Whoa. Did Gibson actually do... something right?

[stubhead]

Their Alex Lifeson Les Paul has a killer no-tenon neck joint, almost as nice as a Schecter or Agile. Given that it's Gibson, they do make it devilishly hard to find an actual direct PICTURE of the thing.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/alex-lifeson-les-paul-axcess/specs

 

[DangerousR6]

I believe they actually did the same thing on Neil Schon's LP sig too... :dontknow:

And why has it taken 50 yrs for someone to figure this out....Hmmmm, could it be because noone at Gibson actually played guitar.... :laughing11:

 

[OzziePete]

I checked out the promo vid on that link. It looks good but not what I'd look for in a Gibson. Purely personal choice for me. But credit to Gibson for taking a LP Axcess and turning it into a signature model. Lifeson deserves something that turns out better than the bad rap his white Gibson 355 got with inconsistent build quality plaguing it's release.

 

[lafromla1]

$4000??  really?  The parts are nothing special, certainly nothing that you couldn't improve on when assembling a Warmoth LP for half the price.

 

[Ace Flibble]

It's literally just a Les Paul Axcess with a piezo system added. They've been amking the Axcess guitars (With and without Floyds) for a few years now. There's some pressure on them from the Gibson loyal to do away with it (because people are stupid and hate progress) but there's also a lot of support for making the Axcess heel a standard feature, much like the LP Standards a couple of years ago got an asymmetrical neck profile. There was an Epiphone prototype spotted about two years ago that had the same heel although that was part of the Japan-exclusive Elite line which has had many innovations and features that have never made it over for the western Epiphones and GIbsons.

It is at least a custom option if you fancy shelling out the many thousands and thousands for a custom built guitar from the Custom Shop.

 

[JaySwear]

Gibson's done a couple cool things lately, but mostly on the lower end.

'58 Les Paul Junior

SG 60's Tribute

And my personal favorite...

SG Melody Maker

And in white! All of these are under $1000 I believe.

 

[erogenousjones17]

Nice stuff there, Jay. I'll take a yellow LP Junior, a red '60s SG and a white Melody Maker, please thank you.  :icon_biggrin:

 

[Paul-less]

I don't get why people complain about Gibson's, and for that matter PRS's, neck joint. I don't find anything really bad about them. I don't find those cutaway heels much better to play on, and I would think that they really weaken the joint.

But then again, same with Fender's heel. Not a problem. I prefer the non-contoured heel simply because it's less expensive, and it doesn't do much for me.

 

[AutoBat]

i never got the appeal of 1 pup guitars.

 

[erogenousjones17]

i never got the appeal of 1 pup guitars.

I guess it depends what you're going to do with the guitar. Personally, I rarely ever use anything but the bridge pickup, so a single-pickup guitar makes sense to me. But I play in a punk band.

 

[JaySwear]

i never got the appeal of 1 pup guitars.

Me either, and I really play on the bridge mainly. But still like to have the ability to find more pickup spots.

But that white SG Melody Maker... :icon_biggrin:

 

[dNA]

if i was going to have a one pickup guitar it would be a neck pickup. I use the bridge pup less than 20% of the time

 

[kboman]

if i was going to have a one pickup guitar it would be a neck pickup. I use the bridge pup less than 20% of the time

+1, but for me it's more like around 5% of the time. It's gotten to the point where the pickup switch has oxidised so much that I have to rapidly switch back and forth a few times to get any sound at all from my bridge pickup...

 

[Strat Avenger]

Not only is the Fender non-contoured heel uncomfortable (I realize some people never play past the 12th fret, put I actually utilize all the frets), but it looks completely out-of-place since the rest of the guitar body (such as a Strat) is so contoured. You have all those nice rounded curves and contours, and then right in the middle of it all, this squared-off block of wood. I hate it.

I totally like Fender's contoured heel on their Deluxe models, not only for their comfort and appearance, but for their simplicity. Just round one corner of the neck plate (if using a neck plate) , relocate one screw, and shave the wood accordingly.
I know it won't work on the Warmoth Pro construction, but all my necks have a top-adjust truss rod anyway, so it wouldn't be an issue for me.

 

[stubhead]

I do like 24 frets for slide guitar, but one issue that seems to rarely come up is that really short string lengths just don't sound all that musical. It's a nice way to make a point, but guitarists who stay up above the 12th fret a lot don't seem to make many list of "Tone Gods". At least not mine. It become very obvious on electric basses, because of all that scale length it's pretty easy to make 27 and 28 "frets" on a fretless - and they sound like a family of blips with congenital leukemia. Maybe the reason that honking big tenons and Fender chunk have persisted so long is that it's really pretty difficult to EQ a tone so that the very highest notes sound good. It usually starts sounding almost synth-like when Vai or Pertucci get up there - but then so does the rest of the neck's tone. 

 

[rightintheface]

the thing i can't work out.... does the world need yet another signature les paul in some kind of burst? Really?? Is it necessary?? just making it a "signature" model ups the price by a grand. does not make any sense to me  :dontknow:

ps a few of my friends (mostly in punk bands) only have bridge pups. I contemplated it for a while as i was only using bridge pup, but then discovered how awesome a GFS retrotron neck pickup sounds when pushed really hard  :guitaristgif:

 

[back2thefutre]

One pickup guitars are cool because the way it sounds is the way it sounds. Forces you to approach the guitar in a different way.