EMERGENCY PSA: OMG - LEARN HOW TO USE YOUR GUITAR WITH UNPOTTED PICKUPS!

Kudos to those of you have Custombucker-equipped Gibson Custom Shop guitars out there and gig without any issues.

I had the "pleasure" of sharing the stage a couple weeks ago at a very important gig with some dude who really struggled embarrassingly to rein-in the microphonic feedback from the Custombuckers on his top-end Murphy Lab "aged" blue Custom Shop '64 SG Standard, and it was perplexing to say the least.

Most players I've ever ran across who are dumping over $6K on an instrument or piece of equipment generally know what they're getting before buying it. Every spec list on the Custom Shop SG's clearly states they use Custombuckers, and Gibson is pretty clear these are unpotted pickups like the originals on which they're based (which is one of the appeals, in some ways). I didn't realize there were still people out there who don't know that an unpotted humbucker (especially a covered one) can be more prone to squealing under certain circumstances, and arguably, if someone's ever gigged or rehearsed with said instrument at performance volume, one would already know that you can't go combining high volume AND super-high gain with it, especially when one is required to be within 5 feet or so from the amp for the entire performance. But I've comfortably played mine with my Marshall JTM-30 at stage volume and only when I goosed it to kind of ridiculous amounts of preamp gain did it become harder to manage.

Granted, this particular fellow in question was also using some serious overkill of a floor unit for simply going from clean to distorted (since I was trying to preserve my remaining hearing I avoided risking going over to confirm whether it was a Headrush or Helix, but it was one of those kind of things) into a perfectly nice Marshall 2x12 combo that would've provided a perfect meat-and-potatoes, more musical clean AND distorted tone on its own--or if one MUST use one's fancy footpedal, why not bypass the preamp and just go into the power-amp-in since they're obviously using some kind of IR/modeler anyway??? Anyhow, it just seemed like a rig thrown together haphazardly in an attempt to impress the 'spensive-geetar guys, the tube-amp guys AND the tech-savvy players, somehow failing to do anything other than annoy every other player onstage when in between songs or during quiet parts we kept being bombarded by tinnitus-inducing squealing. When your musical director and listeners are squinting and getting more annoyed, it does not make for a fun or productive evening of entertainment.

To make matters even more secondhand embarrassing, when we said something to him between songs, he acted like it wasn't him, and the looks on the other musicians' faces were epic. When I noted that I had a newer version of the very same guitar, same setup, same pickups, and noted "yeah, you have to watch the amount of distortion you use with those Custombuckers, they're not wax-potted", his response was "huh? It's a Murphy Lab, it has 'Murphy pickups' in it..."

I politely told him they were indeed, "Murphy-aged Custombuckers", but they're the same as the ones in my glossy M2M SG, and if he backed down the distortion a tad or used the noise gate on his pedal it might help. No response; he looked at me the same way the dog used to look at the answering machine when he heard my voice on it and I was standing right beside him. For a second I held my breath because he low key looked like he was about to stroke out and I was starting to internally panic because I thought I'd broken him.

You could tell by dude's custom bike shop couture and hipster emo Ned Flanders moustache/haircut/glasses that maybe there was a combination of disposable income (probably "family money") and wanting to give a pro "impression" of some sort, but we weren't surprised to later find out he really wasn't ever a gigging musician and had not played with a band but once or twice ever--not knocking inexperience at all, we all start somewhere, but spend some time learning at least how to use that fancy gear, bro! I think that's what bothered me the most, because I honestly don't believe he ever cranked that setup beyond "3AM-in-the-bedroom (so as not to wake the roommates/family)" levels, if he ever used any of it together at all, which is again, debatable.

Sorry about the rant, it was just super wild to me to see someone have gear that is capable of sounding great, but when used improperly can sound like hot garbage, and I just couldn't believe the level of denial when we were trying to be helpful and at least save some folks in the audience a headache (or keep them from walking out). There are plenty of folks who are successfully gigging with their Custombuckers WITHOUT breaking glass or causing permanent hearing loss for audiences and bandmates, and it's just just insane to think someone dumps over $10K into a rig without taking the time to learn how to properly use it.

Don't make Emo Ned's mistake and get up onstage with a rig that you've never used before and/or just don't know how to operate, and PLEASE, for the love of God, if you're going to buy a guitar with unpotted pickups, know their limits, how to dial in your tone and if need be, how to simply use a noise gate in the event of using the guitar for super-saturated distorted sounds. It'll keep you from being embarrassed, or from feeling awkward and needing to gaslight and deny when your fellow musicians approach you about your sonic abuse of their sense of hearing.