Last time Dan was over in UK he left his Les Paul with me on long term loan. I offered to refurb it and then promptly left it for several months until I had a quiet day.
I had already identified it as a mid 1970's version made in Gibson's Nashville plant. The late 60's through to the late 70's were the heyday of the Les Paul, particularly in blues and rock and this guitar was typical of those times being very heavy, having a very high output with bags of sustain and a fast low action: ideal for lengthy blues solos with lots of notes in! It's in pretty good condition with only a few dings in the body, but it crackled quite a lot when I plugged it in. So I sprayed the electrics with 'Funk Out', changed the strings, adjusted the pickups and bridge to get a more even sound across the strings, cleaned the body and lemon oiled the fingerboard. It felt and smelt good!
Plugging it in I noticed that thinner jack plugs made a poor connection the guitar's jack socket. I would have adjusted the jack socket contacts but it's sealed up in a tin can to minimise hum, so I settled for more 'funk out' and used a 'Planet Waves' lead with expanding contacts on the plug. It was time to test it.
First test was on the neck pick up playing a shadows number - not a guitar I would normally pick for this job with its beefy humbucker sound, but I thought it sounded quite good in this demo.
Gibson WondLand
Next up I tried the bridge pick up on a 60's song - the compressed Les Paul sound quite suited this I thought.
Gibson YouNoGood
In conclusion I must say I was quite pleased with the playability and sustain, The sound is OK but I still prefer a single coil over a humbucker for clean sounds. But I soon became weary of toting this guitar's weight - alright when you are a muscular young rock god, but very wearing for an old, easy listening player such as myself!
I had already identified it as a mid 1970's version made in Gibson's Nashville plant. The late 60's through to the late 70's were the heyday of the Les Paul, particularly in blues and rock and this guitar was typical of those times being very heavy, having a very high output with bags of sustain and a fast low action: ideal for lengthy blues solos with lots of notes in! It's in pretty good condition with only a few dings in the body, but it crackled quite a lot when I plugged it in. So I sprayed the electrics with 'Funk Out', changed the strings, adjusted the pickups and bridge to get a more even sound across the strings, cleaned the body and lemon oiled the fingerboard. It felt and smelt good!
Plugging it in I noticed that thinner jack plugs made a poor connection the guitar's jack socket. I would have adjusted the jack socket contacts but it's sealed up in a tin can to minimise hum, so I settled for more 'funk out' and used a 'Planet Waves' lead with expanding contacts on the plug. It was time to test it.
First test was on the neck pick up playing a shadows number - not a guitar I would normally pick for this job with its beefy humbucker sound, but I thought it sounded quite good in this demo.
Gibson WondLand
Next up I tried the bridge pick up on a 60's song - the compressed Les Paul sound quite suited this I thought.
Gibson YouNoGood
In conclusion I must say I was quite pleased with the playability and sustain, The sound is OK but I still prefer a single coil over a humbucker for clean sounds. But I soon became weary of toting this guitar's weight - alright when you are a muscular young rock god, but very wearing for an old, easy listening player such as myself!
