Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: July 18 2003, 01:34 |
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The SG guitars which Mike Oldfield used were P90 equipped Les Paul/SG Juniors.
Epiphone used to make a similar model, though it was right at the bottom end of their range, and so I can imagine that it may not have been the most inspiring guitar to play. Counting against it most was its bolt on neck - the Gibson version has a glued in neck, which tends to give a guitar more of a smooth sustaining sound (at least, this is how they're perceived - the reality could be a little more complex, and depends on the transmission of vibrations across the joint, but let's not go there!). I would actually have recommended having a look at their Les Paul Special double cutaway, which had a glued in neck and two P90 pickups, and all for a very reasonable price, but judging by their website, it appears that they don't make that model any longer.
Likewise Gibson were, last year, making an SG junior model which was quite reasonably priced, but they too appear to have been discontinued.
If you really want a guitar of that kind with a P90 pickup, you could have a look at a Gordon Smith SG1 with the optional P90 pickup. They are very well made guitars (hand built in the UK) and the prices are very reasonable (that particular combination would cost you £450). You could alternatively have a look at their GS1 model, which you could get in a double cutaway shape with P90 pickup, which might prove a tiny bit less expensive.
The price of them is more than the Epiphones, but the quality is up there with Gibson (though Gordon Smiths tend to be less fancy looking).
Not too long ago, second hand SG Juniors used to be available for not too much money. Prices of them have gone through the roof in the past ten years or so though, making them ones more for the serious vintage enthusiast rather than musicians looking for an honest, value for money working tool (for the price of an old SG junior now, it would be possible to commission a luthier to build a unique guitar to your own specifications...or indeed an SG Junior replica for less than the price of a real old one, and probably just as good sounding...well...you pays your money and you takes your choice, as they say)
Mike has used many guitars with humbucking pickups, though - Epiphone's G400 SG Standard replica would give you all of those sounds (as used on much of Incantations, for example, not to mention his more recent work), plus the advantages of the SG shape (great high fret access). I'd imagine you could get something very similar to the Ommadawn sound from one if you worked at it.
My advice with guitars like Epiphones is that the quality control is not likely to be the most wonderful (though some say that about Gibson too...), so it's probably worth looking round to find a good one.
They seem to be quite reasonable guitars, though. A friend of mine who wanted to take up the electric guitar bought an Epiphone Special II (a Les Paul shaped thing with a slab body and bolt on neck) - a very basic guitar, but it seemed quite decent, especially considering how cheap it was.
There are of course various options from other brands. When buying far eastern guitars, it's not always worth paying much attention to the brand name which is on it, as a huge number of them come from the same factories (the main one would be Samick in Korea, who make a staggering number of guitars - I forget the exact figure, but they make somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of all guitars sold in the world). Some of the decision depends on whether you mind buying un-licensed copies, of course.
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