G&L SC-2

These are rare, just 650 made before they were discontinued. It's interesting that they have been reissued with a hefty price tag. I chose to payless and go vintage. Mine is a 1984 model that has a more "Strat-like" body shape and upgraded tuners. Other than that it has 2 MFD P-90 like pickups, a volume control, a tone control, and 3-way switch.

The sound of this guitar is magnificent. This was introduced as a "student-level" guitar like Fenders Mustang or Duo-Sonic, but there is nothing low-end about the sound. At low volume it can be sweet and melodious, but crank it and it growls wonderfully. Think Les Paul or ASAT with P-90's.

Cobalt blue with lots of scrathes and dings, but everything works. Neck in great shapeand the frets were all good.

I bought this 2 months ago and it was pretty beaten up and fitted with rusty strings. It was a guy's first band guitar. Now that he could by "good equipment" this spent the last years of its life with him on a shelf in his garage. I cleaned it off, put on new strings and we were playin'. With the years off neglect, I think its testimony to G&L's quality that that's all I need to do.

NA

I play Blues and wanted a guitar equipped with P-90's because I love the sound.I also liked the idea of getting a vintage guitar so I went to Leo. I thought of a ASAT Special, but I've always found them and Tele's generally neck-heavy so that when your not palying or holding it, it tips down. This guitar looks like it was drag behind the band bus, but plays great and is well balanced.

New 2009, alder body, mahogany neck-rosewood fretboard 22 frets, 25.5" Fender scale, one volume and tone, three way switch for two passive p-90 pickups, Fender Mustang slab body style, G&L fulcrum floating bridge, Neck is medium with medium jumbo frets, No case, but very nice G&L gig bag

This is an in-betweener guitar. Not a Strat, Tele or Gibson. It's inbetween all of those. Fuller than a tele, not as sparkly as a strat, less fat than a Gibson. Has more of a Brian May sound to my ears. Likes peddles, clean neck pickup is nice woman and or jazz sound. Pickups are well balanced with each other.

The fit and finish is typical G&L, very good.

My personal set-up and intonation requires me to adjust every guitar I get. I use a micrometer so everything is to the .001" and a Peterson digital strobe tuner for the intonation.

The nut was fine the way it came from the factory.

Reliability and Durability is the question?

Typical G&L quality means it wont break, ever. Atomic blast? Maybe.

N/A Warranty? Why?

I have been playing for 42 years. Having owned 3 other G&Ls this guitar came as I expected it would come.
I like the size and color of the guitar. Having had P-90 guitars this guitar sounded as expected.
There really is nothing where this guitar comes up short.
It would be nice to have a shorter scale version of this guitar, say 25"

This review is for a NEW SC-2. Made in the USA. Typical G&L bolt on neck with 22-frets. The neck is very similar if not identical to the typical G&L Legacy I have. Solid alder slab style body with a tummy and elbow cut. Mine is the Bel-air green. I guess a green that some of the GM cars were painted. It also looks like the color used on the '57 T-Bird. I digress.
Two passive P-90 pickups with a three way pickup selector and one volume one tone control.
Mine has the tremolo bridge but it is offered without.
Non-locking standard G&L tuners, like on most G&L's.
Frets appear to be standard size used these days. Not the vintage thins or the Jumbos. I think size is 6105 though I have not measured them.
Inclued a nice gig-bag. No case with this offering.

This is my review after using it one time at a gig.
I was using a Fender HRD 40 watt amp miked and my standard two pedals Line-6 delay and Boss SD-1.
It is not fully a Tele or a Strat or a Les Paul. It is an in-betweener guitar. I would say it is more Brian May than anything. Fat sound with the distortion pulled in. Roll the volume back a tad and cleans up nicely without dropping out. Rythm strumming is very nice. It wont get the biting sound of a tele or the scooped sound of a strat but the tones are righteous.
I like it plenty and will use it many more times.

As I have owned several G&Ls this came from with what I believe to be typical G&L setup. For my liking it is about 85% there when received. A small neck relief tweek, small bridge leveling tweek and intonation almost good but not quite. Nut string height I did not touch, string height adjusted a little. Of course I am using a micrometer so all my adjustments are too the one thousandth.
Fit and finish are all excellent. There is nothing major that is out of whack that i have ever received from them.
Even without locking nut or tuners you can use the whammy fine.

Does a G&L need a backup? Your kidding. These guitars will be still working in the next thousand years.

