Fender Custom Shop Black1 Stratocaster (John Mayer) vs Gibson SG Junior 60's Electric Guitar

The Fender Custom Shop Black1 Stratocaster (John Mayer) and the Gibson SG Junior 60's Electric Guitar are both electric guitars sharing mid-forward. The Fender Custom Shop Black1 Stratocaster (John Mayer) leans transparent and dynamic. The Gibson SG Junior 60's Electric Guitar leans gritty.

Similarity
citedBlended from circuit-archetype lineage, dynamic feel, tone-signal overlap and tone-vector distance — the tone vector itself is derived from editorial description text, not a measured acoustic signal, so this reflects how similarly the catalog copy describes the two, not a lab measurement. Shown only within a gear class, and only where there's enough evidence to be meaningful.

47% — somewhat different

Shared genres
citedGenres both listings are associated with.
  • Blues
  • Blues Rock
  • Rock
Shared tone character
citedDerived from overlapping tonal signals across both listings.
  • mid-forward
Citation fame
citedCitation/mention fame — how often this gear is cited across artist rigs and gear discussion.
0%
0%
Description

Black1 is John Mayer's main road Stratocaster, built at the Fender Custom Shop by master builder John Cruz in October 2004 as a deliberately heavy-relic guitar modeled on the kind of beaten-up road-worn Strat Stevie Ray Vaughan would have played. Fender later produced a limited commercial run based on it starting in 2010, an 83-unit masterbuilt tier with pickups matched to Mayer's own guitar and a larger 500-unit factory-relic tier at a lower price point, marking one of the first times the Custom Shop replicated a working artist's personal instrument rather than a vintage original. On stage it has carried much of Mayer's biggest material, valued for a blues-rock voice indebted to Vaughan's tone. Mayer has also spoken about extreme methods, including freezing the guitar, in his ongoing search for a specific relic'd feel and sound.

This 1960s Gibson SG Junior is associated with Angus Young through an interview in which he used it to demonstrate guitar technique, rather than as one of his primary stage or studio instruments, which have overwhelmingly been SG Standards and Customs across AC/DC's catalog. As an SG Junior it strips the format down to its simplest form: a single P-90 pickup, a wraparound bridge and tailpiece, and none of the block inlays or extra switching found on the Custom, giving it a rawer, more direct voice than the multi-pickup SGs Young is best known for playing live. Its appearance in Young's hands is best understood as illustrative rather than representative of his actual recorded or performed tone.

Genres
citedGenres this gear is documented as being used in.
  • Soul
  • Punk
  • Hard Rock
  • Classic Rock
  • Jazz
Tonal lean
  • transparent
  • dynamic
  • gritty
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Fender Custom Shop Black1 Stratocaster (John Mayer) vs Gibson SG Junior 60's Electric Guitar — Shared Character & Differences — NodeTone