Gibson Les Paul Deluxe (1969)

The old school Les Paul Deluxes tend to be a lot closer to the real old, early 50s guitars more than the current production ones, I've found. The downside is that a lot of them are really beat up, so you're going to have to be searching for awhile for a clean one. The guitar features a mahogany body with a maple top, mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, trapezoid inlays, pickguard, binding, hard tail bridge, two P90s, two volumes, two tones and a three way switch.

UTILIZATION

The inlay work on this was done nicely. There were no fillers or anything like that in there like I've found in some lower end Gibsons. The nut itself was cut properly, although the string gauge that was put on this guitar was wrong. Someone put 11s on it, and they were a touch too big for the nut on the bass side. The fretwork itself seemed to be great with no annoying edges slicing your hand or uncrowned frets. However, the biggest issue was that the frets were really low, and I'm not really a fan of these super low fret guitars that GIbson used to crank out.

SOUNDS

The P90s in this are very good. They have this vintage vibe to them that sounds super woody and aggressive. It works great for blues and light rock kind of stuff. Playing metal with these guitars is a bit of a stretch, but they can work pretty nice when it comes to leads and other stuff like that. The bridge had a nice bite to it, but it was never too harsh sounding. It was like a nicer single coil, really. The in between position was useless, but I naturally hate that position. The neck was great for both cleans and leads, but I kind of wish it had a bit more power for what I like to play.

OVERALL OPINION

The older ones are just rolling in mojo, and if you can get one at a good price, I recommend grabbing it. Be weary of the eBay ones. Tons of fakes are all over eBay, and you'll never be able to get your money back. I recommend trying to buy either local or from a certified guitar store. You'll be more likely to be able to return it in case you dislike the actual guitar.