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Hatsubai « Decent for what you get »
Published on 08/11/11 at 16:19The Studios are the guitars that are a bit more on the budget side, and considering some of the build quality on these, it's not really a surprise. The main difference between this and the regular Les Paul is that this doesn't have a maple top, and it lacks binding. 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 can really vary depending on what time of day they were made, how the luthiers were feeling, etc. This guitar had a few of the common issues that I usually find with these. The nut itself wasn't cut deep enough, and it was causing the strings to snag every time you bent a note. The frets themselves were fairly level, but the edges were a touch sharp. A quick filing with the triangle file should fix that no problem. Aside from that, the rest of the guitar was put together fairly nicely, although it was slightly heavy in terms of overall weight.
SOUNDS
The guitar didn't sound quite as good as a normal Les Paul, and I have a feeling that a lot of that can be contributed to A) the fact that this thing weighed quite a bit (dead weight which means a lack of resonance) and B) the fact that there's no maple top on this. These two things really define that standard Les Paul tone, and once they're missing, you get something that's a bit...different. It's not the worst sound in the world, but it's just not something that I'm looking for while searching for Les Pauls. The pickups in this were average and nothing to really write home about.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're going to get one of these, be sure to play through quite a few and find the one with the least amount of flaws. Also, make sure it's not too heavy and resonates nicely. There are some great players out there, but you have to hunt through them a bit to find the perfect one.
UTILIZATION
These guitars can really vary depending on what time of day they were made, how the luthiers were feeling, etc. This guitar had a few of the common issues that I usually find with these. The nut itself wasn't cut deep enough, and it was causing the strings to snag every time you bent a note. The frets themselves were fairly level, but the edges were a touch sharp. A quick filing with the triangle file should fix that no problem. Aside from that, the rest of the guitar was put together fairly nicely, although it was slightly heavy in terms of overall weight.
SOUNDS
The guitar didn't sound quite as good as a normal Les Paul, and I have a feeling that a lot of that can be contributed to A) the fact that this thing weighed quite a bit (dead weight which means a lack of resonance) and B) the fact that there's no maple top on this. These two things really define that standard Les Paul tone, and once they're missing, you get something that's a bit...different. It's not the worst sound in the world, but it's just not something that I'm looking for while searching for Les Pauls. The pickups in this were average and nothing to really write home about.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're going to get one of these, be sure to play through quite a few and find the one with the least amount of flaws. Also, make sure it's not too heavy and resonates nicely. There are some great players out there, but you have to hunt through them a bit to find the perfect one.