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tjon901 « Iconic signature Les Paul »
Published on 06/23/11 at 08:23Its 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.
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.