kennywtelejazz

tlw

And don't get me started on high-priced custom-shop "relics"....

Why hold yourself back , I would love to hear about what you have to say about the ones you own .

I own no custom shop guitars made by anyone. There's a reason for that and it isn't necessarily financial. The custom shop Fenders I've tried have never struck me as significantly better than the rest of the range. To me the Mexican and Japanese guitars are the best deal Fender offers, and a pickup change if you don't like the originals and maybe a nut swap can make a Mexican that's been put together out of resonant wood a very good guitar indeed.

The first Fender Custom Shop Strat I saw had been air brushed with a reproduction of the famous Marilyn Monroe Playboy centrefold. A price tag something like four times that of a production-line US Strat but it looked gorgeous. A high price for that kind of finish I can understand and appreciate, even if the end result is something I'd be terrified of playing in case I scratched it.

As for "relics", I know some people like them though I don't. Paying a lot more money for a guitar because a Fender employee has beaten it up and sanded finish off just doesn't appeal to me at all. If I really wanted a "relic" look quickly I could do that stuff myself in a few hours.

I can see a role for articial relics (or "distressing as the antique trade calls it) if it's desirable for artistic reasons to look like you're playing an old, worn guitar or you're a famous person who's associated with one particular guitar and want a replacement or spare to look identical to the original. But I prefer my guitars to get reliced naturally, as a result of picking up dings over time and the paint wearing through use.

Squiers and Epi's are absolutely the better value by far... at least for the working guitarist.
 
For collectors? Not so much... but I ain't a collector.

tlw

DrLumen
What is going to be the issue with these guitars? From what I know this seems to meet the base specs like solid body, maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. Is it the electronics or likely a more structural problem like an easily warped maple neck? Or just super cheap hardware in general?

I guess there is one basic issue. It's called a Les Paul but is nothing much like the guitar Les paul designed and won't sound like one either.

The woods may be commonly used ones, but are wrong for a Les Paul - Les Paul's design was and is a mahogany body, glued in mahogany neck and a thick carved and shaped maple top to the body. The difference in the timber and construction will make a difference to the sound, response and sustain of the guitar. The Les Paul Specials and Juniors usually lacked the maple cap on the body, but still had the mahogany/glued neck construction and the same quality hardware and pickups as the rest of Gibson's guitars.

Those small single-coil pickups resemble nothing ever fitted to a Les Paul by Gibson. The "correct" pickups are P90s or more commonly humbuckers, all of which have a very different tone to that kind of single-coil and much higher output as well.

Poor hardware is pretty normal at that price no matter who made the guitar, the profit margins are very tight and the factory gate price is probably only around 1/3-1/2 what the end customer pays, So corners get cut with the materials and the finishing work on nuts, frets and setup.

For me the biggest issue is the name. Not through any snobbish idea that Epi/Gibson are "devaluing the Les Paul brand" but because guitars in that price bracket generally sell to beginners, often as birthday/Christmas presents or after a lot of saving up for one. Any kid getting one of those in the hope of learning to play rock or metal and sound like their Les Paul toting heros is going to be disappointed. Not much more money would get them something far more like what that "Les Paul" claims to be.

Epiphone make some very acceptable guitars and some very good ones, generally at fair prices for what you get and obviously they want to compete at the beginner end of the market. Gibson own the Les Paul trademark on guitars, but to put the Les Paul name on a thing that only has the basic outline in common with a Les Paul I find a bit, well, wrong. Had they called it something else rather than riding on the fame of a guitar it barely resembles, then fine.

But they didn't.

Thanks. Good to know. FWIW, I wouldn't know the sound or tone of a Les Paul until I had it for a while. My main concern was throwing $100 away only to have a mangled, broken mess after a year or so.
 
After I added a direct box, cables and picks it was going to be about $170 so I'm going to pass and get a better guitar later if the mood strikes.

$100 guitars aren't all bad. For years Takamine's Jasmine dreadnought sold for $99 at most music stores. It was well made and played way better than most $100 guitars. I bought one with case for $129 several years ago. It's still a joy to play. Their weak point was the tuners. I replaced mine with Grovers and added a LACE hole pickup. I was about to buy another one but found Takamine sold the Jasmine line and don't know if the new ones are as good. They look about the same except for the headstock which is slightly altered so-as not to confuse them with the Takamine line.
 
As for Les Pauls, I've had a few cheap copies. My latest is an SVK I bought for $160 brand new. Earlier SVKs went for over $350. It may be one of the last ones ever made by SVK as I've learned they had lawsuit trouble with Gibson due to some models being exact copies. Mine is shaped a little different and only has 3 knobs. I can't find a case to fit it but the quality is top line all the way. Better than some $2000-3000 Gibson offerings... and it sounds good too.

Beepster
Squiers and Epi's are absolutely the better value by far... at least for the working guitarist.
 
For collectors? Not so much... but I ain't a collector.

