Gibson Custom Angus Young SG VOS Electric Guitar  

For more than 35 years, AC/DC has represented the archetypal "big rock" guitar sound, setting the standards for countless bands to follow. In particular, Angus Young's incendiary lead tone and mammoth rhythm crunch have inspired wave after wave of rock guitar heroes, and he has done it all on a Gibson SG Standard. The SG replaced the underappreciated Les Paul Standard in 1961, and while the Les Paul would surface later in the decade as a rock and blues classic, the new SG (originally named Les Paul/SG) was an instant hit in its own right. Its simple yet inspired ingredients of thin, all-mahogany body and neck and two Gibson humbucking pickups gave it a snappy attack with a muscular punch, and its slim, fast neck yielded unprecedented playability. Now the Gibson offers its reproduction of one of the world's most renowned SGs in the form of the Angus Young SG, a limited edition of 200 Vintage Original-Spec (VOS) guitars that captures the tone, look, and feel of this rare specimen among a classic breed, but which updates this legendary guitar with custom modifications requested by Angus himself.

Angus Young acquired his 1968 SG Standard in 1970, and has used it on all major AC/DC recordings and many tours since the band's inception in 1973. Young's '68 SG is known to be a superb example of this model, with an unusually slim neck, pickups that blend just the right proportions of power and sweetness, and a resonant, vocal tone that represents the best of the SG formula. Listen closely to any classic AC/DC tune, and the tone is huge, but not filthy or fizzy. Angus's '68 SG achieves a stunning clarity and definition right within its bone-crushing thump and grind. With utmost attention to detail, the Angus Young SG seeks to achieve that tone, aided by a pair of custom-spec Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates humbucking pickups. The Custom Shop Angus Young SG will also be sold with a custom Certificate of Authenticity, a Gibson Custom Shop hardshell case, and a full range of owner's manuals and instruction sheets.

Body
The body of each Angus Young SG is crafted from solid clear mahogany with an offset center seam. This simple but effective tone wood has yielded some of the most classic tones in the history of rock. The Angus Young SG follows the classic lines of the SG Standard, instantly recognizable with its sleek design, unmistakable twin cutaways, pointed horns and beveled edges. The total average weight of a Angus Young SG body and neck together, before pickups and hardware are added, is 5.65 lb., which is par for the course for excellent examples of the SG Standard, which are known for their lightness. Mahogany is a medium-dense wood with excellent resonance and superior sustain, and it offers a rich, round, warm tone, but with plenty of high-end sheen and good midrange presence. The mahogany of the Angus Young SG also lends a percussive snap and some added clarity to the tone of the guitar.

Finish
The Angus Young SG is finished in Gibson's custom-designed VOS Angus Cherry finish. It features a gloss nitrocellulose finish that offers a smooth, comfortable playing feel. Only 200 guitars in this extremely limited run receive Gibson's proprietary VOS treatment.

Neck and headstock
The neck of the Angus Young SG is constructed from three pieces of top-grade maple, cut using the superior "quarter sawn" orientation for improved strength and resonance, and glued to the body at a 2.5-degree angle (pitch). Maple is among the strongest woods used for electric guitar necks, and has the strength required for a thin carve as applied to this model. Gibson's traditional truss rod, found in most all of our guitars, is highly responsive to the individual adjustments you'll want to make to personalize and optimize string action and sustain. The neck on the Angus Young SG is carved to Angus's own requirements and models the super-slim, yet extremely comfortable profile of his own original '68 SG Standard. The Angus Young SG headstock is carefully angled at Gibson's traditional 17 degrees, which increases pressure on the strings and helps them stay in the nut slots. An increase in string pressure also means there is no loss of string vibration between the nut and the tuners, which equals better sustain. The Gibson logo—one of the most globally recognized logos of all time—is inlaid in pearl across the top of the headstock face of the Angus Young SG, with a pearl crown inlaid in the center of the headstock. The angled, classical-style peg head and maple neck work together to provide exceptional tonal richness and resonance from the neck, with outstanding string clarity definition from the maple.

Neck Fit
Gibson uses what is known as the Mortise & Tenon joint to bind neck to body so that the two pieces form one solid unit. This time-tested technique has been used for millennia in all the great woodworking arts—from shipbuilding to cabinetry—to create one solid wood unit from two separate sections, and has been proven to yield a stronger neck and body than if the instrument was made from a single piece of wood. The adhesive used to join neck and body is Franklin Titebond 50, one of the strongest glues on the market today.

