The Gibson Les Paul is Revered For it’s Classic Style and Versatile Tone

Ah, The sustain… Listen to it…

The Gibson Guitar Corporation is an American manufacturer of guitars. Gibson also builds: Epiphone, Kramer, Valley Arts, Tobias, Steinberger, and Kalamazoo guitars.

Company founder Orville Gibson made mandolins in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the late 1890s. He invented arch top guitars by using the same type of carved, arched tops found on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars.  In the early 1950s, Gibson introduced its first solid-body electric guitar and its most popular guitar to date—the Les Paul.

Off the Rack

Finally Gibson has created the perfect guitar. The Gibson Custom Les Paul Axcess Standard Electric Guitar with Floyd Rose tremolo is just what the doctor ordered. It gives you all the classic Les Paul style, tone and feel with the added locking tremolo system. In my opinion, this guitar is the whole package. Amazing tone with the ability to utilize whammy techniques and keep perfect tune-age!

The Specs

• The one-piece, 24 3/4″ scale length, mahogany neck
• 22-fret rosewood fret board
• Medium frets
• weight-relieved mahogany body
• Carved maple top
• Les Paul Axcess’s slightly thinner body
• Contoured joint
• Seymour Duncan Pickups (59’ Jazz)
• Sunburst or Gun metal Grey finishes
• 3-way selector switch

The Low Down

This Les Paul is nothing short of miraculous! For Les Paul players who are looking for an extra bite or a more aggressive attack, this is the guitar for you. For many years, you could only utilize the Floyd Rose system with a specific kind of guitar. Those type of guitars are awesome in their own right, but nothing beats the tone of a Les Paul. Now Gibson has combined the best of both worlds. The Les Paul tone is slightly modified because the strings are not in the usual Tune-o-matic position. But this guitar still packs all the classic crunch that you have come to know and love.  An easy A+ in my book.

Pros: It’s a Les Paul, Floyd Rose, Seymour Duncan Pickups, Slightly lighter body.

Cons: Pricey but it’s a Les Paul.

MSRP – $3449.99

Till next week, thanks for reading and keep on shredding.

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Nick Arrietta is a staff writer at SMG. Nick is a professional Music teacher from California and has been playing the Guitar for 24 years. Along with teaching music he is a touring guitarist, studio musician and songwriter. Email: nick@sharemyguitar.com

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There is no question that good vintage guitars often make great investments. For instance, depending on the model, Les Paul guitars have been known to sell for over a quarter of a million dollars, while some Fender Telecasters command close to $100,000 in today’s market place. In fact, some of the most popular vintage guitars from the 1960’s can go for more than $20,000.

Photo by Dan Coplan

But just what is it about these guitars that make them so special? Vintage (also called collectible) guitars are basically instruments that are at least twenty-five years old and elicit a sense of “romance” in the hearts and minds of people. It doesn’t necessarily matter if they are acoustic, electric, hollow body or solid, as much as just how popular the type is with famous musicians past and present. In other words, if Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page or even Steve Vai is known to play one, then collectors are sure to want the same one too.

Next comes the manufacturer’s name, i.e., Di Giorgio, Gibson, Fender, etc. Some collectors only want guitars from specific makers. In addition, value increases depending on their rarity. Workmanship and sound quality, as well as whether it looks “cool” are factors that go into determining the value of anything “vintage” including the public’s basic love for an item, and thus its actual value. To connoisseurs, the very design, finish and color of many vintage guitars make them true “works of art” to be cherished. Without that special “romanticism” it is just an old or used axe with little worth in the resale market.

However, it is interesting to note that electric guitars currently seem to be commanding the biggest share of the vintage guitar market, although that is not to say that acoustics aren’t commanding a lot of attention as well.  It will be interesting to see how things go over the next few years to see what comes out on top in the vintage market.

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Corey Palmer is a guitarist from Woodstock, NB Canada who has been playing for the past 20 years.  During this time, he has been a member of many different bands ranging from rock, metal and even a little country.  He currently jams with a band called gNosh. Email: coreypalmer@sharemyguitar.com

The Gibson Buckethead Signature Les Paul is unlike any Les Paul out there. With an over-sized, chambered Les Paul body, a marker-less ebony fretboard, and Buckethead’s custom Gibson ceramic humbucker pickups, complete with modified electronics and kill switches.

