I haven't tried any of the 2015 Gibsons, but last year I played a few. I must say I was impressed with one particular 2014 LP studio. It was the only one that was flawless. It seemed that every single other one didn't feel up to standard.(bearing in mind I only tried up to traditional). They all seemed to either have a sub par finish or something was slightly loose or the neck didn't feel right. I don't want to write this as an anti-gibson post I just want to know if the generally quality has improved, as I still want a Gibson haha.

Anyway after trying a few PRS's that all had noticeably better quality, I settled on my secondhand custom 22 that only cost me 3k more than the LP studio would have.

singemonkey wrote: The blower switch. This is cool. The pickup is wired straight to the jack. Definite increase in output and brightness. Downside? As with all these controls it uses a push/pull pot. EZ said that with slightly sweaty fingers, he had to reach under the put to lift it - otherwise his fingers slipped off the pot trying to pull it up. This is a common problem with hands on stage so it's totally relevant.

My Pacifica 904 is one of a very few guitars that has a push/push pot. And they're apparently a nightmare to get hold of. But guitar players should demand these as they're vastly more practical than push/pulls.

How was it wired on the Gibbo - the bridge only?

I dug the way the way it's wired up on my Cort - if the vol is on 0, it functions as a kill switch. Though I reckoned it made the stock pup a bit spikey (treble) on the bridge, so when the pups where swopped , I moved it to the neck (Suhr SSV), gave the neck pup a little more treble, which I like.

Like the idea of a push/push - but from what I read quality control on them arn't great - the yamaha ones are fantastic, the rest not so much. On that Cort, it's a push/pull pot, with a small disc of plexi stuck on top - clever & cheap mod. Buy a few extra knobs, get a few discs of plexi laser cut, apply glue and problem solved.

That's a good solution. It would work better on the Gibson if you first changed the speed knobs for bell knobs. Certainly I've gigged my Pacifica 904 many times - and I've owned it since 2005 - and that pot is still going strong. Pity a respectable manufacturer isn't making pots as good as that available.

I stand to be corrected but I believe it was only for the bridge pickup.

The 2015 Gibson USA models are rather radically different from most others. EZ noticed some shoddy fingerboard work, but otherwise I thought that that Standard was pretty nicely finished. The 335 didn't have any obvious flaws. It was more the choice of finish and hardware that made it look cheaper than the very expensive guitar it is. The R7 was one of the better Les Pauls I've played - in sound, craftsmanship, and finish (if I had one complaint it'd be that the fingerboard uses very pale rosewood compared to older Gibsons and the Tokais - but if that's because Gibson is trying to use wood from more sustainable sources, then more power to them).

The SG bass was actually very nicely finished and had no detectible issues. I wonder if basses are done on another production line with higher standards than we've come to expect from Gibson? ?

you guys have awesome stores
i went to Marshall music in jhb to buy myself a Gibson les paul cause i always wanted one and the guy that help me would not even let me play the guitar only after i bought it i could played on it.
At the end i bought a Les paul studio and would never go back to that store again because of that.

What i hear from guys as well they dont keep as much stock as they did a few years back its a shame that a shop like that are going backwards.

ajdebeer wrote: you guys have awesome stores
i went to Marshall music in jhb to buy myself a Gibson les paul cause i always wanted one and the guy that help me would not even let me play the guitar only after i bought it i could played on it.
At the end i bought a Les paul studio and would never go back to that store again because of that.

What i hear from guys as well they dont keep as much stock as they did a few years back its a shame that a shop like that are going backwards.

Some guys are chops. We went to a Marshall in woodmead before in plakkies and shorts... the salesman let us rock out in the expensive guitars room and left us to our own devices there.

I've had pleasant and unpleasant experiences in the same store with different salesmen One will listen to you and advise you, but the next will be like "what you want is XYZ" after ignoring what you actually want. lol.

warrenpridgeon wrote:

ajdebeer wrote: you guys have awesome stores
i went to Marshall music in jhb to buy myself a Gibson les paul cause i always wanted one and the guy that help me would not even let me play the guitar only after i bought it i could played on it.
At the end i bought a Les paul studio and would never go back to that store again because of that.

What i hear from guys as well they dont keep as much stock as they did a few years back its a shame that a shop like that are going backwards.

Some guys are chops. We went to a Marshall in woodmead before in plakkies and shorts... the salesman let us rock out in the expensive guitars room and left us to our own devices there.

I've had pleasant and unpleasant experiences in the same store with different salesmen One will listen to you and advise you, but the next will be like "what you want is XYZ" after ignoring what you actually want. lol.

you are very lucky that was just how i saw the store.
The biggest problem i had was i was there to buy and they didn't even let me play the Gibsons

ajdebeer wrote:

warrenpridgeon wrote:

ajdebeer wrote: you guys have awesome stores
i went to Marshall music in jhb to buy myself a Gibson les paul cause i always wanted one and the guy that help me would not even let me play the guitar only after i bought it i could played on it.
At the end i bought a Les paul studio and would never go back to that store again because of that.

