Bought my first ever Gibson

[johnnyreece]

I bought my first LP a couple years ago at my local GC.

I think I paid $1,200 for it.

It is a model LP.

It played and sounded better than the R8, R9, Historic or other more expensive models.

It is a 2012 Standard Traditional Ice Tea burst.

Is that a used one? If not, that's a GREAT price! I paid almost that for my Studio, 15 years ago...

[Littlewyan]

Yeah I mean I played it for an hour earlier and I just seem to get on with it quite well. I think the strings are a bit dead considering they are new and the guy at my local guitar store (doesn't sell gibsons) said the strings are vibrating in a strange fashion so thats probably what most of the buzzing is. They are Gibson Brite Wire strings and I do recall finding them a bit darker and not as nice to use as other strings. I use Ernie Balls at the moment.

The pickups do sound a tiny bit muddy at the moment but I've read comments from people saying how they find these pickups to sound brighter than burstbuckers and burstbuckers aren't muddy pickups from what I've heard. I reckon the pots are bad, will try and check them tonight. Got 14 days to decide if I want to keep the guitar or not, at the moment I reckon I will as replacing pots is a small price to pay for a guitar that feels great to play.

My first LP was a stagg LP copy. In fact I'm not even sure Stagg really made it as I could never find it anywhere else online! Anyway I didn't care as it was my first Les Paul, I hadn't been playing for that long so to me it was amazing. Only cost £124! 2nd LP was an Epiphone LP Std and when I played it I realised that there is a huge difference in quality and playability between guitars.

[Reeltarded]

It sounds like you have it. Change those strings asap and see. I hate those Gibson strings. I use EB's too.

[Littlewyan]

How do you guys set your pickups? On my Epi LP Std I found it best to level the pickup with the body so its 4/32 away from the low e and high e whilst fretting the 22nd fret and measuring from the part of the pickup closest to the fretboard. I also have the pole pieces adjusted so only the round part of the screw sticks out and each one is obviously adjusted for string balance. Now that guitar rocks. The Gibson either needs more adjustment or its just the pots are crap.

[Reeltarded]

Different on different pickups but get them close enough to fret on and back them down until it sounds best. I think you need a pot swap too..

All of mine are super close. a purple tortex pick and a half from touching probably.. what's that? Close. I listen for a splatty thing when I beat on it with a clean sound. Imagine jangling a big key ring in front of a microphone. Splat test.

I use .008s on all my stuff. I need them close.

[martin manning]

...a purple tortex pick and a half from touching probably.

Or two greens. Or a blue plus a yellow. Or three orange. Picks as feeler gauges... love it!

[Littlewyan]

That is close! Those are also very thin strings! I use 10s on both of my guitars.

Well to do list for this guitar:

1. Change strings
2. Check Pots and replace if needed
3. Adjust pickups

Who knows, just changing the strings could give me that extra high end that I'm missing.

[johnnyreece]

...a purple tortex pick and a half from touching probably.

Or two greens. Or a blue plus a yellow. Or three orange. Picks as feeler gauges... love it!

Brilliant!

[Colossal]

I use .008s on all my stuff. I need them close.

I agree with Reeltarded.

I use .008s on my guitars (my R9 Custom Shop included) and they sound massive. It's all in your technique. 0.008s work just fine for Allan Holdsworth, Brian May, Billy Gibbons, Tony Iommi (even tuned down), BB King, et al. None of those guys can be accused of having weak tone. To quote BB King, "let the amp do the work".

[Reeltarded]

Intention transmission through gestures. It's musical sign language.

Sometimes I lose picks, but I always have toenails.. I hope.

About 3/4 big toenail. haha

[TUBEDUDE]

One of my customers is a Gibson addict. In the last 15 years he has acquired 9 different les pauls. Only one of them was without issues. Six of them were eventually returned for good as their issues could not be resolved. Here's the sad news, he traded a 63 strat for one! He still owns 2 of the les pauls, a 54 reissue and a 96 histrionic. For the crazy money they want for a new one, I'd have one custom made. That is, if I could stand that girly string scale length. My hands are too big and require a longer scale and 14-58 strings.

[rp]

For years I just moved the pickups up and down without a clue, mostly down, then I got some used '80s Leo G&Ls (last of the cheap and good) and dl'd the manual to figure out the best way to deal with the tilt and trem. I then decided it would be best to set the guitars up exactly as in the manual, including pickup heights, as a baseline. The factory spec pup height is really f'ing close to the strings. Turned out the baseline was the mainline, man, the sound just locked right in perfect.

All my guitars had the pickups stupid low turns out, so i went back and did the others and did some friends' guitars, raised up the pups to the G&L spec with no more than a tweak for balance (I looked up the Fender and Gibson spec and it's pretty much the same). Me and friends had pickups like 10X below the spec! Anyway give the manual spec for your electrics a try as a start off point, tweak for balance only at first, and then tweak very incrementally and slowly, patiently down. Who knew?

[Reeltarded]

I have ones much closer. These pickups are a pretty hot set. This is about as far as they get.

[Structo]

I bought my first LP a couple years ago at my local GC.

I think I paid $1,200 for it.


It played and sounded better than the R8, R9, Historic or other more expensive models.

It is a 2012 Standard Traditional Ice Tea burst.

Is that a used one? If not, that's a GREAT price! I paid almost that for my Studio, 15 years ago...

Johnny, It was a brand new (other than people playing it in store).
So it was basically a new 2012 I bought in 2013.

The only downside is it is pretty heavy, I don't have a scale but I guess 9-10 pounds.

[Reeltarded]

Probably about average then, Tom. I had a 12+lb 70s goldtop that everyone loved but me. Ouch.