The Buckethead Les Paul is designed for the contemporary rock, metal, and shred performer

The Techs & Specs

Each Buckethead Signature Les Paul is crafted from a two-piece maple top attached to a chambered mahogany body. This wood combination is one of the most legendary pairings in the history of the solid and semi-solid electric guitar and yields a beastly tone  that is unmatched. The chambering adds a further dimension, increasing the guitar’s tone, while also increasing its acoustic volume and sustain.

The Gibson Buckethead Signature Les Paul is finished in high-gloss alpine white which is not often found. The neck of the Gibson Buckethead signature guitar is constructed from a single piece of solid mahogany, and glued to the body at a 4-degree angle (pitch). Buckethead’s Signature Les Paul neck is carved to its own custom profile that runs from .870″ at the nut to .955″ at the 12th fret, and is designed for speed and comfort. The Buckethead Signature Les Paul features a 27″ Scale length which increases neck tension for improved accuracy and precision and allows for lower tunings, used in modern rock music.

Listen To That Sustain…

The Buckethead Signature Les Paul is equipped with an ebony fretboard and a 12-inch radius fretboard. This Gibson Les Paul sports 24 jumbo frets that are superb to the touch. It carries no inlays, which gives it a sleek look but may hinder beginner and intermediate players.

The Buckethead guitar carries a calibrated pair of Gibson’s contemporary-voiced ceramic series humbucking pickups, featuring a 496R in the neck (rhythm) position, and a hot 500T in the bridge (lead) position. Both are custom made with double-white bobbins to match the look of the guitar. Also, the bridge pickup is split via a push/pull switch on the Tone knob to achieve a single-coil tone.

The 496R in the neck position has excellent sustain and smooth tone while the 500T, is one of Gibson’s two hottest pickups, intended for blistering lead tones, sustain, and searing cutting power in the bridge position This Gibson Les Paul carries two red “arcade” style push-button kill switches to mute the output of the guitar, as well as a push/pull switch on the tone potentiometer to access the bridge pickup’s split-coil feature. The headstock of the Buckethead Les Paul comes with chrome-plated locking Grover tuners. The Buckethead Signature comes protected in a Gibson hard shell case.

Buckethead performing live in shred!

And The Verdict Is…

My overall opinion of this beast is that it shall not be overshadowed by any other guitar. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful this axe is. I drove from Los Angeles to Palmdale just to play around with this guitar. For those of you who don’t know how far that is, it’s about 70 miles each way!

This guitar is special order only; every guitar shop I called did not carry one in stock. With a price tag at around $4,000 USD it’s understandable. The tone is monstrous and bright with amazing attack and sustain. You can really dig into the strings and the notes just seem to sing forever.

I loved the longer neck. It allows more room at the higher frets which means more accuracy and less mishaps. It’s super fast and lightweight which was surprising given the fact that it has a larger body. You can really get lost in the sound of this axe, with beautiful clean tones as well as blistering chunk not to mention all you can do with the kill switches. Beginner and some intermediate players will have trouble with the clean marker-less fretboard, but all in all there is nothing I would change about this Les Paul. It’s perfect in every way. For those of you who don’t know who Buckethead is look him up, he is one of the all time great guitar players and composers of all time. ALL TIME KIDS!

Till next week, thanks for reading and keep on shredding!

Yesterday news flew like wildfire around the online guitar world that Gibson’s Nashville manufaturing plant was raided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials looking for endangered rosewood from Madagascar. At issue is the Lacey Act, which makes it illegal to–among other things–possess any plant material that was obtained in violation of any domestic or foreign laws. The Fish and Wildlife Service alleges that some of the rosewood being used by Gibson was illegally obtained Madagascar rosewood, an endangered species.

Gibson has released the following statement:

“Gibson is a chain of custody certified buyer who purchases wood from legal suppliers who are to follow all standards . . . Gibson Guitar Chairman and CEO sit on the board of the Rainforest Alliance and take the issue of certification very seriously.”

The U.S. Attorney’s office has not arrested anyone, but guitars and wood were seized from the property.

A military coup that began in Madagascar in January of this year has disrupted the financial stability of the country. Apparently the export of Madagascar rosewood is often linked with criminal activity, though exportation has been legalized by the new, self-proclaimed Madagascar President. Sources close to the NashvillePost.com are alleging that Gibson was involved in a scheme that imported the endangered rosewood through Germany.

