Gibson Nighthawk Special (3 Pickup model)

See the other reviews for the features, I'm discussing the Nighthawk Special 3 pick up model. Plenty of options and versatile beyong belief.

I agree with most of the current reviews; this guitar has the nicest most versatile sound that can go from sharp and punchy to deep and warm. I was playing this guitar with a horrible Crate td50c amp and it sounded great considering the amp I was putting the sound through. I'm upgrading to a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and can't wait to see how it sounds. I think this guitar easily compares to top grade strats and les pauls all in one.

Well this guitar doesn't look absolutely stunning but its looks grow on you. I love this guitar because no one has ever seen a gibson like it and it is quite hard to find them for sale. The action is perfect with the exception of a little ringing as some of the other reviews noted. One problem I had was getting the high e string caught on the middle pick up, but I screwed the screw in farther and it seems to have corrected the problem =).

Well the first week i got this guitar my strap gave out and it fell to the ground about 4 feet....I was so scared but this guitar, thank god is built like a tank eventhough it is so light. I will be gigging with this guitar without a backup, maybe i'll get a Rickenbacker as a back up once I save enough money, but this guitar works great for all I need at this point. I do have a problem with the tuning though, it seems to loose tune too easily when I'm rehearsing with it... I'd like to get locking tuners to solve this problem when I get a chance...

The warranty is forever, until I die. I'm sure Gibson would be helpful if there was any problems, whenever I talked to them they were very helpful.

I've been playing for 4 years and I searched and searched until I found this guitar. For a while I was getting frustrated with the guitar because i was playing through a horrible crate amp, but soon the Nighthawk and I made up and now I'll never sell this guitar. If this guitar were lost or stolen I'd be devastated partially because it would be very difficult for me to find this guitar again, and at such a good price. I recommend this guitar to anyone looking for a diverse sounding guitar that isn't a mainstream "rock star wannabe" guitar like a les paul or strat. You can get so many sounds out of this guitar it suprises me everytime I play it...and the thing is all these sounds sound great. This guitar comes highly recommended....

My Nighthawk is a '94 which I bought in '95 as a flawed instrument at E.U. Wurlitzer in Framingham, MA for $500. It was made in the US. It has 22 frets. The controls consist of 1 volume, 1 tone w/ a push/pull, and a 5 -way selector. The push/pull on the tone pot doubles the number of pickup combination available, bringing it up to 10 pickup combos. There are three pickups. A mini-humbucker in the neck, a single coil Gibson NSX pickup in the middle, and a slanted humbucker in the bridge position. All of the pickups are passive. I am not sure what the body and nech are made of, but the fret board is Rosewood and I think that the front is Maple. It has a transparent finish in Heritage Cherry(looks in credible) with Gold hardware. The Mini-humbucker in the neck position is the only one that has a pickup cover on it(which is gold plated). The tuners are Gibson Deluxe. It has Gibsons normal 3+3 headstock. The body style is a thin, flat top guitar with a single cut away, binding on the body, and looks similar to a Les Paul. It has a low profile fixed bridge, and strings thru the body. The strap buttons are a little on the small side but they work. The scale length of the neck is 25.5 inches. And the guitar came with a black padded Gibson gig bag. Great guitar, extremely versitile, but every once in a while it leaves you wanting just a little more something. It is very light wieght as well which lets you play it all night long. The neck is a narrow taper round neck.

This guitar sound incredible. And no matter what your style is this will make you happy. I play mostly blues and classic rock, but I like to mess around with everything. If you play country, blues, any form of rock, metal, jazz, what ever, this guitar can cut it. Between the 10 pick up combos and the tone knob I have not found any thing I can't play on this thing. This is definately a jack of all trades guitar. The only way you could get something better sounding is if you had Don Grosh build you a guitar for every different thing you play, only draw backs I could forsee might be the fixed bridge if you were wanting wanting to do Steve Vai style dive bombs or if you were looking for the extra depth of a seven string guitar, but those are specific cases. I have played it through a whole lot of amps and PA's and the only time it hasn't sounded great is when it has been played through something that could never sound good, like a really bad practice amp, and even then it makes it sound much better than it should. If you want a full rich sound you can get it on this ax. And if you don't want it you can just adjust the tone knob and you are all set. I will often use this in place of an acoustic at live gigs, when I would normally break out my accoustic, but this guitar can cut it. I just haven't found anything that this guitar can't hack. This guitar really can kick @$$ and take names.

