Not that I pick favourites, but out of my Les Pauls, this is the "lesser"
one but has the most words about it.
I wanted to buy a guitar with Grandma's inheritance money and name it
Eileen, because that was her name. I was also set on buying a Les Paul.
Gibson's lack of QC was not a secret at the time, and I thought what are the
chances I'd get a lemon? For some naive reason, I thought Gibson would pay
more attention to an Anniversary model than other models. The joke was on
me. I wanted the Traditional because, at the time, it wasn't weight relieved
and it seemed that every model Gibson was making then had some sort of
chambering going on. I had a Les Paul Studio in Alpine White (ebony
fretboard too) and that was my first Les Paul with weight relief and it
didn't feel right. If you've tried a very light Les Paul, you'll know what I
mean. I don't particulary like an overly heavy guitar either, but something with
substance is nice. I wasn't crazy about having the Anniversary inlay
at the 12th fret but it didn't really matter. The good thing about the
Traditional is that it's a solid, non-weight relieved body and the only
model in 2014 to get fret nibs.
But the troubles started right when I got home. Playing it for the first
time (standing up) I noticed that the strap button on the top shoulder was
loose. So I'd tighten it and a couple of minutes later, it'd be loose again.
Checking it out (while sitting down) I realised that the screw was too small
for the hole and it came out of the hole quite easily. The guitar should
have been on the floor by then. Looking at the bottom strap button screw,
both screws were completely different. And this is a brand new guitar,
just out its case for the first time. There's the pics.
I showed it who's boss though, got the drill out and now that strap button
isn't going anywhere. But, I shouldn't have had to do that in the first
place.
What made things worse is that I didn't love it. The finish, while nice in
bright light, looks black from a distance and the flame top is closer to a
lame top. The top on my Studio Plus
has more figuring. It was the first time I had low frets on a guitar, which
is OK for certain things but I found myself over-shooting frets when
starting low and then going up high, and bending wasn't all that fun. So the
guitar was OK but it shouldn't be for a then-$2400 (before tax). It
should've been Great for that money.
The thing is, I wanted to like it. I even put the Tronical automatic tuners
before Gibson bought the brand and started putting them on their models. I
wanted to like that too but... the original tuners went back on. As a note,
it wasn't the automatic tuners that was the problem; they were fine and
worked like they should. It was the classic Gibson
string-catching-in-the-nut that spoiled things.
This guitar put me off buying Gibsons and at the time I said I would never
buy a new Gibson again. Once I got my first (real) Telecaster a couple of
months later, this hit the case and closet for a long while. I tried to sell
it to a friend of mine for $1800 but he eventually couldn't do it so it sat
in the case again. Next time it was out was when I took it to the music
store and put it on consignment. Six months later, I brought it back home.
By this time, the frets on my Studio
Plus were pretty "divited", so this ended up being my "humbucker guitar"
for recording. The pickups were actually pretty nice. They were the 59
something-or-others but maybe because of the low frets, I just went back to
the SG3 as my humbucker guitar. I put the
feelers out again but no takers. I accepted the fact that I was stuck with
this guitar unless I gave it away, and even though I'm a nice guy, I'm not
that nice.
So I thought I'd make this a test guitar, like trying out different pickups
and different cosmetics. I gave away one of the 59 humbuckers to a friend so
he could put it in his Telecaster and the other one wound up in my
2020 SG Standard. First thing I tried
out were those crappy ceramic humbuckers that you could get on Amazon for
$20 a set. They weren't all that bad clean and I got to practice my
soldering but those didn't last very long though. Because I liked the
PhatCat pickup in the SG3, I thought I'd put in a set of Phat Cats in the
Traditional and since that day, I decided to keep it and now I play it and
record with it regularly.
The colours sorta bugged me too. The binding is noticably yellower than the
cream parts (it's not so bad in the pictures) and the gold speed knobs
didn't really match with anything other than the yellowed binding. I put
some silver top hat knobs on it and that looked nice with the blue and
silver but again, the cream parts and binding took away from it. I'll always
have the binding so I finally went with the black parts. Again, I
ordered a set of black Les Paul replacement parts that didn't fit. If it's
made in China, look for some other parts. But at least I got to eyeball it
and go with black. Then I bought proper parts. Now it almost looks like a
Custom.
It's still my lowest Les Paul on the totem pole but it's better than it used
to be and I actually like it so a part of me is glad that I didn't sell it
after all.
----------------- | Changes: Pickups: Seymore Duncan Phat Cats (both) Emerson pots, ZeroFret Black plastics  |
2014
Gibson Les Paul Traditional Manhattan Midnight Serial No: 03544528 Bought new 2005; HSC. Price paid: $2000 Cdn Manufactured in: Nashville, TN BODY Top Species: Carved Figured AA Maple Back Species: Mahogany NECK Species: Mahogany Profile: '59 Rounded Les Paul Peghead Pitch: 17° Thickness at 1st fret: 0.818" Thickness at 12th fret: 0.963" ; Heel Length: 0.625" Neck Joint Location: 16th fret FINGERBOARD Species: Rosewood Scale length: 24 3/4" Total Length: 1 8.062" Nut Width: 1 11/16" Width at 12th fret: 2.062" Frets: 22 Inlays: Pearloid trapezoid HARDWARE Plating Finish: Gold Bridge: Tune-o-matic Tailpiece: Stopbar Knobs: Black Speed Tuners: Green Key ELECTRONICS Neck Pickup: 490R Alnico magnet humbucker Bridge Pickup: 498T Alnico magnet humbucker Controls: Two volume, two tone, three-way switch CASE Exterior: Black Reptile Pattern Hardshell Interior: Dark Grey Plush with Black Shroud Silkscreen: Silver 'Gibson USA' logo STRINGS Brite Wires .010-.046   |
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