What i hear from guys as well they dont keep as much stock as they did a few years back its a shame that a shop like that are going backwards.

Some guys are chops. We went to a Marshall in woodmead before in plakkies and shorts... the salesman let us rock out in the expensive guitars room and left us to our own devices there.

I've had pleasant and unpleasant experiences in the same store with different salesmen One will listen to you and advise you, but the next will be like "what you want is XYZ" after ignoring what you actually want. lol.

you are very lucky that was just how i saw the store.
The biggest problem i had was i was there to buy and they didn't even let me play the Gibsons

Yeah... your viewpoint of an entity (such as a music store) is formed by the experience you have of them through their representatives like salesmen, call center people etc. First impressions last and unfortunately yours was not positive at the store. I have similar feelings about other stores after experiences with people there.

I've had the same experiences at Marshall in woodmead. Some of the people there are very helpful and friendly and others not so much. Unfortunately for the shop if you have a bad experience your first time you probably won't want to go back.

Back to the Gibsons I'm glad the standard is still very nicely finished. The only problem is affording it with the exchange rate and skyrocketing base price haha.

It's also a pity - from my perspective - that the Standard made to 1957 specs is a so much nicer guitar. Bear in mind, it's not made *better* than they were in '57, when a Standard was actually cheaper than a modern Standard. It's just the same as. Gibson's business model is a mystery to most people but I think many would agree that a Standard from 1957 is a more exciting guitar - despite the lack of bells and whistles - than the modern bearer of the name.

So now to get the equivalent of what you'd have got in '57 you have to pay over twice as much. That's weird to me. (A Les Paul in 1957 cost about $2,200 in today's money, or about R25k).

The monkey explained it all very well. The 2015 LP standard is a bit of a mystery to me. The wider, flatter neck feels weird. The electric-guitar guy said it is done because people complain that they pull the strings off the fretboard whilst doing a vibrato. The switching options could have been very nice. You have a humbucker/parallel single coils mode for each via push-pull pots on the volume controls. These are OK. The out-of-phase switch is ok but, like Singemonkey says, it doesn't give the quack significantly enough. I'm unsure why, maybe those pickups are too hot for that to work decently. This is just a guess. The blower switch is unusable. On this it wires the bridge pup to the jack and it really does sound different from selecting the bridge pup with the volume on 10. This is the kind of thing one needs to be able to engage or disengage in a split-second, but a push-pull pot makes this basically impossible. I can turn the knob faster and more accurately than using that slippery knob. They have little ridges on them now, but they're still slippery. A push-push pot would be better and EVEN better, I think a push-push button like on the Guthrie Govan Suhr. This requires the LP to look different and I guess most people don't want that.

The R7 is a magnificent guitar. I've played an R7, R8 and R9 now and they were all really great. Light, rang like bells, sustain for days, very bitey, open-sounding pickups. The price is preposterous. Completely and utterly so. The Standard sounds positively wooly compared to the R7. I only tried one standard so I have no idea how they would differ from one to the next. The custom shop LPs seems quite consistent.

The 335 was nice too. Very heavy for a guitar that is supposed to be quite hollow in places. I guess that maple centre block on that one was quite hefty. It sounded nice and played well. I wouldn't buy that particular one (even if I could afford it haha).

I wish there was a nicer amp to try the guitars on. The one plugged in at the guitar stand was a Blackstar HT60 and while it is a good amp, at shop volumes it doesn't get near the sort of sound one needs to really hear what a guitar sounds like. I have a blackstar and they can make guitars sound a bit samey. Maybe because they are geared for high gain applications or maybe those speakers are too scooped. I would have liked to see a Blackstar Artisan 15 or Mesa Transatlantic 15 at the station. They are the official dealers for these things but they never seem to have those amps. Why not have people try out these quite expensive guitars on really kickass amps? Can only help.

The guys at Cape Town Marshall has always been real nice to me. Always friendly, willing to chat about things, pretty knowledgable when you ask for advice and so on. I don't have any lasting memories of negative experiences, so if I had any, it couldn't have been too serious.

Yeah I've had nothing but good service at Marshal Cape Town ever since I first stepped in there nearly ten years ago.

Another good spot is Music Experience. One of the guys there knew I wasn't going to buy a guitar, but he showed me around anyway and let me jam in the room with all the shiny, expensive grown up guitars. I'll probably buy my next electric from there. Very cool stuff, nothing generic. Hotrod stripes, odd shapes, mosaic, etc...