The Roots’ Kirk Douglas Unveils New Gibson SG Signature

Gibson announces the new Kirk Douglas SG signature guitar, the Roots’ guitarist’s second collaboration with the manufacturer, available now worldwide.

Douglas has a high-profile spot every night as guitarist for the Roots, the house band on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. And he’s often seen with a Gibson guitar in hand, including a three-pickup Gibson™ SG™ Custom, which forms the blueprint for the new Kirk Douglas SG collaboration.

The guitar is available in two different colors, Inverness Green and Ebony, and lists for $2499.

Watch the interview below as Kirk Douglas talks about his music influences and the creation of his new Gibson Kirk Douglas SG.

https://youtu.be/C3j8V0R5KtA

“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.”

Gibson Kirk Douglas SG signature guitar (Inverness Green)
Gibson Kirk Douglas SG signature guitar (Ebony)

“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.”

Kirk Douglas with his Gibson SG Custom Signature (photo courtesy Gibson)

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. Other features include a Kirk Douglas signature "Captain" Lyre Tail Vibrola tailpiece and black Top Hat knobs with metal inserts.

The selling point of this guitar are the three BurstBucker™ humbucking pickups.  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.

Gibson website: https://www.gibson.com/Guitar/USA19H701/Kirk-Douglas-Signature-SG/Inverness-Green

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