Gibson Zakk Wylde Les Paul Bullseye

The Gibson Zakk Wylde Les Paul Custom Shop is one of the finest Les Pauls Gibson has ever put out of their USA Custom Shop. With a Mahogany body and unfinished maple neck, this thing is as "Wylde" as it gets. It comes with the Zakk Wylde EMG set which consists of an 81 and 85. With the signature Zakk Wylde Bullseye design and decorated in gold hardware, it looks as great as it plays. Special touches like the gold truss rod cover, Zakk graphic on the back of the headstock and the beautiful unfinished maple neck make this guitar truly special.

UTILIZATION

This guitar is heavy, especially compared to the newer Les Pauls that I own. It's weight and mahogany body contribute to the overall chunky tones you can get from it. The active pickup configuration roars and is perfect if you are playing today's modern music. Grabbing a harmonic or generating massive downtuned tones comes easy with this Les Paul. The unfinished neck allows for very fast movement up and down the fretboard.

SOUNDS

This is the perfect match for an old Marshall JCM800 or JMP. Getting that 80s old school tone or ramping up to modern tones is no problem as this guitar can run with vintage and modern amps. I have played this through deizel, Bogner, Marshall, Fender and many other amps and never questioned its ability to get heavy tones on all of them. EMGs seem to lose tonality and warmth with cleaner playing which would be my only sound complaint.

OVERALL OPINION

Although this is an expensive Les Paul, it is well worth the money. Unlike some Custom Shop models, I really feel that they spared no expense when producing this guitar. The unfinished neck is by far my favorite feature of this guitar. It not only looks unique but also improves the playability of it. The appearance is also stunning with the gold hardware and custom paint scheme. Unlike some others that have played it, I like the weightiness of it and think it adds to the thick tonal quality.

The only downside is the use of EMGs. Although it allows the guitar to rip and emulate the heavy tones of Zakk Wylde, every now and then it's nice to play something with a bit more tone. I find EMGs very sterile for this purpose. Once I swapped out the EMGs for a set of passive humbuckers, this became the perfect guitar. I would absolutely reccomend this guitar to anyone looking for a quality guitar.

The Gibson Les Paul guitar has a nice warm woody tone primarily because of the thick mahogany wood that encompasses the body and in the neck. The guitar also features a rosewood fretboard and a nice maple top on the body. With that combination of tone would you can you get cradle warm and thick sounding instrument. This is the kind guitar that you would use with a nice high gain amplifier or even a medium gain amplifier. Primarily because it has a nice thick juicy tone that really resonates with any sound that you put through it. It doesn't come with a whole lot of features but what it does come with is a lot of soul. The EMG pups really add that thick saturated tone as well.

UTILIZATION

Features

Built to Zakk's specs with all his mods
EMG 81 and 85 pickups
Gold hardware including an engraved gold truss-rod cover with Zakk Wylde logo
Ebony fretboard with pearl block inlay
Multi-ply binding on top, back, neck, and peghead



SOUNDS


The Gibson Les Paul guitar has to be one of my favorite guitars in the world. Every feature and every time is just perfect for my playing. Depending on which week and what music I'm listening to I generally rotate from the Gibson Les Paul guitar to eight Fender Stratocaster or super strap type guitar. So depending on which week will determine which one I'm playing more often. This week it's a Gibson Les Paul guitar because I've been listening to a lot of hard rock and heavy metal songs so the nice girthy tone that this instrument produces really brings out the desire to get inspired and play more often. SO if you are into Zakk W or just like the look of this guitar than I would grab it.

OVERALL OPINION


You can find these guitars pretty much any where musical insurance resold. This is one of the most heavily used instruments in all of music and it's probably one of the most recorded instruments as well. These are great fantastic guitars but they are a little bit pricey. This is good to be a guitar for professional or someone is been around the block a while and knows exactly what they want or just a Zakk W fan. Gibson does make some more budget friendly Les Paul guitars which are called the studio models. Does come under $1000 or so so I would recommend grabbing one of those if you're on a budget.

This is really just a standard Les Paul with a few slight tweaks to make it Zakk Wylde's own personal signature guitar. The guitar has a mahogany body with a maple top, a maple neck that is unfinished, an ebony fretboard, trapezoid inlays, 22 frets, a tune-o-matic bridge, a unique paintjob, two humbuckers, two volumes, two tones and a three way switch.

