Music - Gibson RD

1978 Gibson RD Custom

I'll be doing a lot of photography stuff very soon, just going to talk about one of my favorite guitars for a moment.

To your left is the 1978 Gibson RD Custom. This was mine, I sold it in 2015 as we we're buying a new home and lawyer fees are a thing. I wish my Gretsch would have sold, but really out of 5 guitars listed this is the only one that got any bites. Very sad. It's a beautiful guitar, a very unique guitar, but something very cool that Gibson has fucked right up with the reissues.

The original RD series launched in 1977, and the top of line the Artist was truly a work of art. Stunning in every respect with some really cool features. Ever since I saw "Choke" use one back when I was going to punk shows in the early millennium I was fascinated and wanted one badly. The Artist had an active EQ, treble boost, bass boost, a compressor, and an expander built into it thanks to some fancy Moog electronics that took up a large part of the back of the guitar. It also had really fancy trim and beautiful inlays in the headstock. The shape was the coolest part for sure.

The Custom, which I owned, had the active EQ for treble and bass, as well as a treble boost (which was just offensive sounding). It had really short frets, a Fender scale length, and was all maple. It was a very bright, powerful sounding guitar. I ended up swapping pickups with a Gibson Dirtyfingers in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan P-Rail in the neck that lived in P90 mode just so I could get rid of the brightness. The sustain and response was incredible and this easily became one of my favorite guitars in my stable. My only issue was the wide fretboard which sometimes wouldn't cooperate with my shorter fingers. But it was awesome and I loved it. Once I got this guitar my PRS Custom 24 and this became my primary guitars.

For the last few years Gibson has been reissuing this guitar. It has received an incredible cult following and it looks like Gibson noticed.The 2018 RD Artist shares only it's shape with the original as far as I am concerned. While it's an incredibly cool shape, it only tells part of the story.

Eastwood RD Artist

First the neck. A big part of the RD for me was the Fender scale length. This gave some extra tension on the strings for down tuning and helped with what feels like a quicker attack. This made the guitar sound that much more aggressive. The neck material also used to be maple with a maple board on the Custom and a ebony board on the Artist. Now it's a standard Gibson 24.75" scale length (as it was in 1979) and it's a mahogany neck with a Granadillio finger board (alternative to rosewood due to harvesting bans)

The body also went from maple to mahogany. While the maple/maple/maple!!! construction was a big part of the guitar I am mostly okay with this change from a modern updating stand point. Mostly because all that maple made the guitar stupidly bright and this really helps smooth that out.top end.

The electronics have been changed up, understandably it's been 40 years. It now has GEM Active pickups. wowie.... no boost circuit, that would have been awesome. Then the dressup is weak too, the headstock inlay just doesn't exist. Really... this reissue is pretty far from the original sharing just the body shape.

But there is good news! There are some other makes recreating this fantastic beast!!

Hagstrom Fantomen

Eastwood Guitars is doing their own version of the RD. This is fairly inexpensive compared to the current Gibson reissue and is in the sub $1000 USD range which is almost half of the Gibson branded version. The body is very close to the original shape. It has a treble boost and active pickups. Offshore made at this price point, and the finishing is not as pretty as the original, but just from the spec sheet alone I'd say it's closer to the original than Gibson's re-imagining. Oh and it's got a maple neck and a basswood body. So it's going to be bright and snappy! Reviews say the electronics should be changed out because they sound like butt, and a few bad reviews on the hardware. It's an offshore, so it would be like buying an Epiphone and upgrading it. Nothing too bad there.

 Hagstrom has also done an RD style guitar that they call the Fantomen. This is essentially the signature model for the guitarist from "Ghost" who at one time played a Gibson RD Artist. Spec sheet shows the 25.5" scale length that I keep harping on as being very important for this guitar. The body shape has a sharper lower horn and slightly warped shape at the back compared to the original. It has passive pickups with coil taps. So nothing fancy electronics wise. All mahogany construction. Price is around $1000. So not bad.

So it has more in common with the Gibson reissue than of the originals, but should not be overlooked.

We cannot talk about RD's without talking about Epiphones signature series reissue.

This is the guitar used by Lee Malia from "Bring me the Horizon". It has a coil tap, a humbucker in the bridge and a P90 in the neck. He I like this one! The control scheme is more Gibson Les Paul than RD. It has some nice inlays, and it is a sharp looking guitar. Mahogany construction with a maple cap, and the 24.75" scale length. This maybe better than the Gibson one spec wise in my opinion, it's for sure prettier. Under $1000. So a very solid alternative to the Gibson too. Comes with a gig bag...which I never understood. Come on Gibson, these things need hard cases!

Dunable R2

The last RD remake I want to touch on is the Dunable R2. They took some liberties with the body design, but it has the same essence of the original. I personally don't like the sharpened lower horn, but overall the rest of it is pretty sweet. This is more of a custom build style guitar, and the price reflects that. You can choose your body work, neck woods, pickups, controls, colour, all the fun stuff. It has the longer scale length but no crazy electronics aside from the phase/coil taps that are available.

I configured it out to be $2800+ with a flame maple top, satin translucent finish, gotoh locking tuners, 2/2 control layout with the coil taps and phase push/pulls, maple/ebony neck, maple/swamp ash body, and block inlays. So it's pricey... at that price, why not get an authentic RD Artist off of Reverb?

This has to be the coolest guitar I've ever owned and will always be an old favorite of mine. I miss it, and I'll own another RD at one point in my life, that is for sure. But for right now I'll enjoy what I got. If you get a chance to play one of the originals, do it, it's fantastic!