Chibson "Angus" SG Mod.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Recently, I ordered a couple of Zero Glide nuts to replace the Tusq XL nuts on my LP Studio and Angus SG, I picked them up from the post office this afternoon and I finally have them here at home with me so I can start working on installing them, here's a pic so you can see what they look like:





These Zero Glide nuts are not your ordinary nuts, they are specially designed for adding what's called a Zero-Fret to a guitar fingerboard, okay so what's so special about that?, from what I've read a Zero Fret offers some advantages over a traditional nut, firstly, with a Zero Fret you no longer have to go through the process of filing nut slots in a nut to the correct depth and shape to get a buzz-free 1st fret action since the Zero Fret automatically sets the 1st fret action correctly for all strings, have you ever tried putting a capo on your guitar just behind the first fret and wondered why the action is suddenly much better for fretting notes?, that's because the first fret is now acting like a nut, the Zero Fret does the same thing.

The other advantage I see is that because the nut slots only keep the strings spaced evenly behind the Zero Fret, you don't get any of that annoying Sitar-Buzzing that traditional nuts can suffer from, the Zero Fret does two jobs at once, it accurately defines the zero-point on the scale length, plus it also sets the 1st fret action, because the string rests on the Zero Fret the energy from the vibrating string gets transferred into the wood better, so open strings should sound virtually identical to fretted notes, once the Zero Glide Nut has been installed on my Angus SG I'll do a new recording for you so stay tuned.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Just finished installing a Zero Glide Nut on my Chibson Angus SG, it seems to be working fine, had to replace the original pickup switch with the one from my PRS SE Custom 24 guitar, the original pickup switch decided to literally fall-apart on me, first time I noticed something was wrong was when I noticed that the SG wasn't sounding quite right, as it turned out what was wrong was that the switch wasn't switching out the neck pickup when the bridge pickup was selected so that instead of just the bridge pickup sounding in one switch position both pickups were sounding in two of the switch positions, so I took the cover off the control cavity and found that part of the pickup switch was a bit loose then the switch came apart, I tried gluing it back together with some super glue but found that the switch didn't work like it was supposed to, so I decided to replace it with the one from the PRS SE Custom 24, this fixed it.


Sometimes I think this Chibson Angus SG must have had some kind of a curse put on it after the number of things I've had to fix on it.


Anyway, stay tuned for a demo clip later on.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Okay, at long last here's a demo clip of my Chibson Angus SG with the installed Entwistle HV58 pickups and Zero Glide Nut installed, I've recorded it clean so you can hear what the pickups sound like.....enjoy!!!


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...G%20Record.wav

[wazkelly]

Hi Doc, they sound really sweet and clean. Not a typical SG sound but that's maybe because I have listened to way too much ACDC and Angus does get a very distinctive tone out of his.

[andrewdosborne]

In addition the sitar buzz has gone, good work Doc. I like the sound of these pickups

Sent from my GT-I9506 using Tapatalk

[DrNomis_44]

@ Wazkelly, For sure and I agree, those Entwistle HV58s definitely have a distinctive tone, sort of like a vintage PAF, I'm liking them so far.


@ andrewdosborne, Definitely, I think I fully exorcised the Sitar-Buzzing from the guitar for good....lol.

[Swanny]

You gotta be happy with that, Doc!

[DrNomis_44]

You gotta be happy with that, Doc!

For sure, I reckon those HV58s sound best with a clean tone and when playing full chords, they'd probably be good for blues tones too.


Come to think of it, I'm actually surprised that those HV58s sound as good as they do, definitely alot better than the stock fake Epiphone pickups did (grainy and a bit dark sounding), they were also a bit microphonic and had a tendency to squeal a bit, the HV58s don't squeal so I'm guessing that they've been wax-dipped or something.


Just so you know, I was using the Bias Desktop Amp Simulator plugin with it's Matchless DC30 preset in FL Studio 12 Producer Edition to record the demo clip.

[ianpoet]

Awesome post DrNomis!,,,I have a question for you. I am about to buy a Chibson Les Paul and instead of dealing with shitty parts that I'm gonna replace anyway and whacky Chinese non-USA metrics, I am just going to send them: a REAL Tuna-O-Matic bridge and tailpiece, grover locking tuners and a Graph Tech Tusq nut for them to install as they build it.
Did the Graph Tech XL Tusq for real Gibsons fit perfectly on your Chibson or will I need to buy a different size nut?
...and any other advice you can give me would surely be appreciated!
Thank you, Ian

[DrNomis_44]

Awesome post DrNomis!,,,I have a question for you. I am about to buy a Chibson Les Paul and instead of dealing with shitty parts that I'm gonna replace anyway and whacky Chinese non-USA metrics, I am just going to send them: a REAL Tuna-O-Matic bridge and tailpiece, grover locking tuners and a Graph Tech Tusq nut for them to install as they build it.
Did the Graph Tech XL Tusq for real Gibsons fit perfectly on your Chibson or will I need to buy a different size nut?
...and any other advice you can give me would surely be appreciated!
Thank you, Ian

Hi Ian,


Since the Zeroglide Nut was a bit over-size, I had to do quite a bit of sanding to get the nut to fit the nut-shelf on my Chibson SG properly, if my memory serves me right, I had to sand-off about 2mm or so from the back of the nut to get it to fit, I also had to sand quite a bit off the ends of the nut because it was a bit to long to fit the neck width, so it's not really a drop-in replacement without some modification to the nut itself, personally I was a bit underwhelmed by the results I got after I had fitted the Zeroglide nut, although it fixed some issues with the original nut, it actually made the tuning-stability of the guitar worse rather than better, contrary to what the maker of the Zeroglide Nut claims, I would put that down to two factors, the softness of the metal used to make the pieces of fretwire included with the Zeroglide nut itself (they really should be made out of something harder, like stainless steel, so that the string doesn't prematurely wear a groove in them which causes tuning stability issues from the resulting friction), and the back-angle of the headstock causing too much downward pressure on the zero-fret.

You might get better results with a properly cut and fitted bone nut, I installed a Zeroglide nut on my LP Studio guitar but ended up getting it replaced with a properly cut and fitted Bone nut which I think works much better, the extra bit of money spent to get a Luthier to cut and fit a Bone nut to your Chibson guitar is well worth it even though it may cost a bit.

I have to be honest with you, looking back, I'm a bit underwhelmed by the build quality of my Chibson SG, the neck pickup is not quite centred properly and there's a raised fret causing some issues with fret-buzzing that needs addressing, the guitar has some other issues that needs addressing too, I may see if I can fix them later on this year, maybe you might get a guitar that exhibits better build quality though, also there are some legal issues with buying one of these Chibson guitars since the makers of these guitars are actually committing offenses under copyright laws, hence the reason why you hear about a lot of Chibson guitar buyers complaining that their guitars got confiscated by US Customs after being imported, have you considered buying a PBG LP kit instead?