UTILIZATION

The neck is easily the #1 thing about this guitar. It's a maple neck with an ebony fretboard, so it gives that old school 70s Les Paul kinda vibe. They're a bit snappier, and they cut through better. It's also unfinished which is a huge plus. The finishes on a lot of Gibson guitars tend to be sticky, and this guitar doesn't have that problem. The guitar itself was put together nicely, and the finish didn't have any drips or runs. It's definitely a love or hate finish, though. Can't say I'm a huge fan of the way it looks.

SOUNDS

This guitar sounded phenomenal. The EMG 81 in the bridge is perfect for this. It was super tight, aggressive, saturated and completely balls to the wall. It had bite, but it was never too harsh. It works awesome for any type of metal, but it starts to lack when it comes to rock and anything with lower gain. The EMG 85 in the neck is super fat and smooth sounding. It's kinda like playing on easy mode. Legato comes scary easily, and you can do all kinds of signature pinch harmonics with this guitar.

OVERALL OPINION

This guitar is really a metal machine. It sounds awesome, was built nicely and felt killer. I honestly think that if this didn't have the obnoxious finish, it would be one of Gibson's best selling signature models out there. That's the #1 problem with this guitar. The finish is just awful. That, and it's not really meant for classic rock.

Its always funny when a signature Les Paul comes out because the Les Paul is Les Pauls signature guitar. It already has his name on it. This Les Paul Custom is a signature model of Zakk Wyldes 70s Les Paul that he has been playing for years. Zakks guitar has some personal touches. Many 70s Les Pauls had maple necks like this one and on Zakk's guitar the paint on the back of the neck is removed for a raw finish. The pickups are a set of EMG's. There is an 81 in the bridge and an 85 in the neck. This is now a classic configuration for EMG's. On the face of the guitar you can see Zakk's classic bullseye motif. The neck has an ebony fretboard with block inlays and 22 jumbo frets. After these mods the guitar is pretty much a typical Les Paul Custom. It has a tone and volume control for each pickup and a 3 way switch. The guitar is 1 piece mahogany with a maple top. Im pretty sure Zakk's personal guitar since it was a 70s model has a pancake body but I dont think Gibson wants people to know this.

UTILIZATION

The guitar plays slightly better than your typical Les Paul. The raw finish on the back of the neck means the neck is faster to play. The finish on the back of a neck can cause the neck to become sticky when you are playing and cause you to snag on the neck. The frets are larger than on a normal Les Paul so you can get a better action on the neck for easy bends. The upper fret access is typical of a Les Paul beacause of the design the upper frets are not that easy to reach. You have to reach around the whole body to get to the upper frets on the guitar. All the hardware is gold so it may tarnish on you or rub off. Gibson still does not use locking tune-o-matic bridges so when you are changing strings the bridge may fall off. Gibson did not put a separate compartment for the EMG's battery so whenever you need to change batteries you have to take the whole electronics compartment cavity off. This means you cannot really change batteries on the fly. If you do the 18v mod to the pickups you will pretty much need a separate compartment for the batteries since there will be two.

SOUNDS

This guitar is as heavy as a Les Paul can get. With EMG's from the factory the guitar rips faces. The 81 in the bridge has been an iconic metal pickup for decades. It has a high end crunch and distortion that gives it clarity no matter how much gain you are using or how low you tune. The 85 in the neck is a great pickup too. It has a more fuller sound than the 81 so in the neck position you can get fat lead tones. The 85 is also good too in the bridge. With EMG's quick connect system you can easily swap these pickups position without soldering anything. The 85 in the bridge produces a super thick tone and cleans up better than the 81. Speaking of cleans if you do the 18v mod on the EMG's. With the 18v mod you run the pickups on two batteries instead of one. This provides a more organic tone with more headroom. This tone produces better cleans than stock EMG's and clean tones are usually the weakest part of the EMG sound.

OVERALL OPINION

If you are a Zakk Wylde fan there is no other guitar out there that cuts it. The iconic bullseye Les Paul with the EMG's has rocked people for decades. Its fat Les Paul tone with the searing gain from the EMG's mean it can play any time of heavy music. If you are looking for a metal Les Paul and dont mind looking like a target this guitar is a good option.