Gibson Nighthawk
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The Gibson Nighthawk was a short-lived electric guitar model line, manufactured by Gibson. The Nighthawk was a radical change from traditional Gibsons because it had more properties that can be associated with Fender guitars. The Nighthawk superficially resembled the Les Paul, Gibson's "trademark" guitar. It had a maple top, and mahogany body.
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[edit] Models
The Nighthawk model line consisted of three regular models and two special editions.
[edit] Regular models
- The Nighthawk Custom had a flame maple top with many decorations. The headstock, body, and neck were bound, and came with crown inlays. The color options were antique natural, fireburst, and translucent amber.[1]
- The Nighthawk Standard was only bound in the body and the neck, and it sported split-parallelogram inlays. The color options were fireburst, translucent amber, and vintage sunburst[2]
- The Nighthawk Special had everything the Standard and Custom had, except it was a no-frills, budget-friendly model. The price of a Nighthawk Special was about two hundred dollars less than that of a Nighthawk Standard. Only the body was bound, and the color choices were ebony, heritage cherry, and vintage sunburst. The Special had dot inlays, and no holly crest headstock adornment.[3]
[edit] Special editions
- The Landmark Series was a fancier model of the the Nighthawk. It carried 2 M-Series Mini-humbucker instead of the normal M-series mini-humbucker + M-Series Slanted humbucker.
- The Hawk was a low-cost alternative to the Nighthawk. It had normal alnico humbuckers instead of the M-series that the Nighthawk wielded, and it was plainer then the Special.[4]
[edit] Pickups and controls
There were 2 alternatives to the Nighthawk Custom, Standard, and Special. The normal 2 pickup version, or the 3 pickup version that added a NSX Single Coil to the middle. The 2 pickup version only had 5 tonal varieties in all, but the 3 pickup had 10 tonal varieties due to the revolutionary push/pull tone knob. While the tone knob is pushed down, humbuckers work as usual humbuckers, but if it's pulled up, they divide into single coil variations to sound more like Fender guitars.
[edit] Similarities to Fender guitars
The Gibson Nighthawk was very similar to Fender guitars because of a variety of reasons. The slanted humbuckers had less gain and had a bright, sharp tone similar to that associated with Telecasters and Stratocasters. The neck pickup (mini-humbucker) had a louder tone which was mellower and warmer than the bright bridge pickup, which is similar the the neck pickup in Stratocaster. The middle pickup on some Nighthawk models were almost identical to the middle single-coil of the Stratocasters and sounded similar. The very small body and through-body stringing system bridge is similar to the system used on Telecasters. Some models of the Custom used a Floyd Rose locking vibrato unit of a traditional Gibson Vibrola or Bigsby. The Floyd Rose has some similarity to the tremolo system used by Fender Stratocasters, although Stratocasters do not normally use locking vibrato systems. Unlike Gibson's 24 3/4" scale, the Nighthawk had a 25 1/2" scale, which is found on most Fender guitars like the Stratocaster.
