NGD: Gibson Les Paul Studio

Yesterday, I finally sold the Contemporary Stratocaster.  Another case of cool guitar, but meh.

Enter the latest addition to the family.  A Gibson Les Paul Studio in Wine Red.

I had one of these a few years ago, and my recent LP-itis had me looking for something from the family of Lester.  I threw a few offers out and got a bite on an example I had noted in my post on Les-Paul-itis.

Just so happened that the bite was as close to a dead ringer for the last one as you could get.  And no, I didn't pay the asking price.

Old Les Paul, this is new Les Paul.

Of immediate note was how light this example is.  I don't have a scale, but this is so close to the 7.5lbs of my Eric Johnson Stratocaster as to not be able to tell the difference.  It is much lighter than my American Telecaster for sure.  Must be chambered.


As soon as I got it home it was off with the strings for a cleaning and a setup.  The neck didn't have enough relief, the bridge was set too high, and most concerning was that the studs for the stop tail piece were not screwed down.  Not sure what the thinking was here.  Changing the break angle?  Do the reverse stringing over the tail piece.  In any case, these were screwed down properly, and with the bridge properly set there was more than sufficient clearance.

The saddle screws are facing the tailpiece.  There seems to be much confusion as to what is "correct", but for my money I like the screws facing the pickups - Likely because I'm left handed.

I took the pickguard off to give it a proper cleaning and immediately decided to leave it off.  The figure on the top is much better than I'd expect from a Studio.  The pickguard screws go back into the holes (why leave holes?).  I think it looks better without it, thanks to the subtle flame.

In comparing pictures, the fret board on this one seems darker than my old one, and since I've always taken good care of my instruments, I'm left to conclude that either this is simple a darker piece of rosewood or has been stained darker.  I'm not going to look it up - My knee jerk reaction is "Meh, Gibson".

Pickups are what I'd expect.  Better than the Epiphone on a quick comparison, but honestly not but much. Yes, they're less compressed, but since the bridge cover is off on the Epiphone, it's hardly apples to apples. In any case, it sounds good.

Nothing to much to complain about.  The case it came with was not the Gibson USA case.  This pissed me off, and was almost a deal breaker.  Honestly, the weight saved the deal.  This thing must be chambered. A quick search on the subject seems to indicate that it is.

Seeing these pictures of it without the pickguard has me considering changing the knobs to something with more contrast maybe?

Nope.  Just saw some Google images.

I'll leave it as is.