NGD! My buddy thinks my new Les Paul is a Chinese fake!

[Grandturk]

Fuck "unplugged tone.". Plug it in and if it don't rip, you must quit.

[len]

It's real alright........

A real piece of shit!!

I noticed right away just how light it was compared to my 82' Standard and started to worry as to how that would affect the tone. I gave it a full setup with my favorite strings (D'addario 13-54's) and tried it unplugged for a few minutes.....

Sounds like a dying banjo! Seriously compared to my '82 it is thin and weak and just lacks punch and tone. Plugged into my JCM 900 it sound like shit as well.

i'm reading the thread ,the ups and downs i 'm feeling bad for ya, feeling good for ya.a reall nail biter.ahhh...a happy ending ... then whammo!!!!!
you put up the fuck this piece of shit post and i about fell off my chair!!!
feel bad for ya and the shit ya went through good luck in the future

[DonP]

It's real alright........

A real piece of shit!!

I noticed right away just how light it was compared to my 82' Standard and started to worry as to how that would affect the tone. I gave it a full setup with my favorite strings (D'addario 13-54's) and tried it unplugged for a few minutes.....

Sounds like a dying banjo! Seriously compared to my '82 it is thin and weak and just lacks punch and tone. Plugged into my JCM 900 it sound like shit as well.

I wish I had better researched this new stupid fad by Gibson that they call "chambering" as I would have NEVER bought this turd! The "swiss cheese" Les Pauls of the late 90's were bad enough but this guitar is just crap no matter how nice it looks.

It has since been put up for sale and I will hunt down another "real and real heavy" Gibson from the 70's and 80's. Damm what a waste!

I tried a chambered STANDARD and came to the same conclusion...until I tried a chambered HISTORIC! What an awesome guitar.

Sorry about your luck.

[MarkTheMuscleShark]

Your buddy is, for lack of a better word, a jackass. First of all, you don't need a guitar to be heavy to sound good. Chambering adds sustain and resonance, and takes off some of that horrid weight. Besides, anyone will tell you that the old lightweight Bursts sound the best. Second of all, that guitar does not look cheap or fake at all. Your buddy is just being paranoid. Enjoy your new Lester

[MarkTheMuscleShark]

Whoops, never mind, you're selling it. My bad for not reading the rest of the thread. I honestly don't think chambering makes a guitar sound like a "dying banjo". I think that it fattens up the tone and increases resonance. Think about it, does an ES-335 sound like a dying banjo? No, and that's about as chambered as you get before going into full hollow territory. All the chambered Strats, Teles etc that I've heard all sound much fatter, plus chambering reduces weight, as I mentioned before. I think it's all in your head.

[DonP]

It has since been put up for sale and I will hunt down another "real and real heavy" Gibson from the 70's and 80's. Damm what a waste!

Hey, before you make another stupid mistake, weight relief started in the mid-80s. So you really want something before 1985, the Norlin years.

[Gartron]

aww that sucks...I assume my 91 standard is chambered , but it is a tone machine!

[straycat]

They started doing the 9 weight relief holes in the mid 80's no big deal they still sounded great.My 2010 50's tribute is chambered and it sounds awesome.
I would get an RS upgrade kit(vintage) or Martin six string pot kit then see how it sounds.Don't give up on it yet.
That color would look great with a set of double creme DiMarzio super "D"s so please try a pot kit first.
You could trade it for an 80's but they are hit and miss as well.

[vklobucar]

My new '82 Standard with Tim Shaw PAF's is pretty damm heavy but sounds just awesome!

I guess that I need to find another 70's to early 80's Gibson!

[DonP]

aww that sucks...I assume my 91 standard is chambered , but it is a tone machine!

Chambering started around 1996 with the Elegant model, so I highly doubt yours is chambered.

Weight relieved yes.

[VitaminG]

My new '82 Standard with Tim Shaw PAF's is pretty damm heavy but sounds just awesome!

