Gibson Les Paul Standard 2013 Review
Sanjuana Gautam
i play 28 years guitar and had several Gibson model through the years studios,classic antique,standards but i must admit been recording my 2nd album and the guitar has an amazing sound on the new album.I love that guitar its a les paul standard 08 year 2011 who has this great guitar and what are your thoughts on that?
The 2008 Standard came with certain features that were for that model only.... (it was one of the years they tried something different)... Its a chambered model (even though you cant tell by the weight, they feel solid), also with Burstbucker Pro pickups and with locking bridge and tailpiece and locking tuners and a locking input socket... and a 60s asymmetrical neck (oh and I think it may have been the first Standard with the PCB control boards).
And to the OP, I think my 08 Standard is an amazing guitar... I love it just as much as my 2002 Classic.... But has a nice mellow sound compared to that guitar so gives me a nice range of sounds... This is mine :) (I changed all the plastic bits to black and gave it a blank truss rod cover)
thanks for your replies guys yes well mine was made in february 2011 and yes its chambered and it has all these changes and special modern thing on the guitar mine is a lightburst ,i used to have a studio,standard,classic antique but sold them all due to money.Now i had a great opportunity 6 months ago to buy that guitar a guy who had a guitarshop sold his demoguitar so that guitar was just a demoguitar in perfect condition and it was and had it for a very good price which means around 1200 US Dollars.So i grabbed it,i used to have the same guitar a year or two but since i got divorced i needed money so i sold it and happy i get that guitar back.
I have the exact same guitar in Ebony. 2011, 2008 model. The sound sustain and feel always blows me away. Im actually looking for a blue one now. 2008 model is my favorite that can still be found for a decent price.
I have a LP Standard model 2008 from 2011 too. It's a great guitar. To me it is the best mixture of the classic sound with some new things like what they dit to the neck, the chambering and locking tuners. I don't think it could be any better.
This guitar smells. Yeah and it smells really strong alright, you can barely pick it up before you can smell the strong yet soft and worm smell of mahogany. Sometimes I get serious flashbacks from the woodshop in school when i play it its really cool.
I had never heard how the les paul studio would sound like in real life, I had only heard it on the internet or on the TV but never in real time life. But i didnt bother to plug it in in the store.. I knew what I was buying and I their by I knew that I would be pleased with the sound.Bought the guitar, drove home, pluged it in and.....wow.
The thing is im 18 years old and I probably didnt understand what I was buying.. I totally underestimated the guitar and I think I still doFor a beginner guitarplayer this guitar might seem just like an ordinary guitar from an ordinary manufacture. They just dont have the experience to understand what kind of holy piece of craftmanship they are dealing with. And I think that was the problem with me in the beginning though im not even a beginner guitarplayer... but still
And I think that's some of the beauty with this guitar to me, everyday you look at it standig in its rack just begging to be played on. And that's a view at least my eyes never gets tired of.
The back of the neck gets uneven after you played it a while from dryed sweat, dirt and that makes it to me atleast a bit difficult to slide up and down the neck but, some Teakoil and a rag does the trick!
Another thing is that sometimes when you play chords with distortion it sound muddy and its hard for the ear to hear all the tones, this ofcourse is due to the 490R and 498T humbucker pickups and I know that humbuckers aint the n1 choise for those who want that clean tone.
Next thing some may think is an advantage rather than a disadvantage and that only apply to the guitars with the goldhardware. After a while the gold on the bridge and the stopbar is going to fade away making the guitar look kinda like an old reissue guitar and to me this is definitely an advantage!
About the guitars advantages I really dont have much to say that aint explained in the smelly text part of this review, the neck is perfect for med its the little thicker 50s neck yet pretty slim and fast sliding to me. Great great great sound from the 490R and 498T pickups i mean.. try it with maximum distortion just to feel and hear how fat and heavy this guitar actually can sound. Lower the gain to minimum and enyoy the sweet bluesy crunshsound, switch to clean channel and be stunded how your fat rockaxe just transformed to a jazzguitar
What im trying to say is.. With the 2 volume and 2 tone knobs, the 3 way swith, a decent amp you can get this baby to sound pretty much what you want it to sound like, its stunning really.
To me this is an incredible well made guitar that you really feel the history and love in it when you look at it and for that matter play it. So far I haven't found any flaws with it except for the ones mentioned above.
