tphester's Reviews
7 reviews Back to tphester's Equipboard
179
A Magnificent Beast
This guitar is a magnificent beast -- it has a nice slender neck, a snappy ebony fretboard, and a Bigsby that does not pull the guitar out of tune every time you use it. Even though the guitar is 42 years old the pots work noiselessly; the fretboard is fine; and the pickups sound great (not sure what kind they are; tarbacks perhaps?)
Gibson referred to this guitar as a "limited edition" SG Standard, as it features an unbound ebony fretboard. As it is not clear whether Gibson made any Standards with a bound rosewood board during 1974-75, "limited edition" might be somewhat misleading. But that's what they called it.
179
Killer Guitar
This guitar has everything I was looking for in an SG: slim 60s-style neck, 24 frets, Bigsby tremolo, and three Classic '57 humbuckers. Only thing that keeps it from getting five stars is tuning issues caused by the Bigsby. While the tuning problems are annoying, they are pretty much offset by the coolness of the Bigsby.
179
Killer Guitar
This guitar has everything I was looking for in an SG: slim 60s-style neck, 24 frets, Bigsby tremolo, and three Classic '57 humbuckers. Only thing that keeps it from getting five stars is tuning issues caused by the Bigsby. While the tuning problems are annoying, they are pretty much offset by the coolness of the Bigsby.
179
This guitar has crunch, power, and sustain
My Gibson "The Paul" is a 1979; I've had it since about 1989. It is a stripped-down Les Paul with all the high-quality hardware you expect on a Gibson Les Paul (Grover tuners, Tune-O-Matic bridge, etc.) and a few twists that are out of the ordinary: a solid walnut body and an ebony fretboard. It came stock with the Gibson T-Top humbuckers, which produce a nice full, warm sound with a lot of snap and definition. Its only drawback for me is its lack of a tremolo piece; but this doesn't make it any different from the standard Gibson or Epiphone Les Paul model, and the hard tail allows for more sustain than you might otherwise get, so that's not really that much of a drawback (as long as you have other guitars to use for your tremolo work!).
It is a very heavy guitar, which I don't mind; that probably contributes to its tonal qualities as well. The bottom line is: all the original parts of this guitar function fine, and the guitar is 36 years old. That says a lot for the quality of the workmanship and parts that went into this beast. And yet today these guitars seem to fetch $700-$750, which is only about $50-100 more than they cost in 1979! When you factor in inflation, the guitar has not been a good financial investment, to say the least. But it is still my go-to guitar for solos when I'm recording, and I find it very pleasing to the eye as well.
41034
I've been eyeballing one of these in silver on reverb (pretty much because I love metallic finishes), but 'the paul' is reviled by a lot of serious Gibson aficianados as being too heavy and not sounding authentically Les Paulish. The T-Tops are a selling point to me as I love the one I already have. How does she compare to an off-the-shelf standard of the 80s?
179
I don't know what those 1980s ones sound like, so I am in no position to compare. But I do think The Paul sounds different from other Les Pauls I've tried, probably because of the ebony fretboard. There is a darkness to the sound, but also a snappiness that cuts right through a mix. The fretboard can feel very soft and buttery, like it wants to be played. But that could partially be a result of the fact that I have been playing this guitar for more than 25 years, so it has adapted to the shape of my hands. If you want to hear it, I used it for all the lead parts on the song "Tonight": https://www.reverbnation.com/tomhester
179
As for the weight issue, it is a heavy beast! No chambering and not even much routing -- unlike on the traditional Les Pauls the pickup selector is right near the volume and tone controls, so there is no routing required on the upper part of the guitar. I don't mind the heaviness, though, as it can be good exercise just to carry the thing around, and it also seems to give the sound more heft.
I have never seen one with metallic paint -- is that a The Paul II? Or does it have an aftermarket paint job?
179
Update: I have it on good information that the pickups in this guitar are Tim Shaw humbuckers, which are evidently different from regular "T-Tops" (although they do still have a "T" on the top of the pickup) -- either way, they sound fantastic -- not too loud, but giving plenty of crunch with a little gain on the amp.
Also, I was able to fit a Les Trem tremolo bar on it without modifying the guitar (Bigsbys and several other types of tremolos generally will not fit on these guitars because the pickup switch is placed very close to and almost behind the tailpiece, in an area that would normally be covered by parts of the Bigsby or other tremolo system).
179
Great pickups, great neck, but ...
This guitar is potentially great -- it's got a 24 1/4" scale, a nice straight flat and wide fretboard, a Hagstrom tremolo system, and of course the famous DeArmond gold-foil "Mustache" pickups, which sound raunchy and kind of trashy, in a good way. They seem to have a lot of output and they produce a very full-sounding spectrum of sounds.
When I got the guitar, one of the volume pots was stuck in place, and the other volume pot was functioning but very noisy. Deoxit solved both of those problems. The only problem now is the pickguard has warped a bit over time, and this has caused the pickups to be raised up, getting too close to the strings; as a result, when I first got the guitar, the action could not be properly adjusted to make the guitar comfortably playable without having the strings come too low over the pickups. The solution has been to raise the whole neck with a shim. I am still fine-tuning this, and intend to install one that fits the whole neck pocket (right now I am just using a cut-up business card). This WILL be a great guitar when I get it completely set up.
179
You could change the speaker, but it would take some work (and $$$s). My point is that you can only buy a new Silent Sister with Celestion Vintage 30s in the tan model; the black models all have some slightly less high-end type of Celestion speaker. Based purely on aesthetics I thought I would prefer the black model when I first went to get one. Now that some time has gone by I don't really care any more; I might even prefer the tan one now that I'm used to it!
179
This guitar will rip your face off
This is one of the least expensive guitars I own -- I bought it used for $325 -- and it is my favorite guitar to play at the moment. It has a coil-tapping feature, so you can get a nice thick, raunchy sound with the humbuckers engaged, or a clear and jangly sound in single-coil mode. The Floyd Rose tremolo works well; it is almost impossible to get this guitar out of tune when the tuners are locked down. It has a beautiful appearance, and it is pretty heavy as well -- you probably should avoid this guitar if you have back issues.
Just to add my 2 cents to the Gibson vs. Epiphone debate, I brought this guitar in to my local Guitar Center a few weeks ago, plugged it in to a good amp and wailed on it for a while. Then I plugged in a whole series of new Gibson Les Pauls. While each guitar has its own individual qualities and tones, making precise comparisons difficult, it seemed to these ears that my $325 Epiphone compared favorably to a succession of $2000-$3500 Gibson guitars.
179
I recently replaced the stock Epiphone Alnico Classic pickups with Seymour Duncan Whole Lotta Humbuckers -- and now the guitar just screams.
One problem with this guitar is you have to be careful to stay away from the Floyd Rose tremolo unit while you're not using it, because it's very sensitive and it's therefore it's easy to accidentally push down on the trem and push yourself out of tune when playing a chord. It's just a matter of being conscious of where your hand is touching/resting while you play, but still kind of inconvenient.