niki

i have to confess, i spoke w/o any real knowledge on gibsons. i use to have a 78
custom yrs ago, but thats really the end of my experiences with gibson.
i want a lespaul to play and not collect. there has got to be ways around this tuning issue. i mean ive seen several players in concert use them and they werent retuning.
look how agressive the late gary moore was with bending, he didnt tune up all the time either. the whole thing is confusing. i hate to think that when i buy my gibby im going to have to go through this shiot as well. i know my 78 didnt have issues. maybe i was one of the lucky folks i dont know. theres got to be an answer to this. maybe i should go join the gibby forum and see what their opinions are on this and how they are dealing with it.
i wont mention my fender forum here as i dont want to get involved in a bashing match, im to old for that lol. i just want to get to the very bottom of this issue and report my findings niki. surely the gibby owners in the world arent completely helpless in their
choice of guitars. there has got to be an answer somewhere wouldnt you think? im just asking cause im pretty clueless at this point on this subject.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

I looked around a few different forums (including Gibson ones) and people most often say it is because the nuts are cut poorly. A lot of people recommend having the nut slots worked on by a luthier and lubing the nut slots with various things (graphite, big bend's sauce, etc.). To be fair, if I had brought my SG to a quality luthier and had them work on it, the tuning stability may have been much improved. It just didn't sit well with me that I needed to take these extra steps on a relatively expensive guitar in order to get it to stay in tune - especially once I started looking around (google "Gibson Tuning Problems") and found out that this appears to be a relatively common problem.

In my case at least, it was almost like I was in "honeymoon" mode when I first got the SG - it sounded so good and was so nicely built that I overlooked having to tune it all the time. After playing a few gigs with it and having to constantly re-tune during shows, it got old quickly.

I am happy with how everything worked out...I have a new guitar that is awesome, and I don't have any interest in saving a few thousand for a LP Standard anymore so I am saving myself some money

oh you aint savin nuthin pal, the fender g.a.s will get you soon enough and those savings will be spent up rather quickly. been there and still doing it.
"Hello, im Way Cool, and im an addict. g.a.s addict that is.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Haha....very true. I am just trying to delude myself into thinking I don't need any more guitars. But I could use a new amplifier...

Regarding the nut, what I'd look at doing would be to cut the slots for the D,G and less so for the A&B in a triangle shape. Thin at the fretboard side, wide at the headstock side.

That may allow the way the strings fan out to the tuners to be less of a factor. What I really think is happening is that slot wear is occuring more towards the sides of the slots than it would do on straight string path guitars.
I agree that there are some beauts out there, that just don't have this issue to anywhere near the degree that other Gibbo's suffer.
What I can't believe is that it's some mystical force that blights one guitar and blesses another. There has to be a reason for it, or a number of factors manifesting as one problem.

What I'd look to do as a interim fix would be to get some fine wet/dry paper. Fold it in half then lightly rub the inside of the nut slots with it. This is cleaning, not modding. It will help get rid of any rubbish like that Nut Sauce thats got gunky in the slot. (I use very waxy dental floss. Far better, neater and smells nicer too).
If you are very adventurous/foolhardy/desperate and willing to chance it. Try widening the headstock side of the nut slots with a needle file. Just a tad, just to see if it makes the slightest bit of difference.
Be carefull not to widen the fretboard side of the slot.

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No no and no

I agree Martian...and over the years I've had the pleasure of playing some fine instruments...and even owned a few!
I get my old Les Paul Custom out sometimes and play it for awhile and then put it away.I owned a nice old SG primarily for slide like Duane Allman used and it worked well,I didn't sound as good as Duane ....but I will always play Strats as my main guitars,when they are maintained and setup correctly,nothing beats them for what I do.

I'm going to chime in here, even though my knowledge of the minutae of guitar building is minimal. I just bought an SG '61 Reissue, both because of the great reviews it gets and because I wanted a classic humbucker-equipped guitar in a slim body profile. I also have a new American Std Strat, which I love dearly.