The action is great. And the set up perfect. The pickups were adjusted fine. The Only flaw the guitar had when I bought it was in the finish. If you look at the guitar from the side looking across the front of the guitar looking straight down the neck there are two black spots on the binding and finish a couple of inches either side of the strap button. Like it had been set on a guitar stand that permanitely left marks on it. In the three years that I have owned it I have really given this guitar a work out, this thing has taken a real beating, and as a result it has a bunch of belt buckle scratches on the back, and quite a few dents and dings. But unfortunately the finish is starting to crack in a few spots, nothing has chipped off though. This is probable due in large part to the extreme weather conditions this guitar has had to endure. Rapid temperture changes, storage for weeks at a time in both extreme heat and extreme cold, and wide variety of humidities. The front of this guitar is covered in dings, especially the area right above the pickup where I beat on it with drum stick for about an hour because I was getting a real cool effect from it, but don't try this at home folks, I am a highly trained professional. But this area which is extremely beaten from more than a foot away looks flawless. And yes my eye sight it 20/20, and when I use words like extreme I really mean extreme, like when I said extreme cold, I am talking about sub zero tempertures for the better part of a winter, and Extreme heat, being locked in a hot humid car for 3 weeks when the air temp. was over 100 degrees. during the days. The temp inside the car probably got over 140 degrees, for 15 hours a day. This is my main guitar, so it has seen a lot of action in the last three years, and the gold plating on the mini humbucker is rubbing off, and the one of the screws on the middle pickup stripped so that it was hitting the High E string, So I tightened down the other screw and it is fine now.

This gutar has taken a severe beating and has walked away still looking and sounding great. It alway stays in tune and I have only had to intonate it once. It is my main guitar and I almost never play my other guitars which include an Ibanez Custom and a wonderful Washburn Accoustic. Other guitars have included, vintage 50's guitars and a really sweet Kramer that was the purfect Metal Guitar. The only thing I would buy in it's place would be a Gibson DC Pro or a Don Grosh Custom Guitar, and then I would still have to keep this guitar as a heavily used backup guitar.

Never tried contacting Gibson but I have heard that they are very good.

I have been playing guitar for 9 years and am a music major. I might be a fraid to buy another becuase I would be to afraid that nothing else, even another one just like it could compare. This is a really great guitar, It has always gotten the job done for me with very, very few complaints, and those few times were when only a top of the line custom or a better amp could solve the problem. You owe it to yourself to give it a try. I recommend the 3 pick up version over the 2 pick up version.

Made in 1995, This guitar is the new Gibson American Series made in USA. 22 frets. Mahogany back and 1/4 maple top with white binding. Maple neck with rosewood fret board. 1 volume, 1 tone, 5 way selector with a coil tap via the push-pull pot in the tone. Mines the three pu H,S,H. Slanted humbucker in bridge, Single coil in middle and mini humbucker in the neck. Pickups are M-series models. My nighthawk is a black finish. The body style is very unique for a Gibson. It's a single cutaway. Body is very thin for gibson,no archtop, with a cutaway in the back for easy playing while you sit down. Neck is set. Bridge is low profile string-thru body. Tuners are gibson deluxe models. Neck is narrow taper round. Hardware is gold.

I play mostly hard rock with a side of Blues and Jazz. This guitar handles all these styles incredibly well. For hard rock switch to the mini humbucker and crank the distortion and you got fat tone. For blues and jazz, pull out the tone pot (coil tap) and you get great single coil sound. I have a crate stack with boss blues driver,fuzz, metal zone, super phaser, Korg hyperdistortion (a must hear pedal), dod flanger. the single coils are very quiet, surprisingly, The bridge humbucker is the only one that gives me some noise when I play with distortion but can easily be cleared up with a noise gate. The mini humbucker sounds exactly like the Gibson 490. The bridge pickup is really hot, this pickup was meant for leads, and screaming solo's. The single coil helps give the nighthawk a strat sound. This guitar is supposed to be the most versatile guitar Gibson makes. To me it was one of the most versatile guitars ever made. This guitar fills any style you want to play.

I bought mine used, and I play LTHB, 10-52. the action was set for tens, I still have not gotten the guitar set-up yet because it doesn't need it. The action is perfect. The pickups have not been adjusted since the factory and I would not change them. There is a flaw in the maple top on mine, thats probably why I got it so cheap. This flaw is small but still is noticable. Frets are still great

This guitar was built to last. Hardware is gold so it will last. The black finish has not started fading yet and probably won't for another 20 years. I changed strap buttons to Schaller strap locks because the buttons were very small. I use it all the time with out a backup, because like I said earlier its the most versatile guitar and very dependable

Have not dealt with the company, but they have a great web site

I've been playing for 3 years. I also own a fender Bullet Deluxe. I would definitely buy it again if it got stolen but I would hope I could get another great deal like before. One thing I like about this guitar is the weight, It's so light, I hated playing a Les Paul studio just because I could not play it for an hour standing up with out my shoulder hurting because of the weight, But the nighthawk is very lightweight and is very easy to play. The only thing I wish would be for gibson to put the control settings/pickup settings back on their web site. Because this guitar has such a large pickup variety, I'd like to know what pickups why was playing