A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

Late last week I was making the rounds of the local pawn shops and spotted a Road Runner Molded hard case hidden on the bottom shelf with a $200 sticker on it. It felt so light that I wondered if there was even a guitar inside.

Opening the case revealed a beautiful 2020 Epiphone Les Paul Studio Wine Red Limited-Edition Gold.


https://www.wwbw.com/Epiphone-Les-Paul- ... C%20%24549


It's a handsome looking instrument, and the photos speak for themselves in that regard, so I'm just going to move along here and hit the high points of my geeky guitar observations.

This is one of the newer “Inspired by Gibson” series that Epiphone began marketing as of January 2021. In addition to the cosmetic upgrade of the open book headstock, they also have upgraded electronics, pickups, hardware, and nuts. As the serial number of this guitar indicted that it was made in December 2020 in Quindao, China, I’m assuming it’s one of the first batch. This can be a good thing, as companies are known to make an extra effort to impress with the initial roll out when introducing a new product line.


RE: "INSPIRED BY GIBSON"
A quick aside here, because these are the kind of thoughts that keep me up at night:

Aren’t all Epiphones (with rare exemptions like the Coronet) “Inspired by Gibson.”

I mean, isn’t Ephiphone making a big deal about saying “Inspired by Gibson” kinda like Margarine making a big tadoo about being “Inspired by Butter? Duh! Of course margarine is a copy of butter!



BODY
It feels like an 8 lb and change Les Paul. From what I've read this model is weight relieved, which is the only way I can see an import with a full 2" thick mahogany body, and a maple cap, weighing that little. I confirmed that there is an actual cap when inspecting the pickup routs. It's certainly got the dimensions and feel of the genuine article.

I've got to mention the color, because the "redness" of this Les Paul is really about the top. Many Les Pauls have a red back and neck, but an example with a red top is more rare. I find the red top to be particularly striking paired with the gold hardware.


PICKUPS
I've seen conflicting specs posted online about what the pickups in this model are supposed to be, with claims that they are Alnico Classic, Alnico Classic Pros, or Alnico Classic Plus. They have stickers on the bottom identifying them as "ACP," and they are clearly of the newer construction with nickel baseplates.

However, I measured the bridge at 7.83 K ohms resistance and the neck at 7.66 K ohms resistance, which seems very low. It’s almost like two neck pickups got installed in the guitar by accident, as they’ve got the output of a set of T-Tops or pair of Burstbucker 1s.

They sound as one would expect of low resistance Alnico V humbuckers, which is to say dynamic, snappy, bright, musical, and articulate. There's a bit of a mystery here as to what exactly they are, though they sound good enough that I'm not even considering replacing them.


WIRING
The CTS pots can be pulled to split the coils. When split the humbuckers don’t sound like true single coils, nor like a P-90, though they do sound interesting. I find the middle position with the bridge in full humbucker mode and the neck pup split to be a very nice tone. The sweep of the CTS volume and tone controls is nuanced and perfect. All of the nasal and honky tones one gets by rolling back the tone knob on a real Gibson are here. In fact, with a combination of the coil splitting and the highly responsive tone knobs I can even get some of the unique flavors of the Gibson Varitone switch. Everything is wired in via quick connect.


NECK
The neck is beefier than a so called 60s neck, which is what it’s advertised as. I own a 2019 Gibson LP Standard 60s, and a 2020 Gibson LP Standard 50s, and the neck of this Epi Studio is much closer to the feel of the 50s Les Paul neck.

An inspection of the neck pickup rout revealed that the guitar does not appear to have a long neck tenon, which was disappointing. Even my $130 Harley Benton L-150 Plus has a long neck tenon.

The frets are level and the ends are perfectly dressed.

The parched Indian laurel fretboard was in desperate need of a drink. A slathering of mineral oil both moisturized the wood and darkened it up considerably.

The gold tuners are Grovers.


SET UP
Often on a Les Paul I find myself needing to nearly bottom out the bridge adjustment to get the action where I like it. On this guitar the bridge was still set relatively high when I got the action properly set. To compensate for the steep angle of the strings coming of the backside of the bridge I top wrapped them. The only other modification I made while setting the guitar up was filing the GraphTech nut slots, which were a little high, especially on the bass side.


CONCLUSION
For $200 I consider the guitar a steal, with the quality molded hard case thrown in as a free bonus. It's a good sounding and playing Les Paul, bereft of any cosmetic frills, which is exactly what a Studio is supposed to be. After putting on a new set of strings, setting it up in E flat tuning, taking some time to really dial in the pickups, and doing my usual tweaks, I'd go so far as to say I'm kinda in love with this thing.

nice score for $200! That's almost like buying a case and getting a free guitar.

You lucky-local-pawn-shop-"rounder"... Great catch! Enjoy it!

