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My second hand but otherwise brand new 2007 Limited edition Les Paul Custom with (butchered) Bigsby
And the 1993 heavily modified Epiphone Les Paul I used to own but sold earlier this year. That 1993 Lester had a whole lot of issues.
Epi's were made by Samick back then and were notorious for having bad pickups (I owned three Epiphone Lesters, one Epi firebird and an SG which had horrible pickups) which hum when touched and screech like a banshee with even the slightest bit of distortion. I replaced the neck of that Lester and replaced the pickups and pots just to make it work accordingly.
No such worries with the "Alnico Classic" humbuckers of my black Lester. Either I got lucky with an exceptionally good example or Epiphone have got a better quality control than Gibson. But this Lester sounds well... like a Lester. It has that CCR spank and that Gary Moore wail.
The 1993 Lester had an alder body with a maple top and a Mahogany neck. The new Lester has an all mahogany body, no maple top. The Neck is also mahogany. It makes for a rather dark sounding guitar though, the 1993 had more highs in the sound.
One thing I liked about the 1993 Lester was that the pots are further apart. Call me crazy but I loved that because it kept me from grabbing the wrong pot by mistake. The Original neck of that red Lester (Which was an alpine white guitar when I bought it.) had a razor thin profile which I hated because it made my hand cramp up. Ofcourse changing the neck rectified that. The new Lester has a big telegraph pole neck profile which not only makes it more to my liking but also accounts for big sustain.
Verdict: The 1993 Lester took a lot of modifications to get it to sound and feel right now that I look back on all that, I wonder if all of that was worth it seeing how this new one completely outdoes it in every right.
If there's one quibble I have on the new Lester, it's the rubbery feel of the Grover tuners, the cast sealed Gotoh tuners of the 1993 worked better to my liking.
Well, although the Les Paul Custom is Epiphone's upmarket model people still tend to see it as a guitar for beginners or people with not enough dough to buy a Les paul Custom which says "Gibson" on the headstock. (And seeing how expensive Gibsons are getting, that would include a lot of us here) The quality of Epiphone's guitars has improved greatly. Gone are the dodgy necks, gone are the squeeling pickups, gone are the budget electronics and gone are the non Les Paul body woods.
Gibson gets a lot of bad rap on their quality issues but judging on my black Les Paul they made sure that at least the less wealthy of us can get a decent guitar for the money. Sure it doesn't have the elegant "Open book" headstock and that headstock doesn't say "Gibson" but that's made up with what it DOES have.
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