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How To Be A Gear Snob:
The Gibson Guitar
By Corralee Booth |
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In 1952, Les Paul, created his own guitar. Even at the time he was
one of the most popular guitar players ever and a genius of invention.
Not only the first to execute multitrack recordings, he created
a guitar that has yet to be improved upon. The Les Paul has come
in many shades, and variations of style, but the basics remain the
same.
The body is a big heavy piece of solid mahogany, with an arched
maple cap. Mahogany is a great tone wood due to is tiny little grains.
It gives out a warm smooth sound with excellent sustain. The book
matched maple cap is a closed grain wood which gives you a bright
tone with awesome bite and attack. The arch takes the attack of
the maple, amplifies it like a speaker and shoots it into the soft
fine grains of the mahogany resulting in the undisputed crunchy
voice of Rock and Roll.
The neck is a separate piece of mahogany set into the body at an
angle with the headstock flipped back for maximum downward pressure
on the strings. How cool is that?! Sustain and feedback galore if
you want it, its all there already set up for you, thank you Mr.
Paul, we love it! The 22 jumbo frets, fretboard is rosewood will
mostly have trapezoid [Studio, Standard, Classic and Deluxe models]
or square [Custom models] inlays.
Gibson uses a Tune-o-matic bridge. Normally, you lace the strings
straight through the bridge and go up over the saddles, then straight
on past the pickups. I like to string it backwards and go up over
the stop bar bridge, then to the saddles. This can create a great
deal more sustain, and we have already established that more sustain
is better for gear snobs like me. You have to screw the bridge right
down as far as it will go to the maple cap and then raise the saddle
part up high enough as not to create really annoying buzzing to
do it this way, but it is worth the extra effort for sure!
Les Pauls have individual tone and volume knobs so you can really
define you own tone for each pickup. The two knobs closest to the
strings are for the neck position pickup and the bottom two are
for the bridge pickup, volume being closest to the neck and tone
being closest to the bridge. It also features that handy little
toggle switch at the top for changing between the two. Rhythm is
neck, treble is for the bridge and in the middle is for both.
The main differences between the different Les Pauls is binding,
inlays and sometimes pickups. Almost all of the Les Pauls have the
same type of wood configuration except for the Smartwood Exotics
which still have mahogany backs but feature different exotic rainforest
tops. The changes between the models are mostly due to the costs,
but there are some substantial tonal differences between the different
ones as well.
The Studio is the cheapest of all the Gibson Les Pauls. It sports
no white outline binding, but it still has the trap style inlays.
[although some older models had dot inlays instead] The differences
between these and the Standards are purely cosmetic. The tonal differences
between having wood on the edges and binding is so small, its not
even worth worrying over. It has the same pickups and everything.
Its great for a beginner or someone without the extra dough for
looks. It is also supposed to come with its own case, so don't let
those guitar shop "dudes" rip you off.
The Standard and the Classic differ in their pickups and their necks.
They both have binding around the body and up the neck. Where I
come from, binding up the neck is a real saver. The frets don't
poke out so bad from wood shrinkage due to extreme dryness because
of the smoother edge of the binding. Those of you in dryer climates
like mine, should keep this in mind. The Classic neck is smaller
than the rounded 1959 necks of the Standards, Customs, Deluxes and
Studios. It is a 1960s slim taper neck. Those of you with small
hands will find this a plus, because Les Pauls have killer fat necks.
The Classic also differs because it has ceramic pickups instead
of the 1957 style alnico pickups used in the Standard, Custom and
Studio and as gear snobs already know, ceramic pickups will get
you a hotter more metal tone from your guitar. [see pickups article
for January womanrock.com] Please note that the Standard is what
Madonna plays on our August 2001 cover.
The Custom is all about the beauty. Huge square inlays, binding
everywhere, extra fancy crap on the headstock... its got it all.
The Custom is the only model you can get in white right now and
the alpine white is really killer. Don't take my word as law though,
Gibson changes it up every few months or so.
I saved my favorite for the last. The Les Paul Deluxe in my opinion
is the finest instrument around. It first came about in 1969, the
year of free lovin' rock, survived the seventies and died out in
the eighties, only to be revived again in the nineties. It has mini
humbucker pickups! The small size of the minis generate a narrow
magnetic field, giving the guitar a bright and focused output. It
is more responsive than the standard and doesn't break up as easily
as big humbuckers. I love this guitar so much, there are now two
of them sitting in their stands in my jam room and will probably
be joined by another before the year is out.
Another thing I would like to mention about this guitar is the shape.
It may have been designed by a man, but it was made for a woman.
It is rounded! If any of you are more than a B cup, you will truly
appreciate not having pointy horns jutting in and bruising you when
you sit to play. Not something most designers think about when building,
but a concern nonetheless for us unskinny chicks.
Of the last twenty Les Pauls I have played, even thought they are
really cool about their one year warranty, one had a weird twisted
neck, and another had a hump at the 12th fret. So they lose a couple
of points there only getting 18 out of 20. Keep an eye on the 12th
fret when purchasing because it can get quite the hump on it due
to the nature of the set neck. The other thing that drags the guitar
down is the advertising put on by Gibson. I wasn't going to mention
it, but it just rips me off to no end. There is hardly ever a woman
seen playing the instruments, they are usually just posing nude
or stripping, or whatever and their slogan- "Watch for flying panties"
???!! get real, Gibson, you should be embarrassed.
More from Corralee Booth...
How To Be A Gear Snob: Pickups.
How To Be A Gear Snob: Gifts
for Rock Stars.
How To Be A Gear Snob: Fender
Stratocaster. |
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_________________________________
Want more Music Resources? Amanda Garrigues is a singer and
songwriter based in Gainesville, Florida. She runs her own label,
Average Sinner Records. She has contributed many great columns to
WOMANROCK.com including:
From the Couch to Carnegie Hall
Opening the Heart and Soul
How to Care for Your Voice
Being Sick on the Road
The Tour
Safety on the Road
The Art of the Music Conference
Distribution for Indies: How
to sell CD's without a Major Label
Mastering: What Is It Good For?
The Path of the Song: Deconstructing
the Songwriting Process
EQ That Guitar!
Choose Your Acoustic Wisely
In the Booth: Getting a Good
Vocal
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_________________________________
Corralee
Booth is a writer, musician and self proclaimed gear Goddess. She
sells and reviews gear at Guitarworks and plays bass for the Alberta
based, all girl band, Dragonfly. |
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