So, Gibson have seen fit to seriously tweak the Angus Young signature line.  Not before time.  While the previous Angus SG was a very, very fine guitar, it just wasn’t really very ‘Angusy’.  We couldn’t really imagine him duck-walking around the stage with a lyre-type vibrato attached to his SG.

Well, many of the previous wrongs have been rectified with not one, not two, but three new Angus Young signature SGs.  It’s like waiting for a bus.

I think we’ll look at these over two separate posts. In this first, we’ll consider the Angus Young SG.

This will basically be the one that most of us will see and play in the wild – the production model.  In contrast to the Custom Shop models, this will be widely available and first impressions are that it’s a bit more on the money.

It’s only available in devilish black and is fitted with a 5-ply, early ’60s style half pickguard. Signature touches are kept (relatively) discrete and are in keeping with the endorsee.  Typically, you get a signed truss-rod cover and, rather nicely, you get position inlays in the shape of tiny lightning bolts.  I can’t see anyone complaining about that  On this model, the inlays are acrylic, but that’s not really a major issue. Oh, they’re fitted in an ebony fingerboard, by the way, with the usual 22 frets.  It looks like the fingerboard binding is the ‘antique’ orangey stuff which always looks a bit out of place next to the Corian nut (which I personally dislike).

The neck profile is carved to Angus’ specs and the dimensions closely resemble those of his own ’68 standard.

Power comes from a 57 Classic in the neck and a Gibson Angus Young pickup at the bridge.  Both are humbucking, obviously.  Controls are standard SG fare of a volume and tone per pickup but unusually, the volume potentiometers are 300k linear units.

Finish is nitrocellulose all over and hardware is, again, the usual SG-style – chrome tun-o-matic and stop tailpiece and pearloid-buttoned Kluson tuners.  Cool ‘witch’s hat’ style knobs though.

All in all, this looks pretty good.  A swing and a hit for Gibson. If I were being really picky I’d like to see a cherry finish option on this model but there’s not really that much to complain about.

Prices should be around the $3600 mark but, as always, shop around and you’ll likely find it a bit cheaper.

More over at Gibson and you can read about the Custom Shop, Angus Young SG Standard in my next post.

Let there be rock!