It is not clear whether any of the allegedly illegal rosewood has already been made to guitar necks that have left the Gibson manufacturing plant, or whether any of those “escaped” guitars will be retrieved by U.S. Fish & Wildlife agents. If there are guitars that have already been sold with illegal rosewood necks, it will be interesting to watch what that does to the value of those guitars.

It’s also not clear why Gibson has been singled out, because a simple Google search reveals several other guitar manufacturers that also use Madagascar rosewood in their guitars:

• Martin Guitars
• Taylor Guitars
• Ellis Guitars

And those are just a sampling of the first page of results. A quick scan of the first five pages reveals results that are almost exclusively about guitars made from the endangered wood. I’m sure the next five pages show a similar trend.

UPDATE: The Rain Forrest Alliance has issued a statement clarifying some of the issues involved in the Gibson/Madagascar Rosewood raid:

The wood under investigation is not FSC-certified.  The FSC Chain-of-Custody audit conducted in 2008 verified that Gibson has purchased hard maple, mahogany and muira piranga from FSC-certified forests. These woods are used in the manufacturing of the company’s Les Paul SmartWood and Raw Power guitars, which are sold as FSC-Pure with a certificate of authenticity from Gibson. Under the current scope of their certificate, they also have the ability to purchase swamp ash and poplar from FSC-certified suppliers.  No other species are authorized to be sold with a FSC-certified claim under Gibson’s Chain-of-Custody certificate. The certificate does not cover wood from Madagascar.

Until the investigation has been concluded, Henry E. Juszkiewicz, CEO and Chairman of Gibson Guitar Corporation, has taken a leave of absence as a board member of the Rainforest Alliance.

Read the whole statement for more information about what is going on.

Some may not realize this, but the 1967 Flying V is actually a reissue. Gibson first released the Flying V in 1958 along with the ES-335, Explorer and Moderne. The ES-335 was an instant success, but the Flying V would receive the recognition it deserved nearly a decade later, which prompted the reissue. The 1967 was designed with a bigger pickguard and Gibson ditched the original bridge (which had the strings inserted through the back), replacing it with a stopbar tail piece. Some models were shipped with a short Vibrola Maestro Tremolo. Later Changes & Special Editions

• 1971 – Gibson introduced the medallion on the body, and a stop tail-piece. The fingerboard was also raised above the body by 3/8 inch.
• 1979 Gibson V2 – This model features a heavily sculpted body which was actually laminated, and a new humbucking pickup.
• 1981 – In 1981 Gibson introduced some models that had the switch, knob jack layout in a straight line as opposed to being grouped together in a triangle or diamond shape. This is unique to this model and the V 83.
• Gibson has more recently issued several limited-edition “signature” versions of the Flying V, including the Jimi Hendrix model and the Lonnie Mack model (which included a Bigsby tailpiece tremolo arm identical to the unit Mack has continuously used on his own Flying V since 1958).
• According to Wikipedia: (so you know its true) A fully functional, playable, highly enlarged replica of a Gibson Flying V, sizing over 43 feet, was built in June 2000 by Scott Rippetoe and his team from The Academy of Science and Technology (Texas). This world record is registered in Guinness World Records.

The Gibson Flying V guitar was WAY ahead of its time in style and playability. No wonder it is still beloved by so many great players, after nearly 7 decades!

As one of the most popular and highly regarded guitars ever made, Gibson’s Les Paul guitar is often forged. The most common way of doing this is to use a new(er) Les Paul and outfit it with vintage or reproduction parts to make it appear to be a much more valuable vintage version. Some forgers even go as far as recreating vintage case candy, which is pretty easy nowadays with applications like Photoshop and a decent color printer.

Jacksons Rare Guitars features this spectacular ’57 Les Paul Gold Top

How can you avoid shelling out big bucks for a phony guitar? It’s not easy. And even experts are occasionally fooled by some of the fakes out there; the forgeries are that good. But if you thoroughly examine the guitar prior to purchasing it, you can significantly reduce the likelihood of buying a faux Les Paul.

