I have admittedly been so damn busy with work that I’ve been a bit remiss about surfing around for gear. Feeling that I haven’t been keeping this blog current with gear, I went looking, and came across this guitar on the Gibson web site, the L6S, a reissue of the original 70’s L6S, which was itself a solid-body version of the venerable L6. But like the 2009 Nighthawk reissue, this new version sports some pretty cool features.
Pickups are a 490R in the neck and 498T in the bridge. Some folks don’t like these, but I’ve always liked these pickups (though I might like the 57’s a bit more). Body is solid maple with a maple neck. The guitar comes in either an Antique Natural finish with a maple fretboard (as shown to the left) or a Silver Burst and a baked maple fretboard. Kind of a basic guitar, but the kicker on this is the 6-position chicken-head pickup selector. Here’s what each position does:
Selector Position:
- Bridge Humbucker
- Bridge Single Coil
- Both Single
- Both Humbucking
- Neck Single
- Neck Humbucker
Very, very intriguing, that’s for sure, and convenient. I suppose it could be argued that push-pull pots would do the trick, but to get these different combos, you’d have to manipulate two knobs. This is a simple turn of a dial. Quite nice. I’m very intrigued by this guitar – enough so to try to find one to play. Good thing I don’t have the money right now because I’m intrigued enough that I would buy one just to try it. 🙂
For a little history, Santana played an original back in the 70’s, as did Rich Williams of Kansas. Here’s a video of Rich Williams playing an original back in 1975:
Street price for this is not bad at $1599-$1699. I bet you could find a used shop version for even less. Nice.
Guitar Gear 