There’s no guitar like a Les Paul that will distract me from considering other guitars. Just when I thought my next axe would be a Strat HSH, I think I have to get this new Les Paul with the Premium Plus finish. Last updated in 2008, this new Les Paul sports some freaking awesome features. But the thing that has me buzzing is that all four control knobs are push-pull knobs. The volume knobs split their respective pickup’s coils, but the neck tone’s push-pull is a phase switch to put the neck pickup out of phase with the bridge. Nice! And finally, the bridge tone’s push-pull routes the bridge pickup’s signal directly to the output jack, bypassing both the volume and tone knobs to deliver full volume and tone to the output jack for a lead tone. SO AWESOME!!!
The guitar has other accoutrements such as locking Grover tuners, but I DIG the tone shaping possibilities with this guitar. Plus, it’s actually coming out at a reasonable price for a new LP at around $2500, which is less than the 2008 model, but sports more features. Go figure.
So… the Strat HSH will just have to wait….
Guitar Gear 
Dawg, if it’s tone shaping that’s attracting you to spend that amount of money on a guitar, why not spend about $300 buck to have Torres Engineering install their Jimmy Page wiring kit on an existing guitar? I did and it was wonderful. I got more than 40 recognizably different tones out of my Les Paul. It was great!
But that defeats getting a whole new guitar! 🙂 The tone shaping is icing on the cake.
Wow, Dawg, you’ve got worse GAS than I do. I have to admit that’s a pretty Les Paul!
It just goes along with my philosophy of how many guitars I need: Just one more…
So long as our wives are onboard, we can never have too many!
OK Dawg, I just went on the Gibson website and looked at these bad boys. I love the light burst! Which finish are you leaning towards? Also, do you offer a classified ad service for readers who want to sell some of their gear?
Love that Honey Burst! I already have a Tea Burst and a Desert Burst. 🙂 Haven’t never really liked the Cherry Burst, though if I got one for free, I’d take it. 🙂
I like all those finishes, too, but the Light Burst is my top pick. Can’t you contact their artist relations department and tell them you’re a big time blogger and Gibson endorser and you’d accept one free even if it was the cherry burst? I’m just sayin . . .
As for the classified ad service, sorry, but I don’t…
Keep your money in your pocket… They decreased the fret size to a medium down from a medium jumbo. More significant change than you might think, especially in upper range. The frets are just way to short. These cheap-o plastic nuts they still use are horrid for tuning. The burstbuckers sound hollow and a little weak.C]
Well… interesting… But I will still take a look personally at it. Frets are important, but to me, setup is more important for the upper range. A couple of my guitars have medium frets and as long as the setup’s good, I haven’t had an issue. As for the Burstbuckers, I actually like them.
Dawg, I’m with you on the Burstbucker Pros. My buddy has those in a Les Paul and they sound way better than the Burstbucker 1, 2, or 3 pups. Very vintage PAF with a bit more bite. I like ’em a lot!
I popped into Guitar Center San Francisco this past weekend and got to spend some quality time playing the new Les Paul Standard mentioned in this post. There was another guy auditioning Les Pauls in the same room and we both concluded that this guitar, while versatile, sounds overly bright. Not sure if it’s because of all the coil-tapping or what, but the sound was not typical Les Paul grunt, crunch, and roar. I’d have to play more than one, of course, before generalizing that this model is too bright, but that particular instrument was. Fine looking guitar, though, in the Fireball finish.
Interesting… what amp were you playing through?
I think the other guy was playing through a Diezel. I was on a PRS head, I think it was somewhere between 30 and 50 watts. All black head on sale for $999.
Man those prs heads used to be a couple grand. Wonder if he is making them overseas. In any case, I have never liked the prs amps. Really hard to dial in a tone that pleased me. When I test it I will probably test with a Marshall or Marshall style amp since that is what I play.
I liked this one better than any PRS I’ve ever played. They usually sound brittle, but this one didn’t.