New or older Les Paul

York Audio said:
I’ve owned six Les Pauls ranging from 1959-2003 and they’ve all been wildly different. My least favorite was a ‘76 Custom and oddly enough, my ‘97 Classic was the best sounding and playing one of the bunch. Some truth I read a few days ago was that “guitars are made out of wood, and some wood wants to be a guitar and some wood doesn’t.” When I buy a guitar, I don’t even plug it in. I play it acoustically and feel the vibrations to see if it’s naturally resonant or if it’s dead.

My guitar tech gave me great advice and said “put the upper bout against your ear and play each string individually. If the guitar resonates and each string is the same volume, it’ll be a great guitar.” He was right.

All that to say, the year doesn’t matter. The wood does. Just play a TON of them and one of them will click and you’ll know you’ve got something special in your hands. Wait for the one that inspires you.
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When I bought my Ibanez I did listen to it not plugged in. I believe you are right some wood is right and some wrong. Wilk start listening to the wood. Thank you for your time and thoughts.
 
Do you guys take in consideration where you buy your Gibsons?

For example, it seems like guitars at Guitar Center get beat to crap, and aren't well inspected. But have you bought a Les Paul from Sweetwater? They claim that they thoroughly inspect each instrument. I was wondering if you're more likely to get a better Les Paul from Sweetwater compared to other places.
 
I bought an ES Les Paul from Sweetwater and it was great out of the box. I just had to tweak the truss rod and lower the bridge a bit. It played fine but I wanted it to play better.

I buy gear from Sweetwater just because they're treated me well and they're in the next state over so I get things quickly from them.
 
Personally, I wouldn’t buy a guitar unless I could put my hands on it because each one is unique. I know artists with deals that have the brand send several guitars of the same model and they only keep the best one. For instance, I have two artist project guitars that I designed for Hagstrom. They’ve sent me five or six of each of them and they’re all different. They’re all good, but for some reason one of them tends shines more and just feels right. The guitar is such a personal instrument, and you just know when the stars align and it’s the right one.
 
pharmd07 said:
Do you guys take in consideration where you buy your Gibsons?

For example, it seems like guitars at Guitar Center get beat to crap, and aren't well inspected. But have you bought a Les Paul from Sweetwater? They claim that they thoroughly inspect each instrument. I was wondering if you're more likely to get a better Les Paul from Sweetwater compared to other places.
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I have purchase a Les Paul Traditional Po (2014), a Tele Deluxe (2015), and a '62 335 Repo (2017) from Sweetwater. All three are stellar guitars. I have made minor changes (tuners, bridges, pots, capacitors, etc.) for my personal preferences...all not very expensive and mods we made back in the day (yea, I've been playing these things since the sixties and each guitar is unique). Back in the day, you could walk into just about any good music store and play 2-3 of the same model...there were variations between the same model (wood/tone, playability, etc.). Sweetwater has enough volume they can pick over these instruments like we did back then...

Overall, I've been extremely happy with Sweetwater!
 
I played an Eastman SB 59 (Les Paul) with a red violin varnish finish, ebony board and Seymour Duncan Antiquities at my local shop. I was impressed. I kept thinking, "Is this as nice as I think it is?" After getting home and plugging in my 68 Custom LP for comparison, I decided to go back to the store and buy the Eastman. That was six months ago - very happy with my decision.
 
If it were me I'd avoid anything Gibson like the plague and get me a good LP copy from another guitar builder. Far better quality, and if they did their headstock build right its might not break at all. But that's me. Maybe resale value is always on your mind, in which case even a crappy build Gibson will hold its value much better. Because for some strange reason, despite the nose dive in build quality, just having that Gibson name on the headstock means something to 2nd hand buyers. It's the power of name brand recognition.
 
Muad'zin said:
If it were me I'd avoid anything Gibson like the plague and get me a good LP copy from another guitar builder. Far better quality, and if they did their headstock build right its might not break at all. But that's me. Maybe resale value is always on your mind, in which case even a crappy build Gibson will hold its value much better. Because for some strange reason, despite the nose dive in build quality, just having that Gibson name on the headstock means something to 2nd hand buyers. It's the power of name brand recognition.
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I have been playing Les Pauls for 25 years now, and in all that time I have gigged me Les Pauls, packed them into my car stacked 3 high, taken them from cold chicago winter temps, to middle of summer temps, and I by no means baby my guitars, and I have never had a headstock break on one my me Les Pauls. I really makes me wonder what guys are doing to thier guitars that they are experiencing headstock breaks?
Now I am not saying it doesn't happen, I actually own a 2003 Les Paul classic that I purchased knowing it had a headstock repair. (got it for a steal) the guy said his kid knocked it off the guitar stand and it fell face first onto a hard tile floor. Of course it's going to break, I had an ibanez that fell the exact same way, face planted onto a hard cement floor, and the headstock snapped right off. It can happen to any guitar. But for some reason when people talk about Gibson headstock breaks they make it as though Les Paul headstocks are just randomly breaking off for no reason whatsoever.

