| Product: |
Les Paul Standard |
| Date: |
28/09/04 (4391 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Sound, Image, Built to last!
Disadvantages: A bit heavy!
An Introduction
A few montha ago I decided that it was time I purchased a new electric guitar. My faithful 1988 Gibson Les Paul has served me well for the last 9 years and is still going strong. The thing is though it’s now starting to increase in value and become a nice little investment so it could do with spending a bit less time on a beer soaked stage around clumsy band members and other musicians (including myself)!
So a new guitar then, but what make should I get? A metal pointy thrash machine like an Ibanez? Nah! Not my style and they look so flimsy that they’d last five minutes! A Paul Reed Smith? Nah! Lovely guitars but I’m not paying nearly three grand for the privilege! So then, something that is built to last, classy and not way too expensive? Only one choice then, another Gibson Les Paul! Actually I should admit that I’m a bit of a Gibson nut, also have a 1973 SG too!
Anyway after browsing through the guitar magazines, the ad for Peter Cook’s Guitar World caught my eye. It featured a brand new 2001 Gibson Les Paul, in a Honeyburst finish priced at £1,149. “That’s a good price”, I thought seeing as how a 2003 model costs about £1500! After chatting to the guy at the shop it turns out that he had a couple of brand new 2001 model Les Pauls that he’d found at the back of the storeroom recently, not realising they were there. He wanted to clear them out so had cut about £200 off the price. I couldn’t refuse so I popped up to the store in Hanwell and purchased one!
OK I’ll stop rambling on and get to reviewing the guitar then!
Construction
A Gibson Les Paul is made from three different woods, mahogany, rosewood and maple. The mahogany forms the back of the guitar and the neck, the rosewood forms the fingerboard and the maple forms the top of the guitar body.
The mahogany body itself provides the guitar with warmth and sustain, and the maple top is added to give a touch of extra brightness. A guitar with a thick mahogany body can sound too muddy and lacking in top end, which is why Gibson gives the Les Paul a maple top. Of course all this wood together makes this guitar quite a weighty beast!
The maple top is carved to form an arched top, appearing similar to that on a violin. This gives the guitar a traditional feel and I think very classy look to it. The finish on this top is called Honeyburst, which could probably be best described as an amber colour, and it looks very nice in my opinion!
The neck is glued into the body, which also helps to increase the sustain. The neck itself is based on the 1959 model profile. It’s quite fat, but sits very comfortably in the hand. The frets are Gibson’s standard medium type. These are fatter than those found on something like a Fender Stratocaster, but not as large as some you would find on those metal-machine-speed-neck guitars!
The fingerboard is made from rosewood and has trapezoid shaped inlays made from mother of pearl on the neck. The nut is very well cut and the action and set up straight out of the case was spot on.
The tuners on this guitar are Grovers. This seems be the norm for 2001 model, having abandoned the traditional Kluson style tuners they used for many years on the Les Paul Standard models.
On the body the hardware is Gibson’s usual combination of tune-o-matic bridge and stop tailpiece.
The pickups fitted to this guitar are two Alnico humbuckers. One fitted by the bridge and one fitted by the neck. A three way switch selects between the two pickups. The “lead” position selects the bridge pickup, the “rhythm” selects the neck pickup and the middle position selects both pickups together.
Sounds
Playing acoustically this Les Paul sounds quite warm and not overly loud. It doesn’t have the “twang” of an SG but it also doesn’t lack in projection, it’s more of a mellow sound really.
But soft! Electric guitars are surely meant to be plugged into an amplifier, so that’s what needs to be done now to continue my review!
I used my recently acquired Marshall TSL 100 head to help me review the sound of the guitar. I should add that I’ve reviewed this amp on Ciao, so why not pop along to the amplifiers section and give it a read? Anyway I’ll press on with describing the sounds…
Starting off with a clean setting on the amp, selecting the “lead” setting gives a bright sound, but with added warmth there too. The sound cuts through but it never becomes too toppy. It’s very useful for getting those jangely chords coming through over the drums at gigs and rehearsals. Swapping to the “rhythm” setting the sound is much thicker and warmer but not muddy or muffled. This setting can be very useful for those jazz chords and also sounds great for strumming open chords when you’re doing your heart-felt ballads! The middle setting gives an almost hollow sound but with a bit of added “twang”. I find this setting very useful for funk as it lends quite a percussive sound to chords.
Moving onto a more distorted sound, the “lead” pickup setting really comes into play. There is bags of sustain here but with a edge of brightness to it. With the amp running on just a touch of crunch, those classic rock riffs just ring out! Moving onto the “rhythm” setting and edging the distortion up, you have that classic smooth sound with sustain that seems to last forever. This is where you can do your best Santana impersonations! The “middle” setting I personally don’t use that much with distortion. I prefer to use this hollow sound on a clean setting.
Of course when you throw bags of distortion on the amp, the “lead” setting will allow you to rock out with the best of them!
This guitar can really handle anything from jazz all the way through to the latest down tuned metal. For a design concept that is 50 years old, I think this guitar is still as great sounding and versatile as anything out there!
Conclusion
Well I am very happy that I purchased this guitar. I think I paid a very good price for it (I’ve seen one recently going second hand for £1300!) I also believe that this guitar is built to last a very long time. I’ve used my other Les Paul for nearly a decade and never had a problem with it, so I think that shows the build quality of these guitars is not in doubt!
If you haven’t tried a Les Paul before and can cope with the extra weight then I reckon you should give one a try. You’ll have a guitar that can match anything out there for sound and looks.
Thanks for reading!
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Foxy-Lady - 29/09/04 I bought my hubby an electric guitar for Christmas 2 years ago and he still hasn’t learnt how to play the damn thing!
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