Here are two things to look for from Chris Gill’s article ‘FlawLes’ in Guitar Aficionado Magazine:

• Original Les Pauls were made with Honduras mahogany, Eastern hard rock maple, and Brazilian rosewood. These are nearly impossible to get your hands on today. Check out a book from your library called Identifying Wood by Bruce Hoadley for detailed information on how to identify these woods.
• The fret inlays on an original are also different than what is available today. Look for silvery inlays that have a three-dimensional appearance and black grain lines running through them. Modern inlays will appear to be milky-white and the grain lines will be less well-defined.

Have you ever bought a fake? Or examine a guitar before purchasing it, only to discover that it was a fake? How’d you figure it out?

While you probably have never heard the name ‘George Beauchamp’ before, if you play electric guitar, well then you owe him a debt of gratitude. Because it was Beauchamp, working with Adolph Rickenbacker (yes that Rickenbacker), who created the first commercially viable method of stringed-instrument amplification.

The first instrument to use an electromagnetic pickup,  click on the image to see every detail

And on the 8th Day God Created the Electromagnetic Pickup

What Beauchamp and Rickenbacker invented was the electromagnetic pickup. While the creation of the Beauchamp/Rickenbacker pickup was the first commercially viable method of electric amplification, Lloyd Loar was experimenting with pickups as a method of amplification as early as 1923. Loar was working with electrostatic pickups that sensed vibrations in the soundboard. Gibson released the L-5 Electric that utilized Loar’s pickups in 1929. But as you probably already know, electromagnetic pickups–which work by passing a current of electricity through a coil of wire wrapped around a magnet, in turn creating a field that amplifies the strings’ vibrations–is what we have on modern electric guitars. The Beauchamp/Rickenbacker pickup was first released on a lap-steel known as the ‘Frying Pan’ in 1931.

1929 Gibson L-5

Commercial Production of Electrified Guitars

By the end of the 1930s, other manufacturers had begun experimenting with using electromagnetic pickups on traditional hollow-body Spanish-style guitars. While the pickups did successfully amplify the sound of the strings, there was a lot of distortion, overtone, and feedback caused by the hollow body of the instrument. In 1939 the Slingerland company released a solid-body Spanish-style guitar with electromagnetic pickups that solved a lot of these problems. The Slingerland guitar is the earliest known, commercially produced Spanish solid-body.

In the 1940′s, leo Fender worked with Paul Bigsby, experimenting with Spanish-style solid-body guitar design. In 1947, Paul Bigsby teamed up with country singer Merle Travis to design a solid-body guitar. Modern electric guitars closely resemble the result of Bigsby and Travis’s collaboration.

Fender Broadcaster

Fender was the first to successfully massproduce electric guitars with his 1950 introduction of The Broadcaster. In 1951 Fender had to change the name of the Broadcaster to the ‘Telecaster’ due to copyright infringement problems. That year he also introduced the Precision Bass. The ‘P Bass’ was played like a guitar and had frets so that it could be played with “precision.” It was also amplified, thus liberating bassists from unwieldy and increasingly difficult-to-hear acoustic basses.

In 1952, Gibson became Fender’s first serious competitor, introducing its own solid-body guitar named after Les Paul. The Les Paul quickly grew into a family of four models: the Junior, Special, Standard, and Custom. In 1954 Gibson introduced the tune-o-matic bridge on the Les Paul Custom, which is still the standard Gibson electric guitar bridge.

The same year that Gibson released the tuno-o-matic, Fender released something even bigger: it’s first Stratocaster. The Strat incorporated a third single-coil pickup, a sleekly contoured body, and a double cutaway design. Most important among the Strat’s new features was the addition of the new vibrato (or “tremolo”) bridge, an innovation intended to let guitarists bend strings to create a pedal steel-like sound. Later, in 1958 Fender would release the floating tremolo on its Jazzmaster guitar. The tremolo would become an important part of the rock sound in the late 1970s and 80s.

1954 Fender Stratocaster

In 1958 Gibson debuted a group of futuristic solidbodies. The ES-335 was an instant success, combining traditional archtop styling with modern, solidbody construction. However the Flying V, Explorer and Moderne proved to be decades ahead of their time. Gibson pushed on into the 1960s with two more bold solidbody lines–the double-cutaway SG model in 1961 and the reverse-body Firebird in 1963.

