SBS Guitars

[littlebadboy]

Thought of sharing. I know they're not popular in these parts, but Guitar Fetish has an SBS line of guitars. I'm not a fan of the relic job, but with the superstrat body and reverse headstock, I thought of making a poor man's version of Nuno's N4 out of it.

Considering it has a good spec sheet and orig Floyd Rose... I may be GAS'ing.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Thought of sharing. I know they're not popular in these parts, but Guitar Fetish has an SBS line of guitars. I'm not a fan of the relic job, but with the superstrat body and reverse headstock, I thought of making a poor man's version of Nuno's N4 out of it.

Considering it has a good spec sheet and orig Floyd Rose... I may be GAS'ing.

Make sure you are reading the spec sheet correctly:

"Roasted finish" does not mean it's roasted maple. It is non-roasted maple that they have finished to look like roasted maple, so it will neither have any of the stability benefit of roasted maple, nor the benefit of being a raw wood finish. "genuine" Floyd Rose is not "original" Floyd Rose. There are some really crappy genuine Floyd Rose tremolos made. If your goal is to strip the finish back to bare wood, my guess is that is going to be a MUCH bigger chore than appears. It's the oddity that expensive guitar finishes are the easiest to remove/offer the least protection and cheaper finishes are REALLY difficult to remove/offer the most protection. It will likely require more than just going at it with an orbital sander. Also, be aware that once the finish is removed you're going to have a 3-piece alder body, which probably ain't gonna look awesome.

 

[Sleezy E]

I can't speak to their guitars, but I've bought a lot of hardware (tuners, bridges) from GF over the years.

Not top tier for sure, but it's pretty decent stuff. Waaay better than some of the overseas ebay crap.

 

[scole]

FWIW, SBS stands for Steve Brown Sound (as in Steve Brown from Trixter). He has promoted this and he seems like a stand up dude so I would expect these guitars to be passable. I wouldn’t expect these to be better than a Charvel or Suhr but most people wouldn’t stake their reputation on garbage.

I’d be willing to take a gamble on one, if not for the relic finishes which I’m not on a fan of, in general. Even if the trem is a Floyd Rose Special or 1000, you could swap it out for a Gotoh 1996T for about another $100 and have a really good trem (checking the post spacing, obviously).

 

[Eagle]

It is pretty bad. It is exactly what you would expect for the money not a bargain at all. Any talk of Charvel or Suhr is laughable.

 

[Jaji]

I have purchased 2 SBS guitars. The first was a "reliced" Jazzmaster/Mustang style and the second was similar to the pic at the top of this thread, but in metallic purple - oh, and no relic stuff.

The "relic" finish is pretty much crap. You can tell they just bumped against a grinder wheel a couple times. Way too uniform for a genuine relic look.

I can't say I agree with the description of the roasted necks. When I've removed the tuners, I can clearly see through the hole and the wood is the exact same color all the way through. Tone King also did a drill test and the shavings were the same shade as the top of the wood. If it's not real roasted maple, I don't much care. Because....

I have over 20 other guitars. Most of them have been customized in some way. My life long favorite has been a Mexican Strat that the only original piece on the guitar now is the body. That guitar and I bonded better than any other I have ever owned or played. That was until I got my first SBS. The 20-inch radius sounded insane to me. I typically have a 9-16 compound radius neck and thought that was the end all for my hands. Nope, the 20 blew that out of the water. It just fits my hand so much better. Then came the pickups. I have been a massive Duncan fan for decades. These SBS pickups have more low mid growl than any other pickup I've used. There's just some serious b*lls to the tone. The tapped coil isn't as good as a Duncan, but it's good enough for the few times I need it. The pre-wired treble bleed circuit saved me a headache, too. I tend to put those on every guitar I have.

For the money, I haven't found a better guitar. No, it's not top of the line, but for me, SBS guitars have the feel and tone I want. I would highly recommend them to anyone.

For the record, the second SBS I purchased was from their "Custom" line, which is the cheapest of the 3. No relic crap and they swap out the Alnico pickups with ceramic as well as using a Floyd "licensed" tremolo instead of the genuine Floyds on their other 2 lines. I happened to have a Schaller Lockmeister on hand, so I swapped out the licensed Floyd for the Schaller. Personally, I really like the ceramic pickups. The first guitar came with alnicos and I actually swapped those out for the ceramic versions. Smoother high end to my ears.

In the end, we all like what we like. I wish these were available in stores so others could try before they buy. But then again, I am the only guitarist in my area that has one (two!), and that's ok by me as well.