SC-450 P90 GT Classic Series : No Collection is Complete Without an LP with P90's

This gold top is the real thing. How they do it for this kind of money, I have no idea. Getting the finish right on a clear coated gold metallic is the most challenging of all. They got a 99 out of 100. You see the challenge is that when you prep for your final coats of metallic under clear even the tiniest of lines will show through. Right next to the edge of the neck there is an area so tiny you would need a magnifying glass to see it, but if you get it in just the right light and angle, you can see some miniscule lines. It would be easier for me to simply say, the fit and finish on this guitar is superb, and it is. The gloss is a mile deep.

It plays fantastic and sounds even better. I have a 1966 Fender Telecaster my Dad bought new for me back then, and I still have, and in order to get around the crazy feedback when stepping on a distortion pedal with the factory unwaxed pickups, I bought a early 1960's Gibson SG Les Paul from a friend that had a warped neck, and took the neck pickup out of it, and put it in the center position on my Tele, and the P90's in this HB SC-450 P90 GT sound EXACTLY like one from that 1961 SG P90. No loss of quality there at all.

If I had to get critical, I'd have to mention that the nut, although cut superbly, was positioned a tiny bit favoring the 1st string. Consequently, when doing a pull off on the first or second fret it would slide off of the guitar. It didn't do that in a sweep pulling on the string, only when you do a grab and pull for the single note. I could pop the nut off and reposition it slightly which would easily fix it, but why bother, it plays perfectly the way it is, and I almost never do a dead standing pull off on the first two frets of the first string.

Staying in tune? I have to say that Harley Benton in their genius very simply solved the problem typical of the Gibson splayed out headstock on this one. They took what would normally be a very big wide nut, and only filed/cut the very top of the nut, leaving the steep angle off the back of the nut alone. The string never even touches the back side of the nut. That creates the same effect as having a tiny-thin nut with the exiting part of it wide open thereby eliminating the sharp edge, and deep trough of the typical Les Paul nut and the ensuing tuning problems; this guitar stays crazy good in tune. It's the only one of my LP's that does so without a String Butler. When you bend/pull on the G string especially in an LP it rarely returns to pitch; this one does superbly. How would HB know such a superb solution to a multi-decade old problem? My hats off to you guys. What a great idea.

P90's have a unique tone/flavor. For a single coil it is especially full bodied. I love the humbucker bark and bite, and I love the fullness with great mids in the P90's. Having both in your collection is a must.

One last thing I want to say is that this neck is superbly flat, and the frets are so precise I can get the action down even lower than my preferred spacing of 2/32’s between the top of the 12th fret, and the bottom of the string. This baby really flies. With my light gauge strings it almost plays itself.