In in 1960 Fender released the Jazzmaster guitar and bass. Fender felt that the instruments’ redesigned neck–narrower and more rounded–would appeal to jazz musicians, but instead the instruments became very popular with surf rockers like The Beach Boys. The pickups were wide, white, “soapbar” pickups. Their coil is wound flat and wide, in contrast to Fender’s usual tall and thin coils. This gives them a warmer tone without losing clarity.

Conclusion

Of course this post doesn’t even really begin to scratch the surface of the electric guitar’s history, whole books have been written on the subject. But you get the general outline and major milestones. Hopefully in future posts I’ll be able to delve more deeply into specific sub-topics, and other guitar manufacturers’ contributions.

Guest Post by Max Pheiffer

Let’s tip our hats to a fallen hero, shall we? As you may or may not know, Les Paul died Thursday, August 14th, 2009 from supposed respiratory failure at the ripe old age of 94. Most guitarists would recognize the man’s name in a flash, as it is attributed to one of the best-selling, and most popular, guitars on the market today – the Gibson Les Paul.

Photo by Motionblur

His impact on music was one of many layers, one of textured depths. In the 1950′s, he was an accomplished musician, jamming with the blues and jazz greats of the time, and being featured on multiple radio shows for his string of hits. However, his musical ability did not stop with writing and performing. He was unhappy with the hollow-body acoustics being made and sold at the time, and using a regular old 4×4 and some unrivaled ingenuity (usually leading to either disaster or arrest for the rest of us), managed to make an electric guitar, giving birth to one of the world’s first solid-body electric guitars, the granddaddy of the Gibson Les Paul that we know and love today.

By creating a solid body electric guitar, music as a whole was changed immensely. Replacing the standard acoustic guitar, which was largely the only option at the time, with the more powerful Les Paul (or “ancestor of the Les Paul, rather) led to longer sustain, deeper, fuller tones, and the crunchy sound characteristic of the solid-bodies. Music itself was catapulted from the early days of blues and jazz into the era of rock, eventually giving musicians such as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and more the power to play out their rhythms with the force of the electric guitar backing them.

But wait, there’s more. In order to become a musical triple-threat of genius, Les Paul also was an early innovator of multi-track recording. Although the technique of simultaneous tracks being recorded and meshed together separately was already being used by many movie companies at the time, it was still being waded into by the artists in music and record production. Although not as sophisticated as modern day recording devices and techniques (obviously), Paul’s experimentation with, and mastery of, multi-track recording led to huge breakthroughs in the way that music was to be recorded in the decades to come.

Les Paul was truly a great American musician, whose influence can be felt anytime we pick up our guitar and start jamming. Without him, the guitar as an instrument would be lacking, and we as musicians would be devoid of the Gibson Les Paul, and all the unforgettable patrons of the unique guitar. His visions of new instruments, innovations in recording techniques, and his unique style is the evidence that Les Paul changed music. Let’s send him off right.

1. Guitar Legend Les Paul Dies at Age 94 was posted on the blog  fretbase and although it wasn’t good news and certainly not the “best” news of the week for those of us who worshiped the great Les Paul, it was a great tribute to the Wizard of Waukesha.

2. The 10 Greatest Electric Guitar Players was posted on the website AntiMusic.com and covers their view of the ten most awesome guitarist to have ever attacked a 6-string.

3. iPhone Guitar Apps was posted on the guitar blog My Life With Guitar and reviews a cool new guitar application for the iPhone, what a shocker! This app is called Gigbaby! and gives you a four track recorder, metronome, several rhythms to jam along with and even a whole lot more. Not bad for only $.99 and they even offer a free version.

4. Top Guitar Twitter Users List – Updated this was posted on the guitar site Guitar Toy Box and provides excellent information about Guitarist on Twitter. Learn about who are the top guitarist on the popular website Twitter. Hopefully ShareMyGuitar will make the next list!

5. Gibson Through The Lens Photography Exhibition – Sydney was posted on the guitar blog Guitar Noize and you happen to be in Sydney Australia you won’t want to miss this. The event features an awesome photo exhibition of Gibson and Epiphone guitars. “Gibson Through The Lens” features some of the world’s most respected and prolific rock photographers such as Ross Halfin, Jim Marshall, Neal Preston, Mick Rock, Bob Gruen, Baron Wolman and Robert Knight, to name a few. This will be the first time the exhibition featuring these iconic and timeless photographs of international musicians with their Gibson or Epiphone guitar has been staged in Australia