretty fender if they come out on the low side of the winds specs. If that's what the far-east bastardizers cloned then you ould get a boomy neck and shrill bridge. If they sued poly wire and bright A5 or ceramic magnets? That will compound the shrillness and boominess in a poorly calibrated set. Not all 50s PAF pickups are so great despite their fearsome reputation and pricing. I have played mid 50s gibsons with early PAFs that had very single coily tones. Very low output, twangy bridge and a boomy neck that ahs that glassy strat neck quality. I rather like these guitars, but they are not what one is looking for from a humbucker guitar these days. I wouldn't seek to reproduce those sounds in a current production instrument. Old guitars with the low output buckers are more of a fun curiosity for guys with money to burn!

I just have trouble with guys in the rabidly anti-Gibson camp who discount their lasting influence, especially when they aren't cinverted Gibson-players like some older anti-Gibson guys are (the Norlin era pissed a lot of old heads off as did the massive price jump after Slash repopularized the LP). Its weird to me that someone whose Gibson experiences consist of 2 models at the extreme end of the spectrum that he did not own and 1 non-Gibson student guitar jobbed out by the parent company has such a strong opinion. I've owned and played scads of gibbies and I have a really mixed opinion, but I definitely do not discount Gibson's HUGE influence on everything since that's not a bolt-on.

I don't know dude, I have seen some with three humbuckers and a Bigsby tail, but not a black and white neck thru and that tail piece. If you find one send me a link for sure.

I see blue and white from time to time, I see that crazy tailpiece. It was in production but is currently discontinued. If I see anything I will heads up you ;-) I am always shopping for guitars!

Is he the volbeat bloke? With the black, and white SG?