Gibson Les Paul Special Faded

ACQUIRED AT SAM ASH FOR$649

I LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS GUITAR .....IT'S A GIBSON,THE NECK IS FAST,HUMBUCKERS SCREAM,SUSTAIN ALL DAY LONG,NICE FAT CHUNKY SOUND NOTHING LIKE A STRAT!

THERE IS NOTHING I DONT LIKE ABOUT THIS UNIT,ITS SWEET!

CONSTRUCTION OF THIS UNIT IS SOLID FROM TUNERS TO KNOBS TO WOOD ALL TOP QUALITY ITS A GIBSON IT THE MERCEDES OF GUITARS!

BOTTOM LINE WANT A GREAT GIBSON LES PAUL MODEL THAT HAS HOTTER HUMBUCKERS THAN THE LES PAUL STANDARD THE HUMBUCKERS ON THIS GUITAR ARE DESIGN OF THE 57 HUMBUCKERS GREAT FOR PLAYING DIRTY CLEAN IS GOOD NOT GREAT THOUGH THATS 1/3 OF THE COST OF A LP STANDARD,TRIEDBOTH THE LP STANDARD IS MUCH BETTER IN THE CLEAN BUT IN THE DIRTY THE LP SPECIAL IS BETTER.GREAT JOB GIBSON TO LET US AVG JOE'S AFFORD A GIBSON!ONLY GAVE IT A 4 CAUSE CLEAN COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER!

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

Les Paul guitar is a nice thick meaty type instrument that really gives you a deep resonant sound echoes really well with any type of pop, rock, a metal type music. This is the kind of guitar you want to grab if you needed extremely versatile instrument is going to be extremely accommodating for any guitar player with various styles of playing in music. This is a very fun guitar and it has a cool look to it as well.

UTILIZATION

Features

490R alnico magnet humbucker at the neck
498T alnico magnet humbucker at the bridge
Mahogany body
1960 slim tapered neck
Rosewood 22-fret fingerboard
Chrome hardware

SOUNDS


The tone of a Gibson Les Paul is a nice thick meaty tone primarily because of the mahogany body wood as well as in the neck. You get a nice rich deep tone that really accepts a load of distortions quite well. Even if you're playing a clean setting it does pretty good but not compared to a thinner woodbased body such as a Fender Telecaster or a Fender Stratocaster with ash wood or an alder wood base. Overall this is a nice rich tone guitar that sounds extremely well because it doesn't have a load of lacquer or paint on it. So it resonates quite well.

OVERALL OPINION


These guitars of been discontinued for a while now so the only way to get one is on a used or classified sections of forums or online classifieds. It's a cool guitar and you could probably find it pretty inexpensively if you look . I would recommend this guitar to someone who is looking for a nice introduction into the Gibson Les Paul world. This is a fairly inexpensive Les Paul model and so you can get it for under $1000 or so. So if you want that nice thick meaty Gibson Les Paul tone and don't want to spend a whole lot of money then this is a great first step for those guitarist who are on a budget but want this particular sound.

The Faded series sometimes gets looked down upon because of their cheaper price, but I find them to be some really great playing guitars, especially considering that you don't need to pay full price to get that Les Paul tone. The guitar features a mahogany body, mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, trapezoid inlays, no pickguard, no binding, hard tail bridge, two humbuckers, two volumes, two tones and a three way switch.

UTILIZATION

This is a stripped down Les Paul, and you could kinda tell. The frets themselves weren't too bad in terms of height. I didn't have any issues with low frets causing the guitar to fret out with some decent action. However, the ends were a bit sharp in some parts. Be sure to pay attention to that if you decide to buy one. The nut was cut fine, but there are quite a few out there that have issues with the nuts being cut improperly causing some tuning stability issues. This is pretty apparent once you start bending and notice the guitar going out of tune all of the time. Aside from that, the guitar is put together nicely. The weight wasn't bad, and that was pretty nice as some of these can get heavy.

SOUNDS

The guitar sounds a bit meatier than the normal Les Paul. The biggest tonal difference you'll experience is that this is a bit darker sounding than a normal Les Paul. The reason is due to the lack of the maple top. The maple adds some extra bite to the overall sound, and it can be a good or bad thing depending on what your'e going for. Tonally, these are a bit closer to the Explorers, SGs and Vs than the Les Pauls. The pickups in this are average, but I'm not a huge fan of them. I usually replace them with something like the Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge and 59 in the neck.

OVERALL OPINION

Normally, I'd recommend buying stuff used on eBay. However, there are some issues with these regarding fretwork and improperly cut nuts, so you're better off buying one in the store that you can physically inspect. The guitars aren't 100% in terms of that Les Paul tone, but they sound great, and for the price they go for, they're definitely worth it.