Guitars

...."only a Gibson is good enough".

yeah, and Chevys are built "like a rock"! I think the Koreans more reliable cars than Chevy or Ford.

cheers!

John

Other brand manufacturers of Les Paul-like guitars:

Ibanez, Dean, Cort, ESP, and Samick make some good mahogany single cut set-neck guitars like the LP Epiphone, a lot of times with custom tops, for less than $400 new.

I go for the $400 or less players that are strong in these 5 test points:
1) stays in tune
2) tone versatility
3) neck/fret/string playability
4) sustain thru a full bend
5) neck pickup chord definition

When you're playing in a live band situation, these points are what matter. I have had Gibson LP's in my hands that were so mid and bass heavy my bassist and drummer wanted to attack me, so I trebled up the amp settings to find a niche in new open territory and get rid of the redundancy - and had to, every time!

The best playing and sustaining Gibson I ever had in my hands was a Faded SG, with an ebony fretboard. Mahog/ebony are the best combination of tone woods (ebony compresses the mids), but Gibson usually charges $2000 or more for any LP with ebony in it; a ridiculous policy.

Epiphone is licensed to use more authentic Gibson dimensions in their design and their Elitist line represents their finest manufacturing work. I would not recommend getting anything in gold electroplated hardware in Epiphone; it is likely to tarnish away within 18 months of use.

The China-made fake Gibson LPs with custom features at times turn out built good, for only $330 or so. There are a host of comparison videos on You Tube to help you see the possibility.

I was looking for a Les Paul style guitar as I was getting tired of my MIJ Fender Telecaster and wanted something that sounded different.

A friend of mine has an original Gibson 58 Les Paul VOS and the SVK. He told me he prefers the SVK's neck and playability over the Gibson and recommended I try one.

So I took a chance and ordered the SVK from Jim Donahue who builds and designed them. Turns out he was sued by Gibson as his copies were too good. Jim is selling off his old stock. I paid $260 delivered and set up by Jim. One note when Jim was working for Ibanez he personally designed and built Steve Vai's guitars. Jim's SVK Les Pauls are set necks with polished and dressed frets and plays like butter. He uses Alnico 5800 PAF PUPs and I love the way these sound. They can also be coil split.

The only thing I'm changing is the volume and tone controls to push pulls and rewiring like Jimmy Page's LP.

You can find all the specs and ordering information for SVK here....

http://guitarsdirect.mybigcommerce.com/ ... lps400twr/

Google search SVK and Jim Donahue to learn more about these.

I love playing it and can't seem to put it down. Look em up!!