Channeling the iconic design of the golden era, the Gibson Les Paul Standard is an authentic revival of a true classic. This electric guitar is a nod to the past, but it's also primed and ready to rock the modern stage. Outfitted with a solid mahogany body and an alluring figured maple top, this instrument embodies the same construction that shaped the sound of rock and roll.
From its well-rounded '50s neck profile to its trapezoid inlays, the Gibson Les Paul Standard '50s will transport you back to the decade that started it all. The vintage-inspired look doesn't stop at the aesthetics, it is also reflected in the immersive sound. The guitar comes equipped with calibrated Burstbucker 1 and 2 pickups, delivering a range of authentic PAF-style tone. Paired with hand-wired controls and Orange Drop capacitors, these pickups allow for a wealth of vintage sounds, from bluesy warmth to all-out rock aggression.
The Gibson Les Paul Standard '50s shines in its playability. The medium profile neck and 22 medium jumbo frets ensure comfortable and fast action. Also, with its nitrocellulose lacquer finish, the guitar resonates fully, enhancing its tonal qualities and giving it a classic look and feel.
The LP Standard is a very versatile and fun guitar to play. It is a 2018 Mojave Burst, and looks and plays great. It does not suffer form what the internet typically says are modern Gibson QC problems at all. Friends with older LPS have said they'd trade theirs for mine in a second. The LP makes you play it a certain way, maybe a bit more aggressively than some other models. I have a Suhr Classic S Antique as well (it was a gift/can't normally afford that kind of guitar), and it is great too, but it is cleaner and more refined, and makes me play it differently than the Les Paul. Ok, I suppose I can play any way I want on either guitar, but most guitars have a cool way of leaning the player in a certain direction, and I like what the Les Paul does that way. I also love the out-of-phase, splittable pick-ups, and the bypass options. Traded in an ES 335 on this LP. Loved the ES but found it to be less versatile, and uncomfortable (odd strap placement at the neck) to play sitting down. I also tend to play music that does not require or benefit from the semi-hollow, sort of acoustic tones (I just use an acoustic when I play mellower stuff). The LP has taken some time to grow on me, but now I am glad I made the switch. Wish I could have afforded to have both. Selling or trading in guitars can be more painful than we might expect.
For a while in the late 2000's I had an '89 (or maybe 88, I'm getting old) cherry burst standard. You know how the post-norlin standards were made until the introduction of weight relief so I won't bore you with details.
I wanted to love this guitar, but it had some classic LP flaws. For starters, there was a rise at the heel that made her tough to set up. Next, she would not hold tune when I was doing a lot of bending on the B string. Classic Gibson. Adding to my set-up woes, the bridge was bending in the middle because the previous owner had player her with 11s and 12s ("they call em regular strings for a reason, regular guys use em," you shoulda seen what this guy did to this 61 SG reissue he won in a raffle at GC... took me forever to take the twist out of the neck so he could sell it!). Also, the stock electronics sounded kinda boxy and blah even through an ac30 or a Plexi.
That said, I made everything work and got her playing well without investing more dough into her and took her on the road for a while. Months of chiropractor sessions later I decided she was too heavy and sold her back to my friend (he missed her anyway). This LP clocked in just shy of 10lbs. SO heavy. TOO heavy.
It occurs to me now as I write this review that this guitar was kinda boxy and sterile unplugged and didn't have the vibrancy I now expect from a carve top. Maybe the pickups were okay and the guitar's weight was to blame. I find the LPs under 9lbs without weight relief or chambering truly sound the best. At approximately 10, this LP was at a serious disadvantage. The strings just couldn't drive the body to resonate nicely. What reached the stock pickups just wasn't special. Even a set of real PAFs with magic winding patterns achieved by rube goldburg (read: leesona) machines, alnico cast using forgotten lore and fairy dust judiciously sprinkled in the adamantium covers by the wee folk who inhabited the old kalamazoo MI shop (which vintage enthusiasts imply must look a lot like that tree the Keebler elves inhabit, though now its the Heritage factory and its manned by mortal men) probably couldn't have made this guitar good.
This guitar taught me a lot about weeding through a lot of Gibsons before buying and also not getting too attached to one until you've played a lot of shows with it. Gibson from any affordable era is a crap shoot, even custom shop stuff. I let my ears and hands decide these days because in this instance I was blinded by the looks of this les paul and a little jealousy of the new rhythm guitarist's standard. Not that his paul was really special, it just looked special...
4a15465005