Flatline wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 11:19 am nice score for $200! That's almost like buying a case and getting a free guitar.

Yep, that’s about the way I figure it too.

And for the doubters, because we do have a traditional saying around here that goes something like, “Pics or it didn’t happen” . . .

The title of this message caused me to think of a guy who used to hang around here a lot.

mickey wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 11:28 am The title of this message caused me to think of a guy who used to hang around here a lot.

I was actually hoping this thread might lure @RedLesPaul back.

Congrats!
Thats a sweet grab for $200.

I don't think anyone here would have walked past that deal.

Purdy! And you done stole it!

TMC you got lucky so lucky I love red LP's I've got one that has been hanging around with me since it was 6 years old and she's 38 now.

toomanycats wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 11:30 am

mickey wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 11:28 am The title of this message caused me to think of a guy who used to hang around here a lot.

I was actually hoping this thread might lure @RedLesPaul back.

I don't think this board can do that. The old board had the "water cooler" OFF LIMITS to Google.
This one has no areas off limits to Google.
Soon as he learned the latter *poof* he was gone.

Awesome deal on that baby. The ohms seem about right for a stock Les Paul. I used to get Buddha to wind mine at about 6.5 for the neck and 6.8 for the bridge. I use low wattage amps and like to turn them up to the sweet spot and then back the volume off on the guitar to clean it up.

fwiw, it reminds me of "Lucy" that was George Harrison's red LP given to him by Clapton and named after Lucille Ball.

Partscaster wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 6:02 pm fwiw, it reminds me of "Lucy" that was George Harrison's red LP given to him by Clapton and named after Lucille Ball.

Yes, absolutely! That's part of what pushed my buttons about this guitar.





And to give you some idea of how many times and how closely I've studied that Lucy video . . .

Nice color, kinda reminds me of the Gibby GEMs. Pawn shop finds are rarer and rarer, for me I quit looking - everything I've found in pawn shops for years now has been junk.

Congrats on the score!

maybe you could do a few tracks covering While My Guitar Gently Weeps,.. an acoustic , a bass, a semi-hollow, and Lucy.
Maybe getting the vixen Amanda to sing it.

When I've gotten one of these great deals at a pawn shop I've often made mention of what a pity it was that the former owner probably only got half of what I paid. I'm assuming here the standard pawn shop 100% mark up on guitars.

However, in the instance of this Epiphone LP Studio, I was able to get information directly from the store manager which revealed exactly how this guitar came into my possession so inexpensively. Ironically, it wasn't hard times, or drugs that that led this guitar to me, but it was GAS! Let me explain.

The former owner of this Epiphone regularly pawns guitars, gets loans against them, etc. From the condition of the red Les Paul he doesn't play much (for a two year old guitar the frets are in new condition), and he takes very good care of his guitars (it was pristine and in a hard case). Right next to the where I found the red Les Paul was another hard case with a Schecter metal type guitar inside. This had been another one of his guitars. It turns out that he took a loan from the pawn shop against the Epi and the Schecter, then when he came into the store to pay on the loan he saw another guitar on the floor that he had to have. So he purposefully defaults on the payment for the Epi and Schecter (thereby forfeiting them to the shop), and instead uses his money to buy the guitar he's gassing over. (Not a good lesson in economics here kids, but then GAS is a sick affliction. I'm certainly in no position to give any advice, as I needed another Les Paul like I need a hole in the head). The employee of the shop who priced the Epi based their number upon what the pawn shop had originally given him as a loan. The Epi then goes immediately onto the floor for sale, and I'm the first lucky guitar player to walk in the door and notice the thing laying "hidden" on the bottom shelf.

So like I said, it was actually another man's GAS, along with some luck, that united me with this guitar at such a good price.

If I was really smart I'd try to find out exactly who this guy is, connect with him directly, and effectively cut out the middle man.

I stopped buying from pawn shops when I had to buy back my own guitar after it was stolen and pawned. But your story reminds me of a Craigslist seller I ran into here in Omaha years ago.

I saw a lefty Strat knockoff on CL for $75, and went to check it out because it was so cheap. Nice seller. It sounded better than it played but I figured I could tweak it and it would make a good mod platform. It was branded "Legacy", not to be confused with a G&L Legacy. It got a neck replacement and upgraded electronics and became a very good guitar.

Soon after, I saw a lefty Affinity Tele on CL for $75, and went to check it out. Same house, same guy! The Tele was brand new, played well, and he said he'd throw in the stand. I said "sold". That one is not yet modded, awaiting ideas.

Weeks later, I saw a lefty MIM Arctic white Fender Strat mint unused for $200 and the address looked familiar. Yup, same guy, same house. I was starting to wonder if he was stealing these guitars, but the lefty aspect suggested otherwise. It was perfect, so I bought it. He actually apologized and said this would be the last one. He explained that he had a degenerative condition that made him retire and he thought he could finally take up guitar, but his condition wouldn't let him fret. That explained the increasingly better playing guitars with no wear. I feel bad for the guy, but I guess I helped him get reminders of a bad situation out of the house. You might have helped your guitar's previous owner by removing it from view on his next trip to the pawn shop.

