Modern Gibson Quality - Advice Needed

ellwood

ICBM said:

thegummy said:

For those who think Gibson's quality is hot or miss, is there a guitar around the £1400 mark that gives the Les Paul sound but has more consistent quality?

To be honest, for that price you should have your pick of Les Paul Traditionals. Getting a good one shouldn't be too difficult, they're among the more consistent models in my experience.

This ^

andy1839

My recently acquired 2016 LP Standard T is pretty much flawless and played great out of the box. Amazon warehouse deal for £1060. 

http://i65.tinypic.com/95ymnl.jpg

thegummy

The Traditional look great and do have the type of pickup I'd want in a LP. They do seem to be around the £1600 mark though.

Do you think it's the case that the more expensive the model, the more consistent the quality will be (and vice versa)? Would a Studio have more of a chance of having quality issues than a Traditional or Standard?

I've wondered about that for guitars in general. E.g. The higher end Mexican fenders, is it just the specs that make them better than Mexican standards or is there more quality control, attention to detail, build time allowed pure unit etc. 

Arktik83

@thegummy if you can go used, I picked up a 2013 custom shop R7 for £1500 from a guitar shop so there are good prices to be had.  Traditionals are great options though.

With LP studios they may have a more washed out top, a thicker finish or just feel a little less refined than say a Traditional or a Standard.  It's more of a feel thing rather than you can tell the difference by sight. 

With regards to what years to avoid I've always heard the 2012 ones to avoid as they had laminated rosewood fingerboards.  Not that you could tell the difference of course!

p90fool

Arktik83 said:

With regards to what years to avoid I've always heard the 2012 ones to avoid as they had laminated rosewood fingerboards.  Not that you could tell the difference of course!

Some do, my July 2012 Trad is one piece.
Not that it matters at all anyway, it's a ridiculous thing to turn down a great guitar for.  

thegummy

Just saw a guitar from Schecter called the Solo II Custom. It's on sale for £999 (reduced apparently) and is basically a Les Paul clone.

Anyone know about this?

Going by my experience with Schecter, a guitar at that price by them could be very well made. The pickups in it aren't PAF-like at all, but with a pickup swap, couldn't this be a very good Les Paul alternative?

patt

I bought a 2016 standard hp  from Andertons, the set up was so bad it was unplayable, i took it in to get sorted by PMT Southend and they said it was so bad they almost had to strip and rebuilt it to sort it and regretted giving me a quote on standard set up fee, the auto tuners started failing from the second week which i had to replace after being sent the parts from Andertons and the finish has numerous faults, when i spoke to Andertons i was told "well it is a Gibson". £2200 for crap, the new co of Gibson say the quality control is up, it couldn't be any lower on some guitars.

TINMAN82

patt said:

I bought a 2016 standard hp  from Andertons, the set up was so bad it was unplayable, i took it in to get sorted by PMT Southend and they said it was so bad they almost had to strip and rebuilt it to sort it and regretted giving me a quote on standard set up fee, the auto tuners started failing from the second week which i had to replace after being sent the parts from Andertons and the finish has numerous faults, when i spoke to Andertons i was told "well it is a Gibson". £2200 for crap, the new co of Gibson say the quality control is up, it couldn't be any lower on some guitars.

While I enjoy their videos, I’ve had a similar experience with Andertons. I’m not convinced their own QC and setup checks are up to scratch and I’d hesitate before using them again. I suspect Peach may have sorted your Les Paul before sending.