I have not used customer support or the warranty

i hve been playing 43 years. The other gear i own are high end guitars and amps.
I would buy another if it was taken.
I love the size, sound and feel of the guitar.
i dont hate anything about this instrument.
This guitar has its own tone and playability. I would liken to more Brian May sound. It feeds back with the fat P-90s, in a good way. It can be bright or brown and string separation tone is good.
A guitar player's style and identity could be wrapped up in this guitar alone. It is good enough and different enough.

Brand new. Very basic alternative to the mustang. Features already covered in previous reviews..

Very nice sound. great pickups-like P-90's

The action was great right out of the box. Finish and fit, top notch like every G&L I have owned (Legacys) Downside was, the tremolo springs rubbed on the inside of the cavity during trem use causing a squeal. This I found out was a problem with this guitar line that G&L was fixing. The cavity needs just a millimeter or two more depth for the springs to clear.

The deal breaker for me was that due to the smaller body and full size neck, coupled with the heavier locking tuners, The guitar is seriously neck heavy. when using a smooth strap, the neck dives to the floor.

If G&L either uses stock tuning machines, or shorter scalelength neck/smaller headstock, perhaps the guitar would balance better.

I just can't play a neckdiver.

I have 3 of these and a 4th one is on the way. All have standard slab, the Tele-style bodies [though slightly smaller], hardtail bridges, maple boards, and the 2 way switch. All were built in '82 and '83. They could have more features, but none are really needed. As simple as it is, it's as much guitar as most folks will ever need.

Very Tele-like and can be rolled back into some very sweet jazz tones, too. They sound great in my Fender: Jazz King, de Ville, Vibro King, Blues Junior, Frontman 25, plus my Swart AST and Fuchs ODS 30. I haven't found a tone I dislike through a good amp.

All of mine were bought used and set up pretty well. Actually, I have an 82 model that hasn't been played. The fit and finish are - as with all G&L products - far superior to anything built by any other guitar manufacturer at twice the price or less. They probably left the factory with perfect adjustments; the unplayed one sure did. The others have great pickup heights and setups.

At least one of these SC-2s has seen a lot of gigs by its previous owner. It is my favorite of them all. It rings with tone. The only one that has faded is a vintage white now and is very pretty. Very rugged instruments, for sure.

N. A.

I've played off and on since 1962. I've played more since the year 2000 as all the years before [work, travel, etc]. Retired now and all the time I need to play and learn. If someone stole or I lost these 4, I'd just start looking for others. I've owned well over a hundred guitars, and I'd put the SC-2 in the top 2 or 3 of them all.

Made in USA, slab style body, very cool shape. Gun oiled maple fretboard. Black with black single coil MFD pickups (same as ASAT), no pickguard. Vol, Tone, 3-way selector. Great tuners, operate the way bass tuners do, with a slot rather than a hole for the string. I really dig everything about this guitar, though I suppose you could have more features if you wanted.

Great tele sound, though with more spank and presence. I like to roll back the tone a little and use the middle position. It does get a little hum in the bridge position, typical I guess though probably some guitars are quieter. Bridge pos with tone on 10, you get a very in your face, bright, even harsh sound. It doesn't give you humbucker sounds of course, just really good sounds that you would expect from a really good telecaster. Keep in mind this is the student model. Great thing about G&L's is they use the same electroics for the low-end as for the expensive models, so you always get good sound.

Bought used and needed setup. No problem there, typical. It is a 1983, so it was in used condition. Was in kinda rough shape, had to have a little basic work done. Plays real easy. Effortless really. Stays in tune. Love the tuners.

Great for anything. A solid guitar. G&L's are really the best. I can depend on it exclusively.

Playing 18 yrs. My favorite electric ever. I do think the ASAT has a little better tone than the SC-2, perhaps because they have bigger bodies that affect the sound and sustain. Still, I have heard ASATs that didn't beat this one. I would definitely replace it if it were stolen and am constantly on the lookout for another one just because I like it that much. I'd like one with the cream color or an SC-3 which is more like a Strat.

I have a G & L SC-2, serial #1678795 (as far as I can tell. The serial # is on a foil sticker on the neck bolt plate. The black ink is worn about half way off. There are a bunch of numbers on it. The number above is on the bottom row of numbers and is totally readable).
I bought this guitar in 1984or '85. It was slightly used (about 3 months) by a kid that couldn't afford the payments and had to give it back to the music store. Poor guy! Anyway, I had been looking for a "white" guitar for a while, tried several, until I picked this one up.... unplugged and with crap-ola strings this guitar sounded awesome.