Fingerboard
The Angus Young SG is equipped with an ebony fingerboard, which enhances note attack and articulation. A hard, dense, dark-black exotic wood, ebony has commonly been regarded as a deluxe, upgraded option on electric guitars, and has been used by Gibson in the past on the Les Paul Custom. Ebony is also extremely hardwearing, and more resistant to humidity and climate and weather changes than many other fingerboard woods. This fingerboard carries a single-ply white plastic binding. The 12-inch radius of the Angus Young SG fingerboard provides smooth note bending capabilities and eliminates "dead" or "choked out" notes, common occurrences on fingerboards with lesser radiuses. The Angus Young SG sports 22 frets, all immaculately dressed and polished. The Angus Young SG fingerboard carries pearl "lightning bolt" position-marker inlays, as a custom appointment requested by Angus himself. Ebony is a very popular up-market fingerboard material, known for its strong, clear tone.

Nut
The nut on the Angus Young SG is made from genuine bone, the material used for the nuts of most vintage Gibson guitars. It is installed into the top surface of the neck, butting up to the end of the fingerboard to ensure proper tone and sustain transfer, and its nut slots are cut with Gibson's PLEK system to ensure precise fit, break angle, and string spacing. The width of the nut on the Angus Young SG is approximately 1.555" to reflect the width of the nut on Angus's original '68 SG Standard, which he has always preferred for its comfort and slimness.

Pickups
The Angus Young SG is equipped with a pair of Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickups, which includes a standard unit in the neck position and a bridge-position unit that has been modified for higher output. Between them, the two pickups offer outstanding output balance. Seymour Duncan's Pearly Gates pickup was designed after close study of the original Gibson PAF pickups in Billy Gibbons's 1959 Les Paul Standard, which are known to be slightly hotter than the average PAFs of the day, and provides an authentic vintage-humbucker tone that Angus Young seeks in his guitars. Seymour Duncan uses alnico II magnets in the Pearly Gates pickups, to produce a smooth, sweet tone. The Pearly Gates is a moderate-output humbucking pickup, and provides a sweet, rich, warm, vocal tone in the neck position of the Angus Young SG, with more midrange punch and plenty of cutting power for leads in the bridge position. The coils of these pickups are wax potted to enable them to withstand high volume levels without succumbing to annoying feedback.

Electronics
The Angus Young SG uses an individual volume control for each pickup, which utilizes high-quality CTS potentiometers. Tone controls are bypassed as is the case with Angus' original. The Angus Young SG features one three-way toggle switch made of stainless steel with cream plastic tip, which acts as the instrument's pickup selector. In the down position, only the bridge pickup is active. In the middle position, both pickups are active. In the up position, only the neck pickup is active. The guitar features a 1/4" output jack made by Switchcraft. Its super heavy-duty construction holds your guitar cable securely in place.

Hardware
The headstock of the Angus Young SG is equipped with chromed Schaller tuners with a 12:1 gear ratio. Schallers are recognized as a leading tuner in the industry, and were frequently added as an upgrade to guitars in the '60s and '70s. Included on the Angus Young SG, the ABR-1 Tune-o-matic provides a firm seating for the strings, allowing the player to adjust and fine-tune the intonation and string height in a matter of minutes. The Angus Young SG features nylon saddles which yield excellent coupling between strings and body. This bridge is made from zinc then plated with nickel. Every Tune-o-matic bridge is combined with a separate "stopbar" tailpiece, which is essentially a modified version of the earlier wraparound bridge that's designed to further enhance the connection between the strings and the body. The Angus Young SG's stopbar tailpiece is made from Zamak then plated with chrome. The Angus Young SG's is equipped with unique aluminum strap buttons. All hardware on this limited run of 200 Angus Young SGs is pre-aged by Gibson's proprietary VOS process.

Plastics
As with most Gibson guitars, the truss rod cover on the Angus Young SG is made from black and white vinyl plastic. The Angus Young SG carries a three-ply black/white/black pickguard in the style of the late-'60s SG Standard. The control knobs on the Angus Young SG are Gibson's black witch-hat knobs with silver inserts, found on many vintage and modern Gibson guitars.

Accessories
Your Angus Young SG comes protected in black, red-fur-lined Gibson Custom Shop hardshell case, silkscreened with the Gibson logo and the Angus Young model name. Each Angus Young SG comes with a leather-bound Certificate of Authenticity, which carries an Angus Young photo insert and the details of your guitar. Each Angus Young SG also comes with a full Gibson Owner's Manual, and instructions on changing strings and truss rod adjustment.