Epiphone Les Paul Custom or Black Beauty 3, or Gibson LP Studio ??

[van_halen]

get a pre year 2000 gibson.

 

[lifele55]

You must have spent a lot of time bolding all the words. You're entitled to your opinions though.

Anyways, here's my $0.02. The Epiphone Les Paul Custom is precisely the guitar that turned me off to any and ALL Epiphone Les Pauls. The one I had, neck was badly made, the truss rod insecure, and too short. The rod only stretched all the way to ther 12th fret, and no further. Any turning of the rod resulted in the neck bending up to the 12th fret. Any further fret would remain straight, or bulged.

Oh... and the pickups were shit.

So, no. No Epis for me, thank you. I'm very happy with my Gibson Les Paul Slash Goldtop even though it's sitting mostly in it's nice white fluff lining most of the time.

Honestly, I'd save for a Gibson LP Standard if I were you. Them pleked frets are something else.

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with an Epiphone. One bad apple doesn't necessarily spoil the whole lot. I don't dismiss the fact that the Epiphone line does have its QC flaws but one thing thats totally unheard about was the half truss rod.

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/epiphone-les-pauls/6715-epi-truss-rod.html

Stock pup does sound sterile but hey Gib owners have also been known to complain about the BB being too sterile no?

To the threadstarter, no matter what guitar you choose at the end of the day, make sure you try them. Inspect every bit you can especially the neck and look out for neck warps or flaws thats totally non-acceptable. Don't buy under pressure or just because you want to...

If you're comfortable with the guitar then you know its the one..

 

[lifele55]

Oh and color wise... if you can find an antique ivory, doesn't matter if its Gibson or Epiphone, it'll be sweet!

 

[Whitestrat]

If you're comfortable with the guitar then you know its the one..

C'mon... You know as well as I do, there's no such thing as "the one"...:twisted:

 

[Whitestrat]

but one thing thats totally unheard about was the half truss rod.

Then honestly, I really don't know what happenned to my epi LP Custom. Because, no matter what I did, the neck could not be straightened... Maybe it was warped instead? Not sure... quite sometime back.

 

[lifele55]

C'mon... You know as well as I do, there's no such thing as "the one"...:twisted:

Lol true... There's the ones

 

[teleplayer]

Save for gibson les paul standard la... a standard looks sturdy and a studio looks like some skinny people.. Haha. and the custom and the black beauty is like over 1k for all those 'gold' things on it to make it looks very nice.... epiphone pickups are epiphone alnico classic and a studio got gibson 490 498.... and a STANDARD got BURSTBUCKERS.... only on standard and those VOS 1959 etc les paul....