I guess that I need to find another 70's to early 80's Gibson!

when I started playing in the mid- to late-80s, everyone told me the 70s Gibsons & Fenders were to be avoided like the plague, even though people were almost giving them away. Shitty construction, bad fit and finish, bad wood, crappy hardwear, both companies had become complacent, were resting on their laurels and had completely dropped the ball, were owned by big corporations and were not to be trusted. Hold out for an early 60s one - you'll pay more but they're not crazy-expensive like the 50s ones and they still knew how to make them right.

Now the 70s models are old and desirable. 'Classic', 'Vintage', 'collectible'

[asix]

call gibson give them that serial?

[DonP]

when I started playing in the mid- to late-80s, everyone told me the 70s Gibsons & Fenders were to be avoided like the plague, even though people were almost giving them away. Shitty construction, bad fit and finish, bad wood, crappy hardwear, both companies had become complacent, were resting on their laurels and had completely dropped the ball, were owned by big corporations and were not to be trusted. Hold out for an early 60s one - you'll pay more but they're not crazy-expensive like the 50s ones and they still knew how to make them right.

Now the 70s models are old and desirable. 'Classic', 'Vintage', 'collectible'

Last time I checked, Gibson didn't make a Les Paul from 1961 to 1967. And I'm pretty sure real 1960 Les Pauls go for around $300K. So which early 60s models are you talking about?

As far as vklobucar wanting a Norlin, hey, he's convinced he needs a heavy solid LP to get that tone. More power to him. My 1977 Custom's my heaviest Les Paul at 10lbs 14oz and that's the heaviest I'd want. It's a great guitar but doesn't get nearly the play the chambered R8 gets because of the weight. And if I want solid, I have the R0 which is still a nice 8lbs 14oz.

[clifffclaven]

Last time I checked, Gibson didn't make a Les Paul from 1961 to 1967. And I'm pretty sure real 1960 Les Pauls go for around $300K. So which early 60s models are you talking about?

As far as vklobucar wanting a Norlin, hey, he's convinced he needs a heavy solid LP to get that tone. More power to him. My 1977 Custom's my heaviest Les Paul at 10lbs 14oz and that's the heaviest I'd want. It's a great guitar but doesn't get nearly the play the chambered R8 gets because of the weight. And if I want solid, I have the R0 which is still a nice 8lbs 14oz.

Agreed... my 78std weighs almost 12 lbs... My 93 is now my #1, mostly because of the weight.

[VitaminG]

Last time I checked, Gibson didn't make a Les Paul from 1961 to 1967. And I'm pretty sure real 1960 Les Pauls go for around $300K. So which early 60s models are you talking about?

Really? I don't doubt your word. Don't know much about Les Pauls. Only one I ever owned was a cheap Asian knockoff.

and just so we're clear, that wasn't my advice to anyone looking for an old LP or Strat. That was the advice given to me as a young guitarist back in the 80s. No doubt provided by the few guitar "experts" I knew (ie. kids older than me at school who'd been playing guitar for longer - fwiw none of them owned brand name guitars either - who would spout secondhand opinions picked up from guitar shop salesman, magazines & each other as though they were there own. Man, that sounds like the interwebz! ). No one I knew owned any of these guitars, so no one good refute or confirm any of these assertions. I made sure not to buy the "bad" Fenders & Gibsons of the 70s by ensuring that my wallet was too empty to afford them (let alone the older ones or the brand new ones).

So this was the view provided to me in the mid-80s. Obviously, the guitar buying landscape has changed dramatically since then. 60s guitars by the big manufacturers haven't been reasonably priced in a long time. So the underappreciated 70s guitars became the only way to own a cool old brand name instrument since the earlier models started selling for gonzo prices to collectors who kept them in hermetically sealed underground vaults. Subsequently 70s prices went up with demand and it turns out those guitars aren't always the dogs they were made out to be. Even the 80s models ("better, but still don't make 'em like they useta!") started catching fire, because if it's 20 years old it MUST be made better then today's models, right? Plus it's now a vintage guitar, with all that inherent better-than-newness and built in mojo!

The way I look at it - if you play a guitar and it speaks to you, it doesn't matter when or where it was made or by who. If it feels good and sounds good, it is good.