View other reviews for this product:
tjon901 « Stripped down Les Paul »
Published on 07/07/11 at 20:41Everyone knows what a Les Paul is. The Les Paul guitar has been an icon in the guitar world for nearly 60 years now. The shape is a classic shape and the design is timeless. There have been countless version of the Les Paul released. Many are short lived but there are a few variations that Gibson has decided to make regular. The Les Paul Studio has been a common model for the last 20 or so years. The Les Paul Studio is a no frills version of the Les Paul. The guitar is pretty much a Les Paul Standard without any extras. There is no binding anywhere to be found. Most models come with a rosewood fretboard but some have ebony which I do not understand. They have 22 frets with trapezoid inlays now. They use to come with dot inlays. The neck is the baseball bat 50s style. It comes with standard gibson 490R and 498T pickups. It has the standard Les Paul control layout with a volume and tone for teach pickup and a 3 way switch.
UTILIZATION
No frills reaches into the area of playability also. With the 50s style neck some players might have some problems. They have put the 50s profile Gibson neck on this guitar so the neck is huge. People call the 50s profile neck the baseball bat neck. This may make it hard for some people with smaller hands to play. Because of the set neck design there is a large neck tenon and joint. This can make the upper frets hard for some people to reach because the body essentially joins the neck at the 17th fret. After the 17th fret you are reaching around the body to get to the frets. Because there is no binding the guitar will be more likely to have sharp fret edges when you first get it. This guitar is a lot lighter than most Les Pauls due to it being chambered. This means they cut wood out from the inside of the guitar so it is almost like a semi-hollow. If you x-rayed the guitar it would look like it was made out of swiss cheese with little circles cut out of it. Gibson still isnt putting locking bridges on their guitars. When you change strings the bridge can come off because it is held on by string tension. If this happens make sure you put it on the right way because you can put it on backwards and your intonation will be horribly off. When this happens your guitar will sound in tune on the open strings but any chords you play will sound off. Companies like ESP have been putting locking tune-o-matic bridges on their guitars for years.
SOUNDS
Being a low end Gibson it has the generic Gibson pickups. These pickups are not anything special. With the chambering the natural tone of the guitar is really effected. You can compare a chambered Les Paul to a non chambered Les Paul and you can really hear the difference. A non chambered Les Paul will sound more solid. The mahogany wood give the guitar a really deep sound even though the body is not that big. If you want to play heavier music you may want to change out the pickups. The Gibson pickups are medium output and are voiced more for classic rock. Putting in some Classic 57s would be okay if you want to keep it all Gibson but I recommend some Seymour Duncan pickups for a guitar like this.
OVERALL OPINION
This guitar sells for about 800 dollars. At that low a price there are better guitars out there if you are not just buying it for the Gibson logo on the headstock. A high end Epiphone which would be about 100 dollars less is just as good if not better than this guitar. The money you save getting the high end Epiphone you can put towards some nice pickups and you would have a much better guitar then. You can find some Edwards guitars for this cheap and they would also be much better since they are non chambered and come with aftermarket pickups and ebony fretboards stock. If you are looking for a cheap Les Paul and it has to be a Gibson they dont get much cheaper than this.
UTILIZATION
No frills reaches into the area of playability also. With the 50s style neck some players might have some problems. They have put the 50s profile Gibson neck on this guitar so the neck is huge. People call the 50s profile neck the baseball bat neck. This may make it hard for some people with smaller hands to play. Because of the set neck design there is a large neck tenon and joint. This can make the upper frets hard for some people to reach because the body essentially joins the neck at the 17th fret. After the 17th fret you are reaching around the body to get to the frets. Because there is no binding the guitar will be more likely to have sharp fret edges when you first get it. This guitar is a lot lighter than most Les Pauls due to it being chambered. This means they cut wood out from the inside of the guitar so it is almost like a semi-hollow. If you x-rayed the guitar it would look like it was made out of swiss cheese with little circles cut out of it. Gibson still isnt putting locking bridges on their guitars. When you change strings the bridge can come off because it is held on by string tension. If this happens make sure you put it on the right way because you can put it on backwards and your intonation will be horribly off. When this happens your guitar will sound in tune on the open strings but any chords you play will sound off. Companies like ESP have been putting locking tune-o-matic bridges on their guitars for years.
SOUNDS
Being a low end Gibson it has the generic Gibson pickups. These pickups are not anything special. With the chambering the natural tone of the guitar is really effected. You can compare a chambered Les Paul to a non chambered Les Paul and you can really hear the difference. A non chambered Les Paul will sound more solid. The mahogany wood give the guitar a really deep sound even though the body is not that big. If you want to play heavier music you may want to change out the pickups. The Gibson pickups are medium output and are voiced more for classic rock. Putting in some Classic 57s would be okay if you want to keep it all Gibson but I recommend some Seymour Duncan pickups for a guitar like this.
OVERALL OPINION
This guitar sells for about 800 dollars. At that low a price there are better guitars out there if you are not just buying it for the Gibson logo on the headstock. A high end Epiphone which would be about 100 dollars less is just as good if not better than this guitar. The money you save getting the high end Epiphone you can put towards some nice pickups and you would have a much better guitar then. You can find some Edwards guitars for this cheap and they would also be much better since they are non chambered and come with aftermarket pickups and ebony fretboards stock. If you are looking for a cheap Les Paul and it has to be a Gibson they dont get much cheaper than this.