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Hatsubai « Solid guitars for the money »
Published on 07/15/11 at 18:28The Les Paul Studio is always one of those guitars that a lot of people tend to stay away from as it lacks the true construction that a normal Les Paul has. I tend to agree, but these are still pretty solid, especially for their used prices. The guitar features a mahogany body, mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, trapezoid inlays, pickguard, no binding, hard tail bridge, two humbuckers, two volumes, two tones and a three way switch.
UTILIZATION
These guitars seem to be built fairly nice, but I experienced some fretwork issues on a few that were in the store. Gibson still has some QC issues, so you really need to play all of these before ultimately buying them. The good thing is that they were all fairly resonant sounding. That means that any fretwork issues or nut issues can usually be corrected by a competent luthier without too much of a hassle.
SOUNDS
This guitar actually had EMGs installed in it, so I'll be going by those instead of the standard pickups. The guitar had an EMG 81 in the bridge and an EMG 85 in the neck. The 81 in the bridge sounded thick, but it had enough bite to cut through without a problem. It worked awesome for metal tones; in fact, it was crushing. I was really surprised how nice it sounded. The 85 in the neck was super thick and worked awesome for those legato and shred leads. The clean tones were pretty awful on these, but that's fairly typical with EMGs. However, since it's geared towards metal, the clean tone doesn't really matter that much.
OVERALL OPINION
If you swap the pickups in these models, you can get a super fat sounding guitar. It won't have that top end sparkle that the normal Les Paul has, but some people like the darker tone of the all mahogany models. It really depends on what you're going for, but I find that these can be pretty solid if you find one used in good condition. Just be sure to check the frest and nut as those'll be your biggest issue.
UTILIZATION
These guitars seem to be built fairly nice, but I experienced some fretwork issues on a few that were in the store. Gibson still has some QC issues, so you really need to play all of these before ultimately buying them. The good thing is that they were all fairly resonant sounding. That means that any fretwork issues or nut issues can usually be corrected by a competent luthier without too much of a hassle.
SOUNDS
This guitar actually had EMGs installed in it, so I'll be going by those instead of the standard pickups. The guitar had an EMG 81 in the bridge and an EMG 85 in the neck. The 81 in the bridge sounded thick, but it had enough bite to cut through without a problem. It worked awesome for metal tones; in fact, it was crushing. I was really surprised how nice it sounded. The 85 in the neck was super thick and worked awesome for those legato and shred leads. The clean tones were pretty awful on these, but that's fairly typical with EMGs. However, since it's geared towards metal, the clean tone doesn't really matter that much.
OVERALL OPINION
If you swap the pickups in these models, you can get a super fat sounding guitar. It won't have that top end sparkle that the normal Les Paul has, but some people like the darker tone of the all mahogany models. It really depends on what you're going for, but I find that these can be pretty solid if you find one used in good condition. Just be sure to check the frest and nut as those'll be your biggest issue.