View other reviews for this product:
tjon901 « Crimson Epiphone Les Paul Custom »
Published on 07/07/11 at 12:14Gibson is one of the biggest guitar makers in the world. They make many super high end and custom guitars for professional guitar players and collectors. They also make many guitars for beginners and working class guitar players. Many of these guitars are sold under Gibsons Epiphone brand. Epiphone is Gibsons foreign made line of guitars. They are built to much of the same specifications as a real Gibson but have much lower costs due to the overseas production. This is the Epiphone Les Paul Custom in Wine Red. It pretty much has all the same features as a real Les Paul Custom apart from the ebony fretboard. The Custom is bascially a dressed up Les Paul standard. It has more binding on the body neck and headstock and has larger block inlays. I think the large block inlays give the guitar a classy look. The guitar has s 22 fret rosewood fretboard with the large block inlays. The headstock is fully bound. The body is solid mahogany. Customs do not have the maple top on the body. The color is a lovely wine red with gold hardware to give it class. It reminds me of the cherry color you see on many SG's It has dual humbucking Epiphone pickups in the standard Les Paul configuration. There is a volume knob and tone knob for each pickup and a 3 way switch to switch among them. The bridge is your standard tune o matic and stop tail like you would find on most every Les Paul.
UTILIZATION
Which the specs being much of the same as a Gibson Les Paul Custom it shares all the quirks you would get on the real Gibson. Gibsons traditionally have larger necks than other guitars. In the 50s the necks on Gibson guitars were huge. They were commonly referred to as baseball bat necks. In the 60s Gibson switched to a slimmer profile. This slimmer 60s profile is the most popular neck profile on Gibsons and it is found on most Gibsons and Epiphones today. The upper fret access on this guitar is typical for every Les Paul. Since the body joins the neck at the 17th fret you will have to reach around the body of the guitar to get to frets higher than this. This strong joint helps with tone and sustain but limits upper fret playability greatly. The neck binding on this guitar and generally helps to limit the amount of sharp fret ends you feel when playing. The gold hardware will tarnish with playing but this happens on just about any guitar with gold hardware.
SOUNDS
The guitar itself has a good innate tone built in but it is let down by the low quality pickups. This is a common problem with lower end guitars that come with no name pickups. You do not get much attack with these pickups. Since these pickups do not have much definition the neck position can get really muddy. With a high gain amp the sound might get muddy due to the lack of definition. With some types of music these pickups are great. If you want a bluesy sound these pickups will do really good and you will be able to get a smooth tone out of them. With a pickup swap this guitar can sound great so I would recommend to anyone who has one of these Epiphones to try it out with some after market pickups. A set of Seymour Duncans would liven this guitar up greatly for rock and hard rock. If you are looking to play metal a set of EMG pickups will work nicely. There are Epiphones that come with EMG pickups stock so if you are planning to do this swap you may want to check out an Epiphone that comes with them from the factory and save some money.
OVERALL OPINION
Its nice that Epiphone is making this Les Paul Custom in this rare and classy finish. It is different than the white and black Les Paul Customs that are so common. The quality on this guitar is good and I find the quality on the high end Epiphones better than the quality on the lower end faded Gibsons. There are a few smaller companies making much better quality guitars for the price of these Epiphones. A company like Agile will give you an ebony fretboard and Seymour Duncan pickups for the price of this Epiphone. If you want to stay loyal and support Gibson you can check out this Epiphone LPC in Wine Red.
UTILIZATION
Which the specs being much of the same as a Gibson Les Paul Custom it shares all the quirks you would get on the real Gibson. Gibsons traditionally have larger necks than other guitars. In the 50s the necks on Gibson guitars were huge. They were commonly referred to as baseball bat necks. In the 60s Gibson switched to a slimmer profile. This slimmer 60s profile is the most popular neck profile on Gibsons and it is found on most Gibsons and Epiphones today. The upper fret access on this guitar is typical for every Les Paul. Since the body joins the neck at the 17th fret you will have to reach around the body of the guitar to get to frets higher than this. This strong joint helps with tone and sustain but limits upper fret playability greatly. The neck binding on this guitar and generally helps to limit the amount of sharp fret ends you feel when playing. The gold hardware will tarnish with playing but this happens on just about any guitar with gold hardware.
SOUNDS
The guitar itself has a good innate tone built in but it is let down by the low quality pickups. This is a common problem with lower end guitars that come with no name pickups. You do not get much attack with these pickups. Since these pickups do not have much definition the neck position can get really muddy. With a high gain amp the sound might get muddy due to the lack of definition. With some types of music these pickups are great. If you want a bluesy sound these pickups will do really good and you will be able to get a smooth tone out of them. With a pickup swap this guitar can sound great so I would recommend to anyone who has one of these Epiphones to try it out with some after market pickups. A set of Seymour Duncans would liven this guitar up greatly for rock and hard rock. If you are looking to play metal a set of EMG pickups will work nicely. There are Epiphones that come with EMG pickups stock so if you are planning to do this swap you may want to check out an Epiphone that comes with them from the factory and save some money.
OVERALL OPINION
Its nice that Epiphone is making this Les Paul Custom in this rare and classy finish. It is different than the white and black Les Paul Customs that are so common. The quality on this guitar is good and I find the quality on the high end Epiphones better than the quality on the lower end faded Gibsons. There are a few smaller companies making much better quality guitars for the price of these Epiphones. A company like Agile will give you an ebony fretboard and Seymour Duncan pickups for the price of this Epiphone. If you want to stay loyal and support Gibson you can check out this Epiphone LPC in Wine Red.