This SG is a beautiful guitar, no question. And with its slim neck profile, it plays great. But right away it had tuning issues, usually going out of tune on the sharp side. I checked some Gibson forums and got some advice on what to do. This consisted of changing the strings and lubing the nut slots, which I did. Things are better but not perfect.

After reading some of the posts in this thread I am, of course, now questioning my decision to buy this axe. It is a $2,000 guitar and I don't think I'm being unreasonable in expecting it to perform well out of the box. The so-called neck wow is there in spades, and I would not have believed that had I not seen it myself, but this thing flexes like a strand of spaghetti, and the tuning fluctuates when it does flex. Excessive movement while playing is all it takes to induce it. After I played it for a week, I picked up my Sienna Strat, and I couldn't believe how rock solid it felt. So much for the myth that bolt-on necks aren't as strong as glued necks.

I still have time to return the SG, but I'm waffling on that decision, because it's so pretty and it does play well. I also have an LP Std that plays great, is solid, and has no tuning issues.

Sorry for the ramble. Comments/opinions welcome.

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American Standard Strat, Sienna Sunburst
Gibson Les Paul, Desert Burst
Gibson SG '61 Reissue, Heritage Cherry

okay,somebody tell me what "wow" stands for...I'm slow.

It's flexing in the neck, from front to back. It causes the guitar's tuning to fluctuate. The SG I described above is particularly prone to it, due to the neck attaching to the body far up the neck.

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American Standard Strat, Sienna Sunburst
Gibson Les Paul, Desert Burst
Gibson SG '61 Reissue, Heritage Cherry

I can only speak from my own experience in owning a Gibson SG, as I also do not have much knowledge in building or setting up guitars (stringing them and playing them is about it!).

If I could do it over, I would have returned the guitar while I was still able to. But it looked so nice, sounded and played so great that I overlooked the tuning issues for a while, hoping that they would improve over time (I don't know why). But the tuning issues remained and became all the more apparent at a couple of gigs I played when I had to tune up every other song.

I agree with you - guitars that cost this much should play well right out of the box. I have owned Squiers and MIM Fenders that held tune much better than my SG (my MIM strats are rock solid). You shouldn't have to see a luthier for repair work on new guitars costing over $1K.

I got rid of my SG and picked up a American Select HSS Strat with a Mahogany Body and couldn't be happier. It sounds and plays fantastic and holds its tune like all the Fenders I've played. It obviously sounds different than a SG, but with the humbucker in the bridge and S-1 switch, I can get tons of different tones out of the guitar and have no doubt it will work great as my main guitar for shows.

It's just my opinion, but I would return it and get something else. As much as I love the tone of Gibsons, I will never buy another one. If you poke around the net, you will find plenty of people with all different kinds of Gibson electric guitars who have tuning problems. At some point I might pick up a PRS Les Paul style guitar (if I come into A LOT of cash to blow), but that's as close as I'll come to another Gibson.

There are a good few niggles with Gibson guitars. However you can say the same about Fender too. Single coil hum, or on the gibson side, muddy neck pickups. Bad neck construction or sloppy neck pockets.
Neither crowd has is all right.
I could list the reasons I can't find a les paul I think is good enough to warrant me opening my wallet. But that would just be inflammatory, so I won't. Needless to say theres some LP owner out there who has equally valid reasons for not buying a strat.

Now you have the guitar, learn to love it. Learn to work with it and don't let it be a burden.

Their decent guitars, plenty of people get along using em. The difference is, they don't let these flaws bother them. Or have learnt to work round em.

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No no and no

I love my Les Paul for nostalgic reasons and it sounds good,it was my main axe for many years,and I really like the way the look,but there's no way I would pay the prices they want for them now.
A Strat was just made to be worked on if it has a problem,and they're tough.