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Hatsubai « The new standard »
Published on 05/02/11 at 17:23Gibson set out to make a new Les Paul Standard. At the same time, given that the new Standard was quite different than the original, they made a new guitar called the Traditional. The Traditional is basically what the older Standard was the entire time but with a few upgrades. It still has the same things we all know and love -- a mahogany body with a maple top, a set mahogany neck with rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, two humbuckers, two volume knobs, two tone knobs, binding, a hard tail TOM bridge, a pickguard and a three way switch. The main difference is that this is PLEK'd.
UTILIZATION
The Traditional is a very nice guitar, and they helped solve one of the main issues with Les Pauls which was the fretwork. The new guitars have the fretboards run through a PLEK machine. This perfectly levels the frets better than a human can, and it's leaps and bounds above what the normal Gibson luthiers were doing. The guitar still has the "swiss cheese" holes drilled in it that have been present since the 80s, and they don't really affect tone, from what I can tell. The neck is very nice feeling; it's not too thick or thin, and I have a feeling most Gibson lovers will jump right into it.
SOUNDS
I'm not a fan of the stock Gibson pickups, so I generally replace those, along with the pots. This helps make the guitar more versatile give it some more balls. Given that I play heavy metal most of the time, my main focus is to get something that sounds great for that distorted tone. I find that a Duncan JB goes perfectly in the bridge, and the '59 in the neck is just heaven. The volume and tone controls help add some additional versatility to this, too.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're on the hunt for a new Les Paul, I highly recommend looking into this model over any of the other models. Some stores also offer a "Pro" model which has a standard maple top, zebra pickups, coil splitting and a few other things. Those are awesome guitars as well, and they're also cheaper. Either way, this is probably the Les Paul you want to look at rather than the Standard.
UTILIZATION
The Traditional is a very nice guitar, and they helped solve one of the main issues with Les Pauls which was the fretwork. The new guitars have the fretboards run through a PLEK machine. This perfectly levels the frets better than a human can, and it's leaps and bounds above what the normal Gibson luthiers were doing. The guitar still has the "swiss cheese" holes drilled in it that have been present since the 80s, and they don't really affect tone, from what I can tell. The neck is very nice feeling; it's not too thick or thin, and I have a feeling most Gibson lovers will jump right into it.
SOUNDS
I'm not a fan of the stock Gibson pickups, so I generally replace those, along with the pots. This helps make the guitar more versatile give it some more balls. Given that I play heavy metal most of the time, my main focus is to get something that sounds great for that distorted tone. I find that a Duncan JB goes perfectly in the bridge, and the '59 in the neck is just heaven. The volume and tone controls help add some additional versatility to this, too.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're on the hunt for a new Les Paul, I highly recommend looking into this model over any of the other models. Some stores also offer a "Pro" model which has a standard maple top, zebra pickups, coil splitting and a few other things. Those are awesome guitars as well, and they're also cheaper. Either way, this is probably the Les Paul you want to look at rather than the Standard.