NGD - Gibson G45 Standard 2020

[PineMarten]

I've been moving some instruments around, trying to have a smaller stable of stuff that suits me better, and slope shoulder Gibson style acoustics are a thing I've enjoyed whenever I've played one. I was in a local shop with the intention of trying out the Faded series J35 and spotted this guy used for a lot less. Playing them side by side I liked this one better and it was well below my budget, so that was that. This model hadn't been on my radar as one to consider and I was expecting to stretch my budget a little more, but playing in the shop I just gelled with it.
It's a G45 Standard from 2020, after they changed from the Richlite fingerboards and bridges to rosewood. The back and sides are walnut and slightly slimmer than a typical slope shoulder, but it's still around the depth of an OM or similar, not like some slimline stage electro acoustic. It still has reasonable oomph on the bottom strings. I'm enjoying how it sounds, there's enough character and vibe to be enjoyable but not so much that it dictates how I play it. I can flip around between old folk-blues alternating thumb, faux Jansch fingerpicking, flatpicked song accompaniment or melodic jazzy noodling without any of it feeling out of place on this guitar.
There are just a couple of things I intend to tweak. The setup just needed a little truss rod adjustment and the nut slots lowering to be pretty good. The wood print formica truss rod cover bothers me to an unreasonable extent against the actual walnut headstock facing, so I've swapped that to a plain black one. The other thing is the Fishman Sonitone, I posted about that in the amplification forum, but the gist is that I'd rather have a simple passive bridgeplate pickup, a bone saddle with nothing underneath it and as little extra stuff inside the guitar as I can.






At the moment I'm considering string gauges. It came with D'addario phosphor bronze of an unknown gauge, but lighter feeling than I wanted. I have Nickel Bronze medium on there right now and those are quite nice, though I know there seems to be a conventional wisdom of using lights on a Gibson.

[Goat Mick]

I went on a string search mission for my '59 J-45 a couple of years ago and found that I really didn't hear a tone difference from Extra Lights up to Mediums on that guitar. I settled on Light Gauge (12's) and have been happy ever since.

[SFCRetired]

Congratulations. I think these guitars are interesting, although I have never played one.

[foxo]

Nice new guitar! Congrats.

When the image was downloading and I saw the roughcast on the wall I suspected you were from the UK. Nice to see another Scot on the forum. I’m in Fife myself but will be moving to Perth next month.

[abn556]

I have tried a set of Lights 12-54s and Custom Lights 11-52s on my new J-45 Koa. Both sounded fine and played well. I am getting too old to fight heavy strings. I want them to feel good when playing.

[PineMarten]

Originally Posted by foxo

Nice new guitar! Congrats.

When the image was downloading and I saw the roughcast on the wall I suspected you were from the UK. Nice to see another Scot on the forum. I’m in Fife myself but will be moving to Perth next month.

It's the classic 80s flat roof extension on an interwar ex-cooncil place! Not the prettiest, but it'll do. Nice sunny kitchen to sit at the table in and play.

[PineMarten]

Originally Posted by Goat Mick

I went on a string search mission for my '59 J-45 a couple of years ago and found that I really didn't hear a tone difference from Extra Lights up to Mediums on that guitar. I settled on Light Gauge (12's) and have been happy ever since.

Putting the mediums on this one makes me wonder if the too-light ones that came on it were an extra light set rather than regular 12-53 lights. They didn't sound bad but I was overplaying them. The mediums have their charm, but I might go back down a step on the next string change. Maybe the 12-56 Bluegrass set of the Nickel Bronze.

[Nick84]

Nice Gibby there congrats! I played one of the newer G-45s with stock strings and thought it sounded great!

[jricc]

Congrats on your new Gibson! Very nice looking, enjoy!

[marty bradbury]

Beautiful guitar! Enjoy!

[PineMarten]

String update: I gave the mediums a day, and went down to a 12-53 Nickel Bronze set. I could really drive it hard and get a lot of sound out with the mediums, but I don't really do a lot of that. The lights have more of an easygoing mellow woodiness that reminds me of Gibson acoustic sounds on a myriad of records, and I feel like I lost some expressiveness with the mediums. Also, this guitar has a very tall saddle and not an overly heavy build, I feel the top gets working just fine with lights.

[rollypolly]

Congrats on the cool guitar! I recently picked up its brethren , a G-45 generation. So far only have tried Earthwood 80/20 lights which sound good. I want to try monels next.

[zombywoof]

Wasn't this the model those guys at Driftwood Guitars reviewed which included cutting it in half?

[PineMarten]

Originally Posted by zombywoof

Wasn't this the model those guys at Driftwood Guitars reviewed which included cutting it in half?

That was the Generation series G45 after the Standard and Studio were discontinued. I have mixed feelings about that video - nothing he says is factually wrong, but he's really working the YouTube game for engagement, and somewhat missing the point of what Gibson acoustics are. Some of the things that were his major criticisms are things that have always been present on the workingman's end of Gibson acoustics since at least the 1940s - braces not notched into linings, glue squeeze-out inside the box, silkscreen headstock logo instead of inlay etc, and those are a lot of good sounding and successful instruments.
I think he decided from the outset that going for a big established name would drive people to his channel and get him some sort of reputation as a straight talking iconoclast, and it all seems a bit self aggrandising and silly. But that's how you build a YouTube channel, I guess.