New Melody Makers - four cool shapes!!

[Rickenjangle]

Have all y'all seen the new Melody Makers? A traditional shape, an SG shape, a Vee and an Explorer. I'm not too wild about the Vee or Exploder but I've got a itchin' for that blue SG - then again, I would want to get it custom-painted in some cool way...like perhaps with white and black paisleys...

Oh, and I played a supremely beat up worn brown SG Special and it was an amazing sounding and playing guitar. I could see it being the lead guitar in some cowpunk alt.country band...sweet! I'm starting to realize that I like the cosmetics of covered pickups but that a good Gibson open-coiled 'bucker is a beautiful, dirty thing!

[Kap'n]

link?

[Skip]

my son has a worn brown SG - the pickups sound great the are the alnico 490's I have the same pickups in my Gibson ES 333 they do not have covers. Those pickups in the SG will stay eventually I will replace the 490's in the ES333 with others.

The Melody Maker to looks fine the way it is :) The Worn Brown SG's are only around 700 American smackers

[Rickenjangle]

SG Melody Maker

Looks kind of interesting...Maple body, and a ceramic HB - I wonder if it'll be a bit on the shrill side? I'd think Mahogany with an Alnico would be the shizzle.

[Kap'n]

In general I've been underwhelmed with Gibson's lower end offerings these days, compared with what else is out there.

OTOH, I've so excited about the sound of my wraptail PRS, that I can''t help but be intrigued by the idea of trying others. Maybe the whole angle of the tailpiece tension drives the body like an acoustic top. Or not.

[martindc1]

Meh, I'd be more interested in a SG Junior myself.

[NeoFauve]

"-Maple body
-Grain textured satin finish" <- Boy, that sounds inviting.

I've wondered what would happen if you try to play rhythm on a Melody Maker.

[Rickenjangle]

Well I got to try one yesterday. The finish was no great shakes but certainly better than the previous iteration of the MM...

I tried the blue SG type and I couldn't find a fault with the (admittedly not top-shelf) finish; the action was acceptable, the intonation pretty good (wraptail, how can you adjust it anyway??).

Simply put - this guitar had the goods. For about 5 bills - I am seriously considering getting this guitar and having my fiancee do some kind of custom paint job on it, like Be-bop-a-lula, or the Fool, or something like that.

The pickup sounded amazing at top volume. I tried it out with a Vox AC15 and could NOT get it to clean up at top guitar volume - but it cleaned up very very nicely, without the tone loss, with the guitar's volume knob.

It was a joy to crank out Who riffs - even some early Rush - sounded nice with my originals...

Then I discovered that I was running the amp all wrong - had the preamp up and the MV down...I rectified this and was gratified to find that the clean sound WAS in the guitar. A nice, chunky, beefy clean sound - and since the volume knob worked so nicely, I could run the gain just over breakup and then by rolling back to 8 get a very clean sound.

Folks, if you buy guitars with your ears instead of eyes, give one of these a chance. I like the open grain, the crisp yet beefy bridge 'bucker, the one knob...

Only caveat - for strummers the volume knob is kind of in an awkward place but this guitar would probably be a joy for a fingerstyle slide stylist...

I liked it better than some of the actual Les Pauls I've owned. And THAT you can take to the bank...

[Don]

Nice! I look forward to trying one myself!

[thegeezer]

I tried one and thought it had a sweet sound as well as a very aggressive tone especially through a Vox AC15 C1. Not for me but that is subjective. The guy that owned it loves his especially though my Vox.

[Rickenjangle]

Geez, I think I tried the most recent AC15...

I know you have, or had, the first Chinese...I forget the model numbers...I have the AC15VR which I really like, and had an English-made AC15 back in the olden days...

This new Vox? SCREAMS!!!

MM not your cup of tea? What? You can't have a negative opinion of this !!!! just kidding!

I'm not 100 percent sure if I'm gonna get one yet, but it sure was fun to play!!

[thegeezer]

I have a friend that use's his as a first guitar and he really knows how to make it do a lot.

[Rickenjangle]

One of these new ones? One of the single coil ones? Or one of the p90 ones that came out a few years ago?

Hell, you could have a whole collection of just Melody Makers - and have 'em all be different!

[Rickenjangle]

You could get a very good condition original 64 MM for about 1200 if you wanted to, but why wouldn't you rather have this sweet and sexy vixen instead?

[Kap'n]

Maybe at 10% of the price.

[Rickenjangle]

Looking over CL and ebay lately - I realized that there are some seriously fraudulent claims being made out there - and if they're really selling their items at a premium, maybe PT Barnum was right as pertains to consumers...

Just in the MM's on ebay there is this one, and then there's the guy who claims to have a Jonas Brothers MM - except that it is just a single-coil $350 model that has the Jonas Brothers logo on a sticker and supposedly has their signatures...well, it's certainly NOT the actual JoBro model, and I'll bet that people think it is...

Then there's the guy who is trying to sell his single-coil MM for $749...ludicrous!

[thegeezer]

Geez, I think I tried the most recent AC15...

I know you have, or had, the first Chinese...I forget the model numbers...I have the AC15VR which I really like, and had an English-made AC15 back in the olden days...

This new Vox? SCREAMS!!!

MM not your cup of tea? What? You can't have a negative opinion of this !!!! just kidding!

I'm not 100 percent sure if I'm gonna get one yet, but it sure was fun to play!!

I have been using the new Vox with an aby switch, very versatile and yeah it sounds great clean and driven a touch.

[martindc1]

Man I'm not sure. I haven't played one, but, I'd be a whole lot more excited about a Junior: Mahogany body, P90, a tone control, better location of volume and tone control. With a maple body, how neck heavy is the MM? I understand that the MM is cheaper, but if price were a problem, I think I'd try to find a nice Epi (which I did btw). To be honest, I'm not real impressed with Gibson's price on the LP Junior either. I just think there is a lot more value from other brands.

Plus there is so much versatility with the tone control on Gibsons. I can do a helluva lot with my Epi SG between the 2 pickups, 2 volumes and 2 tone controls. Just playing with the volume and tone controls on the bridge pickup alone gives me versatility that I don't think I could get with a MM. Plus I bought it for $200.

I guess I'm biased because I really want either a SG or LP junior.

[Rickenjangle]

I found a worn brown SG special that has been well-played locally (i.e. naturally relic'ed) and it's less than $400 so I might pick it up and make it my jam-band guitar - think I might put Grateful Dead stickers all over it. It plays like a dream and the high-output ceramic buckers are nice and clear with tons of guts and punch.

[Skip]

I found a worn brown SG special that has been well-played locally (i.e. naturally relic'ed) and it's less than $400 so I might pick it up and make it my jam-band guitar - think I might put Grateful Dead stickers all over it. It plays like a dream and the high-output ceramic buckers are nice and clear with tons of guts and punch.

GO FURTHUR with this idea

[martindc1]

I found a worn brown SG special that has been well-played locally (i.e. naturally relic'ed) and it's less than $400 so I might pick it up and make it my jam-band guitar - think I might put Grateful Dead stickers all over it. It plays like a dream and the high-output ceramic buckers are nice and clear with tons of guts and punch.

Nice. I for one really like the worn finish on them. And I appreciate the tonal versatility and upper fretboard access. For me, the flatter radius works well with a slide without having to raise the action too high to fret notes.