That's an impressive score! I don't even need an LP type, but if I saw that for $200, I don't think I could say no.

I'm assuming that the guitar in the video below is identical to mine other than this example having chrome instead of gold hardware. This is a very good representation of the tone of the Epiphone Les Paul Studio. Note how the cleans are extremely clear, and the overall brightness of the tonality. The overdriven tone, while vintage, is slightly compressed, much more like a Gibson 57 Classic than a Burstbucker.





I also found this John Robson review quit interesting. Both the reviewer's video and the Youtube comments reveal that the 2020 Epiphone Les Paul Studio appears to have had some serious quality control issues, related exclusively to the levelness of the frets, the nut slot height, and factory setup.

The other day I was talking with a Guitar Center tech who is a friend of mine, and was telling them about this Epi Studio. They said that of all the guitars they work on, Epiphone frets are the worst; that they routinely have to hammer them down, glue them into the board, file them individually, and sometimes do a complete leveling. They speculated that in an effort to save costs the Chinese factory is probably running the saw blades to the point where they are so dull and hot that the slots are several thousands of an inch wider than the frets tangs. Consequently, the frets are frequently popping up or sometimes literally falling out of the guitar. A proper set up is impossible until that issue is addressed.

On my particular example I can verify that the nut slots were too high. When playing an open E chord depresses the strings to a degree that intonation is adversely effected, then the strings are too high coming out of the nut. I also had to do a considerable amount of truss rod and bridge adjustment to get the action where I'm comfortable with it, though I'm still not 100% happy with it. Understand, I could say the same thing about some of my Gibsons. You know what guitars I own that are just f*ckin' perfect in this regard? An MIK Squier M70 and a hardtale Squier Bullet Strat made in Taiwan. Those guitars have perfect action.

Since my OP I have used a plastic mallet to tap down all the frets. I didn't see any that were popping up, though given this season of cold and dry weather, the fact that it is a used guitar, and the extremely dry condition of the fretboard when I acquired the instrument, I felt it wouldn't hurt. A very valuable insight I'd like to pass along is to always take the time to tap down on the frets first before you even think about grinding on metal. You may just save yourself a lot of needless time and effort.

man, I wouldn't be able to pass that up, either... and I'm trying my best not to buy anything right now. If i walked into a pawn shop around here, I may find an old Austin lp copy for around $500 if I were lucky LOL

The sweetest part of my deal on this red Les Paul is that I gigged with it last night and it's already almost paid for itself.

Above and beyond what praise and accolades I may give a guitar in writing on a guitar forum, the real test is this: Will I use it onstage in front of the public?

The answer to that question speaks volumes about an instrument, about whether it's reliable, holds tuning, can be set up properly, and whether it has enough of a "voice" to be able to allow me to fully express myself.

Some observations after putting this guitar through the paces for three hours last night, playing a variety of material:

The neck and middle positions on this guitar are really wonderful. They're very vintage sounding, full yet detailed, with a glassiness and chime when clean, and just enough crunch and hair under gain.

The bridge humbucker, because of it's quit low resistance, is on the thin side. It doesn't necessarily sound bad, though it is not as full as say, a Classic 57, Burstbucker 2, or even your garden variety bridge pup wound to PAF specs. I happen to like lower output humbuckers, especially for recording, but when I'm playing a variety of cover songs in a live situation I favor a bridge pup with more balls than 7.83 K.

I used the coil splitting quit a bit, particularly when I needed cleaner and twangier tones. As previously noted, the middle position utilizing the full bridge humbucker with the neck pup split is a particularly nice tone on this guitar.

I stopped going to local pawn shops. They sell $150 Squier’s for over $200. No such deals in my area. Would be hard to pass up even though I am not a fan of holding a Les Paul. Love the sound though.

Really great deal, @toomanycats !

Similar to @tonebender, think that the best of the golden year LP's have lighter wound pickups. My best sounding LP (judged by me and a multitude of people who have played it), is the one I built using a '57 gold-top as a template. It has my AMI Gold Greenies, which I spend months tweaking the design to replicate early Peter Green tones. The neck is about 7.2K and the bridge is 8.4K. It never gets harsh, or boxy or mushy and always has clarity.

I just worked on a friend's 2018 Gibson LP Tribute with 490R (8K) & 490T (8.2K) and I find this to be atypical of Gibson's preference for neck pick up sounds. To me, it has a boxy sound with a blanket thrown over it. To me, the best LP's sound like a Tele on steroids, with a nice midrange character peeping trough. T-tops are a great pup, IMHO.