The Les Paul Custom is Back!! - Gibson USA Les Paul Custom '70s Guitars

  • Thread starter Thread starter JohnnyGtar
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I remember when you could buy a Gibson LPC or Burst in a pawn shop for $400 bucks.
 
The action is too low on that guitar for me. I’m not into that tone.

It’s very obvious on the clean tones.
He states in the video exactly what I didn’t like about the OG mid/late 70’s ones too. The maple neck and ebony board give a top end that I find peaky or shrill. It’s weird because I’ve played bolt on neck guitars with ebony boards that didn't strike me that way but every LPC I’ve owned or tried over the years from that period had that quality. The fret buzz was insane on this one. Don’t know how he played that and thought, yeah let’s go.

70’s LP Custom  Small.jpeg
 
I moved to California in '83. That year I had 2 opportunities 2 to buy LP Customs for $350 each. One was black, the other was wine red. The black one had a black Mighty Mite humbucker. Sounded killer. In 83 they were giving those guitars away because pointy headstocks reigned supreme at that time. Everyone wanted a Kramer with a Floyd and a Rockman. I'm still kickin' myself for not buying those 2 LP's. LOL
Kick myself in the ass for selling that LP so I could buy a PRS CU24 10 top. Next guitar I bought was an 02 LP Classic.
Here it sits, in my music room, with ss jumbo frets and ToneNerd PAFs
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the bastards bumped my delivery time to tomorrow ......

I knew I should have kept my mouth shut .... I must have jinxed my Wed delivery ...
 
Looks like the top carve doesn't match any of my late 70s LPs.

The "carve" on my guitars are the only major critique I have of them.
 
I played a new 70s LPC last night against my R8 & my '68 LPC. It's a VERY different guitar!
  • The neck is thin & flat. Very not LP like.
  • The PUPs have a lot of detail, in that..
  • The tone is all mids & no ass. It won't thump you like a 58, 68 or modern LPC will.
  • That said, it's a 100% ROCK guitar and I think it sounds killer for what it is! I was impressed.
  • Only complaint was the upper fret access was chunkier than all the others. Not sure why, maybe the relativity of the thinner neck?
  • It did have a USA serial number, and IIRC all of the white "LPC"s are painted in the USA facility. So, I have my suspicions this is a Custom in name only.
All that said I did like the guitar a lot in that it does a thing that none of the other LPs do, and sounds great doing it. Definitely worth giving one a run. If they ever make a Murphy version I'm in trouble.
 
  • It did have a USA serial number, and IIRC all of the white "LPC"s are painted in the USA facility. So, I have my suspicions this is a Custom in name only.

Correct, the 70's LPC's are made by Gibson USA, not the Custom Shop like the other Customs.
 
How is the carve different?

It isn't really so much of a dish carve (where it sort of bubbles up in the middle, inside of the burst edges) as it is just an overall roundness from edge to edge. It's hard to describe and I'm not sure I've ever caught a good photo of it.
 
It isn't really so much of a dish carve (where it sort of bubbles up in the middle, inside of the burst edges) as it is just an overall roundness from edge to edge. It's hard to describe and I'm not sure I've ever caught a good photo of it.

Oh cool. Yeah sounds interesting.
 
It was a thing that evolved over the years. The explanation that I read (20ish years ago when I bought them) was that over the years, the carving/duplicator "machine" Gibson used wore down and so instead of getting the nice carve that started in the 50s, by the late 70s it was just an simple arch.

I dunno if there is any truth to that.
 
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