For along time I played this guitar through a 1984 Mesa Boogie Super Sixty Watt Combo. My favorite effects being an original Vox Wah pedal and an analog MXR Delay pedal. I recently added 2 Marshall 10" cabs (from the mini stack). The sound is truly inspiring, open and musical.

The guitar had never been set up properly, so I went through all the necessary steps to get the Bridge and the nut up to specs, The jumbo frets are fantastic. The finish is now a beautiful yellowed white.

This guitar is built like a tank. It stays in tune. After 20 some years the neck is just as true as the day I got it.

no need

I own a Les Paul. I've also owned at various times a Gibson SG, a Guild SG copy a Baldwin 12 string electric, a 1952 Telecaster, a Rickenbacker 330 and numerous other guitars. The G&L SC-2 has the hottest pickups I've ever seen. Just nplain spankin' hot.

1982 G&L SC-2; Black; 1st style (mustang); Made in Fullerton, CA; 2 G&L Magnetic Field? single coil with adjustable pole pieces pickups; Large position marker dots; Standard Dual Fulcrum vibrato tailpiece; G&L/Schaller enclosed nickel tuners (non-locking)

This SC-2 had everything I was looking for in a guitar -- small body, full-scale neck, tremolo bridge and of course, great tone.

This has few minor dings here and there, but otherwise, it is in perfect condition, tone-wise. It even came with the original hard case!

I always longed for an American Tele. From the research I did on the internet, this model is actually an improvement on the post-CBS Fender Teles. This is one of Leo Fender's earlier G&L models, so his 30-plus years of experience surely played into the SC-2's amazing tone. In fact, the pickups on this guitar are similar to the ones that Leo later used for the G&L ASAT model. (Plus, I paid a fraction of what an ASAT would've cost!)

I mostly play rhythm guitar stuff ranging from rock to funk. The tone of this guitar is everything I was looking for in a guitar. When switched to the neck pickup, I get a nice bluesy tone. When switched to the bridge pickup, I get that classic clean Tele twang. When switched to the middle position, it's true that it's almost like a humbucker-type sound. To me, it really is a tone that's somewhere between the neck and bridge sound.

Having the tremolo is also a nice bonus for me. What's interesting is that unlike a Strat, the trem arm doesn't screw in; you just slide it into the hole and it doesn't come loose at all. The trem on my SC-2 doesn't put the guitar out of tune either, thank goodness.

Overall, you can get an amazing range of tones from this guitar with a little tinkering between the switch and tone knob. Great stuff!

Since I got this instrument used, I plan on getting a professional guitar set-up and have the action lowered a bit. Also, I want to get some of the fret-ends sanded down, as there are a few sharp ones. Once I get these things done, it should be the perfect guitar for me.

This guitar seems to be a workhorse.

SC-2's are pretty hard to come by -- only 600 of them were made. I feel extremely fortunate to have found this '82 SC-2 from its original owner. Like I said before, I always wanted a Tele and I feel like I got something even better.

The thing I love about this guitar is that it looks so unassuming, yet has this unbelievable tone. Plus, the smaller Mustang-type body really suits me, as I'm 5'7".

I was really close to buying a '78 Fender Musicmaster. Thank goodness that I happened upon this listing on craigslist.org. After doing some research, I learned that the SC-2 had a small body like the Musicmaster, but with 2 pickups and a regular scale neck (unlike the 3/4 neck the Musicmaster has) AND a tremolo arm. Talk about serendipity!

I've owned a few guitars and traded them in for other ones. But I'm gonna be keeping this one forever!

You know when you try a guitar and it just feels right? That's what this SC-2 is for me.

1982 G&L SC-2. Made in USA. Basic Tele layout. 2 MFD soapbar pickups, wired with middle position hum-cancelling. Passive electronics. Volume/Tone. 2-piece alder slab body - mustang style - aged white color. Hard rock maple, 3-bolt, 2-piece neck. 22 frets. 6-saddle locking hardtail bridge. Enclosed non-locking tuners. Medium c-shaped neck, jumbo frets.

