DonovanB wrote
hang on, now you 2 don't necessarily like the Gibson's, you just hate Epiphones? am I correct?
Things are not that simple.
I think Epiphones are decent beginner's guitars, but are overpriced because of their association with Gibson. They are not substitutes for Gibsons. But rather lookalikes. All I'm saying about them is that there are better Gibson clones for the same money. If my nephew wanted a Les Paul, I wouldn't turn to Epiphone. I don't hate them at all.
Gibson designed about 7 of my 10 favourite guitars. But they too are over-priced, the company is insensitive to its admirers (the refusal to provide a solid backed Les Paul among their factory models), and are inconsistent in quality given the price of the guitars.
Saying that, I currently own two which are both fantastic. The guitar I'll only sell when I have children on the brink of starvation is an '83 LP Deluxe. There again, Gibson wasn't delivering what customers wanted. They wanted the 50's Standard. Gibson gave them a gold top with mini-humbuckers replacing the p-90s, a pancake body made up of three layers of wood (instead of a single lightweight piece of mahogany in the 50's guitars) , a 3 piece maple top, and a 3 piece neck. Some of the necks were even maple instead of mahogany. They did this for one single reason. Cost cutting to increase profitability. I knew nothing of this when I bought it. I thought it was the same guitar Jimmy Page played, just with different pickups.
Luckily, from what I gather on the thread on the LP forum, by the eighties the LP deluxe had a one piece body and possibly (it's jet black so it's hard to tell) a one-piece neck. Because it's black, the 3 piece top doesn't detract, and I yanked out the crappy mini-humbuckers and put in P-90s. Once the work is done, it's a killer guitar. My favourite guitar in the whole world is, in fact, a Gibson.
I know just how good Gibsons can be. And if you can find a used one for the right money (i.e., less than R15,000 for an LP Standard or Custom), and you get a chance to play it first to make damn sure it's one of the good ones, you'll never regret it. But the real 50's Les Pauls, the custom shop models, are just never going to come up for those prices. Quality Japanese clones offer the best way to upgrade from an Epiphone to the Les Paul that made Gibson famous.