I bought this Epi for my 50th.  Later grabbed a Gibson 490R PU off eBay and had a Gibson bridge PU, Classic 57 plus from another guitar, that I installed into the Epi.  This guitar competes tone-wise with my Gibson LP and in some ways, actually sounds better, if you are looking for that semi-hollow tone. 
 

Ironic, back in the 70-80s weren't there some famous Les Paul copies  from Japan (one that even invoked a lawsuit)
that were supposed to play pretty well and now are collectors items?
 
Thos of you who might  had/have one or know about it, were they good wood and hardware?

tlw

kennywtelejazz

tlw

And don't get me started on high-priced custom-shop "relics"....

Why hold yourself back , I would love to hear about what you have to say about the ones you own .

I own no custom shop guitars made by anyone. There's a reason for that and it isn't necessarily financial. The custom shop Fenders I've tried have never struck me as significantly better than the rest of the range. To me the Mexican and Japanese guitars are the best deal Fender offers, and a pickup change if you don't like the originals and maybe a nut swap can make a Mexican that's been put together out of resonant wood a very good guitar indeed.

The first Fender Custom Shop Strat I saw had been air brushed with a reproduction of the famous Marilyn Monroe Playboy centrefold. A price tag something like four times that of a production-line US Strat but it looked gorgeous. A high price for that kind of finish I can understand and appreciate, even if the end result is something I'd be terrified of playing in case I scratched it.

As for "relics", I know some people like them though I don't. Paying a lot more money for a guitar because a Fender employee has beaten it up and sanded finish off just doesn't appeal to me at all. If I really wanted a "relic" look quickly I could do that stuff myself in a few hours.

I can see a role for articial relics (or "distressing as the antique trade calls it) if it's desirable for artistic reasons to look like you're playing an old, worn guitar or you're a famous person who's associated with one particular guitar and want a replacement or spare to look identical to the original. But I prefer my guitars to get reliced naturally, as a result of picking up dings over time and the paint wearing through use.

I was thinking about your thoughts concerning  Gibson Custom Shop Guitars when I asked you what I did .
I figured with a thread about Gibson/ Epi low end gtrs , maybe that's what you were talking about ...
 
I play / own  a Gibson Les Paul CS R8 VOS Plain top among other guitars ...
 
What you said is OK  by me from your point of view  ...
The first time I saw a new Fender C S like the one you mentioned the store wanted 12 grand . I just shook my head after doing a Bambi sticker shock stare . I left the store w the glare of the price tags still ingrained in my eyeballs and head ...man that was 20 years ago ...lol  
 
I guess I may have been lucky when I was growing up . I was dirt poor but I could play . All my friends were Hard Core Vintage & New guitar collectors ...I'm talking very hard core , heck even some of the guitars and amps I have owned and played have ended up in the hands of some very well know guitar players and bands ....
At least I can say  I had gotten to play a wide variety of the Holly Grail instruments people lust after ...
 
As far as what's good or not good in a guitar , I don't generally choose to put a price on anything musical unless I'm looking to buy it .
 
I did go hunting around to see if this 99 Dollar Epi was in stores ...Apparently the stores in my area will have them around Sept 10 th ...
 
FWIW , that new  EPI looks like a new hip low cost version of a Melody Maker to me ...
 
Do I need another guitar ? No , I want another guitar . I love picking up lower cost guitars and modding them ...
Also , My DAW  never checks the head-stock to see what I'm playing when ever I'm recording ...
 
The last time I hung out with one of my guitar collector friends , he pulled out 2 Benedetto 's for me to play on ...
Each of his Benedetto's individually cost above 25 Grand ...
I  switched around and played both of them for a while . Then I switched over to his Vintage Gibson L 5 for a couple of tunes ...
When I was done doing that , I opened up my gig bag and pulled out the  Epi Joe Pass I had at the time .I happily played that guitar for the rest of the night ...
 
FWIW,  I feel grateful to even have a guitar 
 
all the best,
 
Kenny
 

kennywtelejazz
I was thinking about your thoughts concerning  Gibson Custom Shop Guitars when I asked you what I did .
I figured with a thread about Gibson/ Epi low end gtrs , maybe that's what you were talking about ...
 
I play / own  a Gibson Les Paul CS R8 VOS Plain top among other guitars ...

The first Gibson I bought, just after my 18th birthday, was a 1961 Les Paul Junior. The model soon to be renamed the SG Junior. It was made the same year as me and I just couldn't resist it. Cost me pretty much all the money I had. I still have it, though it's way past playing condition now. Needs a refret but the board won't take one, plus the board is heavily worn so fixing it means a new board and I'd rather leave it original.

The VOS reissue SGs a few years ago included P90 Jrs and Specials and I was tempted, but nowadays resistance to emi/rfi is pretty important thanks to computers etc. and P90s are the opposite of quiet.

