Saturday, May 9, 2015

Is it a Les Paul?


This guitar is called an ES=Les Paul. That usually would stand for electric spanish but in this case it refers to a a guitar that is semi-hollow. The guitar weighs about two and a half pounds less than a solid Les Paul. That is because the solid part is a block that runs down the middle of the guitar. Both the top and bottom sections are actually hollow. Hence the name semi-hollow.

Les Paul's have a great sound but are often too heavy for me. In 2014 Gibson released a semi-hollow Les Paul made in its Memphis USA plant. In 2015 they upgraded some of the features and I could not resist.

This guitar is in the lemon burst finish but the darkness at the edges is very muted. Its almost a lemon colored guitar. The finish is beautiful even down to the soft F hole design in the truss rod cover. The guitar is fully bound and has a very smooth and thin neck with low wide frets. Its fun to play and even has a bit of "woody-ness" that would be expected from a semi-hollow body guitar.