Thanks for all the help!
No one discussed the neck I'm looking at specifically. I have huge hands, so I'm looking at the soloist neck that comes on the HP line (supposedly wider?). Sorry I didn't mention that in the initial post.
This all may be moot as the 36 months thing went away and it's now 24. Still, in the HP line, if SGs are still good option for killer Gibson tone, I could swing this fine little article for $45 a month. I'm not sure I like a sunburst SG. Doesn't look quite right to me. Maybe cherry or black (my other two guitars are red already). These have mini humbuckers, though. Differences?
More information...for the same price, I can get the "faded" series, and they have the 450/490 pickups instead of "mini humbuckers". Or are those the ones I should be avoiding? Lots of perks on this one, too. White edged pickguard looks nicer, adjustable 0 fret (is this worth something? Looks like it would make setting your action easier...), and those G-Force things that I'd probably leave the battery out of unless there's some great advantage to them...I can tune a guitar.
Appreciate all the help, guys. Yeah, my ego can take the gold on white cause there wouldn't be a lot of other people seeing it (and it didn't cost extra), but it's moot, as I won't be buying the one with the coil splits. Hate to sound like I'm waffling on this, but I just didn't have enough information to ask the right questions in the first post. Glad to know about the pickups! Sad that I can't get 36 months and a nicer guitar, but the SG looks very nice.
None of this is true. Not a one of my three SGs exhibit any of this. To be fair, I wear my guitars low, right over my junk, and I don't have a gut making it stick out and lean forward. SGs are no more tuning unstable than a Les Paul. They both kind of suck due to Gibson's open book split headstock shape and break angle.
This is very true.
A lot of people complain about SGs being neck heavy, so there must be something to it for many people to feel that way. I doubt all of those people are just regurgitating second-hand information. It just doesn't happen to me. Maybe it's from being slung low, maybe it's just my posture in general. And I even use slick straps. I hate sticky straps.
One of my buddies plays LPs exclusively, and he says the same thing. He hates SGs because there's no neck joint heel for reference. He says "it's all neck!"
SGs are neck heavy. The center of gravity is all skewed.
However when one has it slung down low at "cock rock" height, the neck is angled more so than at waist height. So in essence you are altering the center of gravity by altering the pivot point.
A les paul has a body significantly heavier than the neck and the strap attaches at the point midway between the 16th and 17th frets.
The SG attaches at the heel roughly at the 22nd fret. Also, the weight of the body is not very much.
Hence nose-dive.
I've got one of those; a 2014 SGJ with the special happy anniversary logo inlayed at the 12th fret. Glad to hear that you can go play it - it's a great guitar but the neck is a little chunky (IMO) and it'd be worth putting your hands on before you commit to buying. All things considered, it's a great guitar at a fair enough price but it's not an LP. May nip the GAS bug in the bud for now though.
, but I'm going to go to the local (90 miles away) Guitar Center/Sam Ash (they're right across the street from each other) Saturday to see what I like in SG/LP playablity land. If my wife has her way, I'll be buying new stone for the kitchen floor and some nice backsplash tiling, but I reminded her that she just bought a new $20k Altima SL and a $600 Galaxy 7...It's just about my turn.