I have 3 sc-2s now. They all sound this good:

For a medium-hot tele sound, you can't beat this guitar. I have a custom shop tele jr. and a vintage '53 blackguard tele. The sc-2 is a perfect in-betweener guitar. Not as biting and crisp as the '53. Not as "round" sounding as the hollow-body/p-90 tele jr. Just a perfect in-betweener. Great sustain from the locking bridge and ridiculously tight neck joint. Excellent variety between bridge and neck pickups. Extremely quiet single coil pickups, especially considering how hot they are. The tone and volume pots are the best I've ever used. Even the smallest turn of each makes a difference. Stays in tune.

I play loud/soft rock, a la Pixies, Radiohead. I have many guitars and amps, but really, the sc-2 and a blackface twin are all I really need. Don't tell the wife.

With just a Rat pedal and the guitar volume, I can go from sparkling fender clean to bleeding gibson grunge and everywhere in between without ever bending over.

This was meant to be a simple student guitar, but for some reason it plays and sounds better than most of my expensive instruments. I guess that kind of makes sense, though. The most basic, utilitarian, blue-color guitars always seem to have the best feel, the most variety in sound, the longest tenure as "axe #1". I have a '58 duosonic ($200) that sounds better than my '59 strat ($7000). Go figure.

Bought the guitar used. Lowered the action. Tilt-adjusted the neck. Plays great. Aside from the cheap plastic knobs and the generic-looking tuners, all hardware is excellent. Perfectly detailed jumbo frets. No fret wear. The body paint and neck finish do wear down over time, but it may be just the thin nitrocellulose laquer. Makes it look like a vintage piece. I guess it is, actually. Very solid through and through.

I will die one day. So will you.

Barring a fire or flood, this guitar will not.

In the 5 years since I bought it, I have played 30 - 40 shows with it. I have dropped it, spilled beer on it, smashed it into a 22-inch ride cymbal, and knocked my twin over on it. Pete Townshend treated his guitars better.

It only sounds sweeter.

For that fire or flood, I have two other sc-2s for back-up. Just as tough. Just as reliable. Just different colors.

I have been playing since I heard the first clash record. I have too many guitars and amps to list. It's embarassing. The only three that really matter for this review are listed above.

Every month or so I'll see an sc-2 on ebay for about $400. I'll always want to buy it, even though I have 3 already, because I feel like these guitars should go for twice that. Maybe the world will catch on to the G&L value one day. Maybe the sc-2 will just remain my little secret.

Purchased new in either '82 or '83 from MusicMart Ann Arbor, MI. Went in to buy a '58 Duo Sonic a buddy had told me about, and walked out with this baby. S/N G010205 on Tremolo, only modifications are the Fender seven-sided Vol/Tone knobs I put on because the original knobs looked so cheap, and you couldn't tell where the setting is with them. White Slab body, two piece maple neck with G&L Tuners, pair of 'MFD' type single coils.

Very quiet electronics, I remember reading or hearing that when both pickups were selected on these guitars, it was wired basically like a humbucker, I can neither confirm nor deny this, but the guitar is very quiet when both pickups are selected. Also, when you turn the volume down, the tone doesn't get all muddy and muffled like on a vintage guitar, so you can get alot of expression out of the instrument by varying the signal to the amp and not loose tone doing so. Yes, the rear pickup is kinda bright. The neck pickup has a great fender-esque sound. Acceptable for styles ranging from Lite/Country to Rock.

Paint job kinda whimpy, paint worn down to the clearcoat just from my right arm resting on it. I don't remember having to adjust the string height, although I prefer a little higher action. I did have to tweak the intonation and, depending on string gauge, adjust the vibrato claw to match the string tension on top.

This was used on stage for about 3 years. The lack of string locks did make for some tuning problems, but I've never had a hardware failure in 20 years. I have found that if you 'use' the vibrato while you're tuning the guitar, that when the guitar slips you can divebomb on the vibrato to bring the tuning back, which essentially equalizes the string tension again. This is of course not a perfect solution, and rather than start modifying a somewhat rare guitar (how many have you seen?), I have choosen to leave it stock and use it in non-performing roles. What impressed me from the start about this instrument was the quality of the electronics, despite its 'Student' or entry level label, Leo made sure these guitars had the same components his flagship products carried (just like he did at Fender in the 50's).

Never had any need for support.

I've owned a modest number of guitars, always holding onto this one, so it must have left an impression on me. The tuning problem is the only issue I have with this guitar, maybe if stolen I would look for a hardtail version to replace it. I do watch eBay for these guitars, and they don't come up very often, maybe 1 a month. Aesthetics aside, these are incredibly underated guitars.