Gibson has announced the new Kirk Douglas SG signature guitar. The new signature guitar marks the second instrument collaboration with the American-made guitar brand and Captain Kirk Douglas, guitarist for the multiple GRAMMY-Award winning hip-hop group The Roots. Kirk’s newest Gibson signature guitar illustrates Kirk’s own modern take on the classic style known as the Gibson SG. Today, January 19 marks the release of the new Gibson Captain Kirk Douglas SG; available worldwide on gibson.com.
“What I love about the Gibson SG is I am able to get my Les Paul tones and I’m able to get the single coil pickup tones, this guitar is extremely versatile, and by utilizing the pull up feature on each volume knob you can get a lot of tones,” says Kirk Douglas. “I find with the SG you are able to get a lot of different musical colors, all out of this one guitar.”
“Captain Kirk Douglas is a talented vocalist, guitarist, all-around musician, and Gibson Alliance member who has taken a classic design such as the Gibson SG, and modified it with modern concepts that fit his playing style,” says Cesar Gueikian of Gibson. “It’s been an incredible journey for us and this guitar is a perfect example of how we put the Gibson Innovation Lab to work in service of our artists and the outcome, in this case, is pretty epic; we are all in love with this new signature SG.”
As the guitarist for The Roots, the beloved house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC, Captain Kirk Douglas has developed a well-earned reputation as a stellar player. His guitar collection includes several Gibson models, but arguably the best is his three-pickup Gibson SG Custom, which is now commemorated in the new Kirk Douglas signature SG from Gibson USA. The guitar features non-locking Keystone tuners, a mahogany neck and body, rosewood fretboard with 22 medium jumbo frets and large block acrylic inlays, a Graph Tech nut, ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge and Kirk Douglas signature "Captain" Lyre Tail Vibrola tailpiece, black Top Hat knobs with metal inserts, and three BurstBucker humbucking pickups. Like the Captain himself, the pickups and controls on his SG are incredibly versatile. On a basic level, they operate somewhat similarly to a two-pickup SG, but with significant added capabilities. The three-way toggle switch selects the bridge pickup, neck pickup, or both. Each of these pickups has its own volume control, and each is equipped with a push/pull pot that switches from humbucker to single coil when the switch is pulled out. A single master tone knob located in the usual lead tone control position, is provided, and where you’d normally expect to find the second tone control, an additional volume control (again, with a push/pull switch for coil tapping) is installed. This controls the middle pickup and can be used to blend its signal in with the other (one or two) pickups, regardless of how the three-way pickup selector switch is positioned. This means you can run the neck and/or bridge pickups alone or together, the neck and middle, bridge and middle, or all three pickups simultaneously, and at any relative volume amounts desired. Even better--once you have dialed up the exact balance you want, you can adjust the overall output level of the entire guitar with the pickguard-mounted master volume control.
Watch and share the interview below as Kirk Douglas talks about his music influences and the creation of his new Gibson Kirk Douglas SG: HERE.
