Les’ Sustain for Days
A couple months ago, I had an unexpected revelation. An eye-opening, earth-shaking, revolutionary enlightenment. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating and obsessing, but it was an honest-to-goodness WTF!
I was at a local music shop (ok, I admit it was Best Buy), and out of curiosity, I picked up an absurdly expensive Gibson Les Paul Traditional from the wall-o-guitars, plugged it into a Vox Night Train, and gave it a spin. I’ve never really given the Les Paul guitars much attention. Despite their iconic status and near ubiquity, I’ve always thought the Les Paul was just too heavy to consider. But…
I was shocked! This guitar had so much sustain, it felt like there must be an active sustainer circuit in there. But no- just passive ‘57 Classic humbuckers, a Nashville Tune-o-matic, and a whole bunch of mahogany and maple. I was stunned. I always thought my G&L ASAT III with its Saddle-Lock bridge and my Vox SSC-55 with its MaxConnect bridge both had reasonably good sustain, but this was in a whole ‘nother league. It actually felt like a different breed of instrument, one that may even require a different playing style to accommodate and leverage such an impressive sustain. And those 57 Classics sounded fantastic!
So, ok, I walked out of there telling Chunling “Wow- that was mind-blowing. But $2400, forget about it!!” I convinced myself to let it go, and stopped thinking about it. Until…
Last week, I was flipping through Musician’s Friend, and found myself absent-mindedly checking the Les Paul’s. There’s a bewildering assortment (currently 205 listings!) of Les Paul models, both from Gibson and Epiphone.
One in particular caught my eye- the Epiphone Les Paul 1960 Tribute Plus. It’s impressively distinct from most of the made-in-China Epiphones in that it uses the exact same Gibson USA ‘57 Classic humbuckers and high quality Switchcraft switch and jack as the Gibson Traditional. It also has a full thickness carved maple cap with flame maple veneer, over a solid unchambered mahogany body, and the mahogany neck is attached to the body with a deep-set mortise and tenon joint. So in appearance, build, weight and electronics, it’s very similar in quality to that Gibson I played. And it comes with a nice hard case too.
Of course, the Gibson would be using a one piece solid flamed maple top instead of the combination of maple and flamed veneer, and a single-piece quartersawn mahogany neck. It also has the Nashvile TOM instead of Epiphone’s LockTone TOM, receives a full Plek treatment at the factory, has nitrocellulose finish instead of polyurethane, and it’s made in the USA instead of China. And it’s more than four times as expensive, woohoo!
Aside from price, the Epiphone model actually has a few advantages (in my opinion anyway) over the Gibson: it comes stock with Grover 18:1 locking tuners instead of the vintage-style Kluson’s (not my favorite), and push/pull tone pots wired for series/parallel switching for both humbuckers. And the Epiphone neck has the 1960’s SlimTaper rounded D profile instead of the slightly chunkier 1950’s neck (I prefer slimmer).
And let’s not forget that Les Paul invented his first electric guitar (“The Log”) at the Epiphone factory in New York City in 1940, and Gibson wasn’t even interested when he approached them, until later in 1952. Just sayin 🙂
Apparently, this Epiphone Les Paul Tribute Plus model replaces the previous Tribute model, which was nearly identical but without the flame-top and speed knobs. Update 7/11/12: Other differences I hadn’t noticed before: the Plus neck has a 14” radius instead of 12”, jumbo frets instead of medium jumbo, and is attached to the body with a deep-set mortise & tenon joint, instead of a “traditional dovetail” on the standard. I had a chance to play one of those this week and was very impressed with the excellent sound and sustain, and the range of tones from those ‘57 Classics with the series/parallel switches. For a quarter the cost of the Gibson. Awesome!
I’m sold, and better yet, Chunling says she wants to get me the Cherryburst Tribute Plus for my birthday ($499 after the extra $100 off for July 4). How about that? 🙂 More news as it happens!
Update 7/11/12: It’s here! https://www.planetz.com/a-worthy-tribute
June 30, 2012 @ 12:43 pm
Hi John,
I think you’ll be very happy with the Epi Tribute LP, it really is a great instrument at an unbeatable price. I researched those guitars heavily back in the beginning of the year and played a few at a local shop. I almost bought one until I saw the Gibson LP Classic Custom, I’d been dreaming of an Ebony LP Custom since I was a kid and decided to go for the dream. So I sold my American Tele Plus and bought the Gibson. But I still look at the Epi Tributes and think about picking one up some day.
Enjoy the new toy!
-Lee
June 30, 2012 @ 12:44 pm
Oh, and Happy Birthday!
June 30, 2012 @ 6:50 pm
Hi Lee,
Those Customs are beautiful! Happy to hear that you think the Epi compares favorably with yours. I’ll follow up when the new LP arrives!
John
July 5, 2012 @ 2:53 pm
John –
Happy birthday! Have you had good luck buying sight unseen from Musiciansfriend.com? I’ve been looking at the Epiphone Wildkat, whihc looks like a steal at $299, but have never had one in hand.
Sam Ward
July 5, 2012 @ 3:07 pm
Hi Sam,
Buying sight-unseen is always a gamble, but I seem to keep doing it. I’ve received a couple duds, which are disappointing, but returnable.
At musician’s friend, you can return but you have to pay return-shipping if it’s not defective. If you buy at guitarcenter.com, you can return it in your local store (so you don’t have to pay to ship back).
Yeah- some of these new lower prices from Epiphone are amazing: http://www.epiphone.com/News/Features/Features/2012/Epiphone-Announces-Price-Reduction-on-Top-Sellers.aspx
I’ve played that Wildkat at a local store, and really liked the feel, and the electronics configuration. Two P-90’s with the switch up top like a Les Paul, individual volumes AND a master volume (which is pretty nice), and a master tone. Smaller body than an ES. The flamed natural + chrome is nice, but a bit yellow. Or there’s white/gold.
Another thing to consider: with two single-coil P-90’s, you’ll have to deal with hum in every position. No hum-cancelling here unless you replace the pickups with some of Lindy Fralin’s hum cancelling P-90’s, but a pair will cost you as much as the guitar: http://www.fralinpickups.com/humbuckers.asp#p90
-John
July 6, 2012 @ 2:50 pm
Thanks for letting me know about Guitar Center’s return policy, I checked to see if they had any in stock in their local stores and didn’t even think to order online from them. Looking forward to your review of the Epi Les Paul.
July 6, 2012 @ 3:05 pm
If you get a Wildkat, let me know how you like it!
-John
A Worthy Tribute -
July 11, 2012 @ 5:54 pm
[…] first impression of the sustain is good, but it isn’t as magically amazing as I remembered from the Gibson Les Paul Traditional. Has my memory of the […]
July 11, 2012 @ 6:05 pm
It’s here! Read all the details at https://www.planetz.com/?p=1780
March 12, 2013 @ 4:46 am
Hello, I would like to buy this guitar, and I would like to know wich is the thicness of the maple cap? could you help me?
March 12, 2013 @ 8:49 am
According to the specs, http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Les-Paul/Epiphone/Les-Paul-Tribute-Plus/Specs.aspx
it does have a solid carved hard maple cap, but I don’t know it’s thickness compared to the gibson. Looking at the side of my guitar, the edge binding is 1/4″ thick. The maple cap is covered by the binding, but it isn’t necessarily the same thickness as the binding. So I guess at most, it’s 1/4″ minus the thickness of the flame veneer (which is probably 1/32″).
-John
March 14, 2013 @ 12:21 pm
Thank you very much for your help.
Greetings from Spain