As for Gibson Custom Shop, I've really not much opinion other than they're well made and look realy nice if you're into that sort of look. Lots of the ES range is Custom Shop now and how much they differ from the "Memphis" ES models I've not really dug into very deeply.

I've been quite impressed by what I've seen from Gibson over the last few years. I've a 2008 SG Special, bought new that was pretty much set up perfectly from the factory - Plek'd nut cut spot on and to the right height, excellent fret dress, nicely polished finish. All I had to do was raise the tailpiece and do a basic quick setup. The few recent Gibsons I've set up for people all seem to be really well put together with good attention to detail.

My personal gripe with Gibson is the model range. I keep lusting after an original-style Firebird with the correct, original style relatively low output and bright pickups, think Johnny Winter, but Gibson seem reluctant to make any. That or the old ES-125s which were great slide blues guitars... And Gibson and Fender seem to churn their whole range over every year or so.

kennywtelejazz
 I guess I may have been lucky when I was growing up . I was dirt poor but I could play . All my friends were Hard Core Vintage & New guitar collectors

Where I grew up in the Engish Midlands the nearest town was 5 miles away, city about 7. There were maybe four shops which sold guitars and they had a combined stock level of under four dozen. Mostly the far-East copies that were around in the 70s. Fender and Gibson were very rare. They could be found by travelling 30 or 50 miles to bigger cities or 200 miles to London but the prices were very high and let's face it, the mid/late 70s weren't exactly a peak quality period for either company. The US thing of pawn shops were you could walk in and pick from a bunch of good used guitars simply didn't exist for me.

Fender amps in particular were really expensive. US everyday workhorse amps like the silver-face Deluxe Reverb cost more in real terms back then than a Dual Rectifier does today. Marshalls were less expensive of course, as were Vox.

I knew quite a number of kids who played, but there was nowhere a local band, especially a new band, could play. One 1200 seat venue on the national touring circuit that booked maybe 36 gigs a year, never locals, and two or three pubs. I can think of several well-known singers and musicians and a couple of world famous ones born around my small corner of the world and not one of them started their musical career locally.

kennywtelejazz
As far as what's good or not good in a guitar , I don't generally choose to put a price on anything musical unless I'm looking to buy it .

Same here really. Especially as Sterling has taken a hammering against the dollar of late. Some big price increases over the last year on all kinds of stuff from strings upwards.
 

kennywtelejazz 
FWIW , that new  EPI looks like a new hip low cost version of a Melody Maker to me ...

You know, that's exactly what I thought when I saw it. :-) It would be interesting to compare it with some of the other guitars in that price bracket. Epi generally make good value instruments. I'd rather see money spent on getting the basics right than on the eye candy that embellishes some guitars in that price range.

kennywtelejazz
FWIW,  I feel grateful to even have a guitar 

Yep.

michaelhanson

Beepster
Squiers and Epi's are absolutely the better value by far... at least for the working guitarist.
 
For collectors? Not so much... but I ain't a collector.

I bought this Epi for my 50th.  Later grabbed a Gibson 490R PU off eBay and had a Gibson bridge PU, Classic 57 plus from another guitar, that I installed into the Epi.  This guitar competes tone-wise with my Gibson LP and in some ways, actually sounds better, if you are looking for that semi-hollow tone. 
 

Howdy, Mike.
 
Yup, that's very similar to the first electric guit I actually owned (my mumzie bought it for me) except it was a "SAGAII" and I've been having a balls up of a time finding much info on them but it was $500 in about 1990 dollars. It was a great guit but useless for high gain at high volumes (squealed like a pig) but man did I love that thing. I foolishly pawned it in my early 20's AND FORGOT I HAD (because I was playing bass at the time and was an idiot). I even took a lesser amount on the pawn because I wanted to be able to get it back more easily. Once I realized what I had done over a year later (after the pawn term was expired and it was lost forever) I was crushed. So stupid because it would have only been about $70 to get it back.
 
Anyhoo... the "Lucille" of course isn't a proper hollowbody like that but has the multi switch which would be a trade off. Ideally I would have another "Dot" like that as well to replace my old SAGAII on top of the Lucille but if wishes were dishes then my life would resemble a Greek wedding (what with all the smashiness).
 
I think we've had this convo before though so hopefully that wasn't too boring. Hope you've been well and didn't get mucked up in this hurricane business of late.
 
Cheers!
 
 

Ham N Egz
Ironic, back in the 70-80s weren't there some famous Les Paul copies  from Japan (one that even invoked a lawsuit)
that were supposed to play pretty well and now are collectors items?
 
Thos of you who might  had/have one or know about it, were they good wood and hardware?

Yup. It was the Ibanez LP that started that lawsuit which I thought might have been the one I own and referenced earlier but it's actually one of the newer ones from the ART line which I only figured out through the help of this here fine forum. They are not nearly as sought after nor as good (supposedly). I can still find a use for it and it's not worth selling but I definitely have to replace the tuners... or play it a little more gently... which I don't like doing.
 
cuz I'm a spazz...