As for build quality, i have everything from a 2000 to a 2014 and none of mine have any guild quality issues. Fret ends are nice and filed, frets are level, no blemishes in finish, or binding. I did replace the nuts on all of my Les Pauls, but that was out of preference because I like graphtech tusq over the nut Gibson uses. But beyond swapping some parts out for my preferred parts I have had no QC issues either. Again, as with any guitar manufacturer, it all comes down to trying out multiples to pick the one that is right for you.

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Pwrmac7600 said:
I have been playing Les Pauls for 25 years now, and in all that time I have gigged me Les Pauls, packed them into my car stacked 3 high, taken them from cold chicago winter temps, to middle of summer temps, and I by no means baby my guitars, and I have never had a headstock break on one my me Les Pauls. I really makes me wonder what guys are doing to thier guitars that they are experiencing headstock breaks?
Now I am not saying it doesn't happen, I actually own a 2003 Les Paul classic that I purchased knowing it had a headstock repair. (got it for a steal) the guy said his kid knocked it off the guitar stand and it fell face first onto a hard tile floor. Of course it's going to break, I had an ibanez that fell the exact same way, face planted onto a hard cement floor, and the headstock snapped right off. It can happen to any guitar. But for some reason when people talk about Gibson headstock breaks they make it as though Les Paul headstocks are just randomly breaking off for no reason whatsoever.

As for build quality, i have everything from a 2000 to a 2014 and none of mine have any guild quality issues. Fret ends are nice and filed, frets are level, no blemishes in finish, or binding. I did replace the nuts on all of my Les Pauls, but that was out of preference because I like graphtech tusq over the nut Gibson uses. But beyond swapping some parts out for my preferred parts I have had no QC issues either. Again, as with any guitar manufacturer, it all comes down to trying out multiples to pick the one that is right for you.

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Everybody also knows an uncle who smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day, and who is still alive and well into his 90's, doesn't mean he's the rule. There's a reason why luthiers across the world make fun of Gibson's construction methods, it's because that method of making the neck out of one piece is what allows luthiers across the world to put their kids through college. And the skill of luthiers can be measured in how invisible they can make the repairs look.
 
Muad'zin said:
Everybody also knows an uncle who smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day, and who is still alive and well into his 90's, doesn't mean he's the rule. There's a reason why luthiers across the world make fun of Gibson's construction methods, it's because that method of making the neck out of one piece is what allows luthiers across the world to put their kids through college. And the skill of luthiers can be measured in how invisible they can make the repairs look.
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Just saying, people give the impression that you have to baby a Les Paul to avoid the headstock snapping off, which definitely isn't the case. In my little community of guitar players, I have a lot of friends who also play Les Pauls, all of us have at some point or still do gig them regularly and none of us have ever had head stock breaks.
Does it happen? Of course it does. Does it possibly happen more than other guitars? It may, but I have seen far to many people get scared away from buying a Les Paul because they are under the impression that if you breath on the guitar wrong it will break off, which just isn't the case.
 
The original Gibson 335 was called that because it cost $335.00. This was a lot of money for a guitar in '58...that's $2,931 in 2018. I paid this for my '63 reproduction...and it's very, very close to the same quality!
 
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I got my first Les Paul in 1977 - a 74 Deluxe. I’ve owned a bunch since- including #148 from the first batch of Robot, a kind of bizarre Dusk Tiger, a CC several R9’s, R8’s, Customs, Standards, SG, 335, 336, V, Explorer... I bought my son one of the baked maple neck LP models after the infamous rare wood raid - they’ve all, every single one of them, been excellent guitars - easy to play, sounded great, etc.,. IMHO, Gibson’s QC is on par with everything else I’ve owned. Their resale value is arguably higher than all else. I understand some people despise the brand. My experience has been the opposite.
 
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