All user reviews of 3/5 for the Epiphone Les Paul Studio

Classic Rock. Played for years at home. Few gigs. Some solo

Pawn Shop. $180. The pickup selector switch had a bad connection & I replaced the switch. I had the frets dressed and I re-set the intonation myself after the setup man was finished with it. He hadn't got it right.

This is a bolted-neck model. The pickups are the best part about the guitar. The humbuckers put out far more than single coils. With a little tube screamer for warmth it sounds wonderful.

This unit has some intonation issues, it is on the verge of needing a compensated nut. Being a short scale, tuning will always be an issue. The open chords are always just a tiny bit off in the G and B string. As I say I think a compensated nut would help. The fretboard is just too flat. It almost feels concave. While good for chording, the flatness makes it difficult to play leads without catching the other strings, despite the wider fretboard. Above the 12th fret the lack of precision in the fretting makes the intonation get very sour, especially above fret #17 . You simply cannot do the very high leads with this unit. Stay in the neighborhood of fret #12 and you will be alright.

It's solid. The finish is very nice, black, the hardware is fine, the bridge and the anchor are first class. The tuners are a little loose. The volume knobs are out of the way. The chord receptacle being under the bottom is hard to reach, you have to tip the unit up to get at it. nothing fancy, no edge bead, no big inlays.

Not a bad unit for a beginner who wants a Les Paul appearance and not a cheap knockoff. It's not going to allow you to develop a very quick lead style because of the fingerboard limitations. Chording suffers somewhat from intonation issues due to the short scale and lack of precision fretting. If you tune to the bar chords and play power chords it will crank some very fine sounds.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Les Paul Studio is a stripped down version of the Les Paul standard. It has no binding and simple inlays to lower the cost and make it more of a workhorse guitar. Now you can get it in the form of an Epiphone for even less. This guitar is pretty barebones. It has a mahogany body and a mahogany set neck. It has a rosewood fretboard with simple dot inlays. It has uncovered Epiphone humbuckers with the standard Les Paul control layout. The tuners are Grover tuners and the bridge is a standard tune-o-matic.

UTILIZATION

This guitar feels its price which is not that good. With these lower end Epiphones you really should try out the guitar before you buy it. When lower quality guitars like these come from the other side of the globe the temperature changes en route can really mess up the factory setups. The wood and metal expanding and contracting can cause unlevel frets and sharp fret ends. This isnt help by the fact that since this is a studio model there is nothing to protect you from the end of the frets.

SOUNDS

These guitars are pretty low end. For a beginner the tone may be alright but if you are an experianced player it is lacking. The pickups are muddy and harsh and do not provide a good sound. The pickups have a bit of an open sound. If you are playing loose classic rock or something like that they may give you usable tone. The neck pickup has a lot of low end to the tone and it can get a bit muddy at times. The bridge pickup also has a lot of low end. It has a loose sound and even the bridge position can get muddy at times. The pickups lack output and clarity and even budget aftermarket pickups will be a large improvement in this guitar.

OVERALL OPINION

There are a lot better guitars to be had for the price of this guitar. You can get a used Agile or even a new lower end Agile for the price of this and the quality fit and finish will be a ton better. And if this is your first guitar I would not recommend a Les Paul as a first guitar. For a first guitar you want something that is a bit easier to play. With a guitar like this you are going to have a hard time getting a good action on it and the fret access is not very good. Ideally I would recommend someone start on a hard tail super strat style guitar.

The Epiphone Les Paul Studio is the low end, budget model of the budget model. I'm not really sure why they decided to make this considering how cheap the regular Gibson models go for. The guitar has a mahogany body, it has a mahogany set neck, a rosewood fretboard with 22 frets, a tune-o-matic bridge for tuning stability and tone, two humbuckers, two volumes, two tone knobs and a three way switch.

UTILIZATION

The fretwork on this guitar wasn't that great. There were some sharp edges, and the frets weren't perfectly leveled. The nut also wasn't cut properly because every time you'd bend, you could hear a noticeable ping. That means that the string is binding in the slot. Both of these issues are fairly common on the lower end Epiphones, so be sure to watch out for that. The fret access is the same as any other Les Paul style guitar out there in that it's pretty poor. Reading those higher frets can be a bit of a pain.

SOUNDS

The guitar itself was kinda dead sounding. There were other Epiphones I played that were much more resonant and lively sounding. The pickups were also pretty poor sounding. They were very muddy and undefined. What made matters worse is that the neck pickup was bright. I hate bright neck pickups, and this thing just didn't deliver in terms of the tone I was looking for. I'm not sure if it was the combination of woods in conjunction with the pickup or what, but it just didn't jive for me.

OVERALL OPINION

I wasn't a fan of this guitar as the fretwork was pretty poor, the nut was cut bad and it didn't seem to resonate that nicely. That said, the guitar is pretty cheap, and it's basically pennies if you're buying one used. They can be great beater guitars if you're into that sort of thing, but I'd rather get a Burny instead.