As the guitarist with The Roots, the beloved house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC, “Captain” Kirk Douglas has developed a well-earned reputation as a stellar player. His guitar collection includes several Gibson models, but arguably the sexiest is his three-pickup Gibson™ SG™ Custom, which is now commemorated in the new Kirk Douglas signature SG from Gibson USA. Featuring non-locking Keystone tuners, a mahogany neck and body, rosewood fretboard with 22 medium jumbo frets and large block acrylic inlays, a Graph Tech® nut, ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic™ bridge and Kirk Douglas signature “Captain” Lyre Tail Vibrola tailpiece, black Top Hat knobs with metal inserts, and three BurstBucker™ humbucking pickups. Gibson J-200

Like the Captain himself, the pickups and controls on his SG are incredibly versatile.

On a basic level, they operate somewhat similarly to a two-pickup SG, but with significant added capabilities. The three-way toggle switch selects the bridge pickup, neck pickup, or both. Each of these pickups has its own volume control, and each is equipped with a push/pull pot that switches the pickup from humbucker to single coil when the switch is pulled out.

Gibson J-200

A single master tone knob, located in the usual lead tone control position, is provided, and where you’d normally expect to find the second tone control, an additional volume control (again, with a push/pull switch for coil splitting) is installed. This controls the middle pickup, and can be used to blend its signal in with the other (one or two) pickups, regardless of how the three-way pickup selector switch is positioned. This means you can run the neck and/or bridge pickups alone or together, the neck and middle, bridge and middle, or all three pickups simultaneously, and at any relative volume amounts desired. And even better – once you have dialed up the exact balance you want, you can adjust the overall output level of the entire guitar with the pickguard-mounted master volume control.