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tjon901 « Edwards LPC with an unusual finish »
Published on 07/06/11 at 12:46Edwards guitars is another line of ESP similar to LTD. They are Japan only so they can make really accurate copies without getting in trouble from Gibson. People have discovered them and realized their guitars are very good quality. This guitar is only about 1000 dollars whereas a real Gibson Les Paul Custom would go for thousands and thousands more. This guitar has all the same features or better features than a Gibson Les Paul custom. It has a mahogany body with a maple top and a mahogany neck. The Edwards headstock has the right open book shape for a Les Paul Custom. The fully bound neck is ebony with 22 frets. There are large block inlays like you would find on a Gibson Les Paul custom. It has gotoh tuners up top with a gotoh bridge out back. It has a Seymour Duncan SH-1 59 in the neck and a Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB in the bridge. This is a classic Seymour Duncan set. All the hardware is finished in gold. The electronics setup is a standard Gibson setup with a volume and tone knob for each pickup. The only thing that stands out on the guitar is that they use strange top hat knobs for the knobs. These can easily be changed to speed knobs for a cleaner look. The LTC in the guitar name stands for Laquer Taste finish. This means they have a finish similar to nitro ontop of the normal poly finish. This gives you the vintage feel of nitro and gives you a matte look but will not wear off as easily as a real nitro finish.
UTILIZATION
Being such good copies these guitars play every bit as well as the USA made Gibsons. Because of the set neck design there is a large neck tenon and joint. This can make the upper frets hard for some people to reach because the body essentially joins the neck at the 17th fret. After the 17th fret you are reaching around the body to get to the frets. The Edwards guitars have super strong neck joints that are even bigger than on a normal Gibson. The tuning stability is good because there is no tremolo. The tune-o-matic bridge can be uncomfortable for some people. It has sharp edges where the strings come in contact and these can get into your hand.
SOUNDS
This guitar comes with better pickups than a Gibson would come with stock. This guitar sounds better than most Gibsons stock because of this. With the Seymour Duncan pickups the guitar already comes with some of the best pickups you can get so the tone is there out of the box. This pickup combination is something that Edwards uses in a lot of its Gibson copies. The 59 has a great PAF style tone. It has a good amount of sag and the mids are nice and pronounced. The JB in the bridge is the jack of all traits and can be used for just about anything. You can get great overdriven tones all the way to searing high gain with it. Many Jackson guitars come with this pickup set so you know it can hang for metal too.
OVERALL OPINION
With the outrageous prices of real Gibson Les Paul Customs importing these Japanese made guitars are becoming a great option. Importing one of these is about 1/4 the price of buying a real new Gibson and they are pretty much all of the same quality. A guitar is just a piece of wood basically a name on the headstock is not worth thousands and thousands of dollars if everything else is the same. If you are looking for a good quality LPC but dont want to shell out thousands and thousands of dollars these are a great alternative.
UTILIZATION
Being such good copies these guitars play every bit as well as the USA made Gibsons. Because of the set neck design there is a large neck tenon and joint. This can make the upper frets hard for some people to reach because the body essentially joins the neck at the 17th fret. After the 17th fret you are reaching around the body to get to the frets. The Edwards guitars have super strong neck joints that are even bigger than on a normal Gibson. The tuning stability is good because there is no tremolo. The tune-o-matic bridge can be uncomfortable for some people. It has sharp edges where the strings come in contact and these can get into your hand.
SOUNDS
This guitar comes with better pickups than a Gibson would come with stock. This guitar sounds better than most Gibsons stock because of this. With the Seymour Duncan pickups the guitar already comes with some of the best pickups you can get so the tone is there out of the box. This pickup combination is something that Edwards uses in a lot of its Gibson copies. The 59 has a great PAF style tone. It has a good amount of sag and the mids are nice and pronounced. The JB in the bridge is the jack of all traits and can be used for just about anything. You can get great overdriven tones all the way to searing high gain with it. Many Jackson guitars come with this pickup set so you know it can hang for metal too.
OVERALL OPINION
With the outrageous prices of real Gibson Les Paul Customs importing these Japanese made guitars are becoming a great option. Importing one of these is about 1/4 the price of buying a real new Gibson and they are pretty much all of the same quality. A guitar is just a piece of wood basically a name on the headstock is not worth thousands and thousands of dollars if everything else is the same. If you are looking for a good quality LPC but dont want to shell out thousands and thousands of dollars these are a great alternative.