EZ and I went to Marshall Music CT yesterday to (a) see if they have coily cables (they do not) and check out some options EZ is looking at for new pots.

EZ also wanted to hear what effect all the switching options have on the 2015 Gibson Les Paul Standards.

I need to get an acoustic guitar for recording. I favour slope-shouldered dreadnoughts recently. I've been looking for a cheaper alternative to the Gibson J45. I saw a Tanglewood matching that description, took it down, and was astonished at how big and loud sounding it was. Wonderful big sound and great note clarity like you very seldom hear - especially on a new guitar.

The acoustic shop-guy reckons that and the OO style Tanglewood are his best bang-for-buck guitars. Apart from very nice looking construction, it features a solid top. Headstock is a bit dull shape-wise, but not terrible. Sticker price was over R7k, but I'm certainly thinking about it.

EZ played a bevy of Gibsons. I didn't play much because I was super hung-over. But I got a feel of all of these guitars as well as listening to them.

The wine red 2015 LP Standard confirms most of what people have said about the 2015s. The neck borders on classical wide - and is also very thin. The auto-tuning system seems to work fine, but is bulky and very unattractive. The brass nut/zero-fret, looks like it could be useful for making adjustments and doesn't seem like a big deal.

The switching:

The hum to single coil splitting. It's apparently supposed to sound like a p90 when split. It doesn't. It does sound different though.

The out of phase setting. Does not get you into Peter Green territory. It's much more subtle than that. Meh.

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.

The LP Standard was quite a nice guitar - though not worth the 45k on the sticker.

Directly after we played a '57 reissue LP Standard, and it was night and day. It was light for a solid-body LP - lighter than my Tokai and even a hair lighter than EZ's Tokai. Each setting sounded vastly better than the LP Standard. It was bright, focused, delicious. The neck was fat and comfortable - slightly fatter than our Tokai necks (quite a bit fatter than my Gibson LP neck). The bridge sounded near identical to my Tokai, and the neck sounded even better. Top notch guitar. Price doesn't even bear thinking about.

Next we played a Gibson USA ES335 in cherry red. It was a slightly ho-hum guitar. Kudos that they still put ABR-1 bridges on Gibson USA 335s. But it was a bit lacklustre. It was remarkably heavy for a 335 - weighing about the same or more than the R7. The finish also looked a bit garish and cheap for a very expensive guitar. It felt nice, played well. Most settings sounded ok, but the bridge pickup sounded extremely harsh with overdrive.

While EZ was talking pots, I played a Gibson SG bass unplugged. This is sort of the successor to Gibson's late '60s/ early '70s bases like the EB0. Slightly different configuration to those but similar. It was very light, extremely comfortable, and a pleasure to play. The short scale-length certainly didn't make it feel strange, and it was low on clacking played with fingers. Without plugging it in I don't know how muddy the famous neck humbucker (mudbucker some call it) is, and whether it'd need to be swapped out. Sticker price: R19k

For comparison I then played the Epiphone equivalent (the same configuration just without a bridge minihumbucker - neck humbucker only). The comparison? No comparison. The Epi looked, felt, and - even unplugged - sounded cheap. The neck was pitifully thin, uncomfortable, and it clicked and clacked like no-ones business (Not a bass fundi, so don't know what makes the diff here. Setup?). Also heavier than the Gibson. Didn't check the price.

Finally, to prove that not all Epiphones are created equal, I played the Jack Cassidy sig semi-hollow bass. I've admired the looks of these, and a friend of mine bought one to go along with her MIM Fender Precision. I'd never played it though.

It's a completely different animal from the Epi SG bass. Nice big neck. Solid feel. If it had had Gibson on the headstock I wouldn't have seen anything strange in it. It's got an odd plastic covered pickup. Can't say what it sounds like though. Played nicely, without a lot of noise. Very comfortable in deed, if a bit heavier than the other two. Great choice for a semi-hollow bass from my unplugged impressions.

Next to the Gibson SG bass - among a whole whack of Gibson's best renowned bass, the Thunderbird - there was what I at first took to be a Gibson EB2 semi-hollow reissue. I covet this bass or a good copy (Burny made a really good one in the '80s). Picture a Gibson 335, with a shortscale bass neck, and that big ol Mudbucker. But no, this thing was from Gibson's eye-roll inducing Midtown range - a 335 with, I kid you not, a flat top. Why lord? Why? No f-hole Gibson should ever have a flat top - possible exception being the Blueshawk. Sighed and didn't bother to play it.

Oh one other comment. Electric guitar guy (super nice guy, some of you will know his name) said that (obviously sincerely) it was such a pleasure to see the R7 being played. We got the impression from that that people are too scared to play the probably R80k guitar so it just sits there on the wall ?

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? ?

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.

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.

Pretty much my experience with Marshall Woodmead as well. To be honest, after the sh!t attitude I got from all 3 times I've been there, I wouldn't even buy a guitar pick from them.

Not to mention that all 3 times they still had the same ancient strings on their expensive Martins and Gibsons. Seriously I had to get a tetanus shot after I played those POS strings....
I'm never letting that go. They carry on like they're doing us a favour :-\

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...