Gibson Les Paul Traditional (Heritage Cherry Sunburst)

A Les Paul for the People, Honoring the Decade of Rock and Roll.

One of the key ingredients in both the sound and feel of the Les Paul Traditional is its rounded-’50s profile neck. Carved from solid quarter-sawn Grade-A mahogany, this neck transfers more string resonance to the body than thin necks, while offering the ergonomic, palm-filling grip that countless players have come to love. Taking all this sweet tone from wood to wire is a 57 Classic humbucker in the neck position and an overwound 57 Classic Plus in the bridge, two of Gibson’s most popular pickups. They are designed along the lines of great vintage PAF-style humbuckers, but rounded off with some added versatility for the contemporary player, thanks to coils that are evenly wound and wax potted, giving the 57s a smooth overdriven tone and outstanding resistance to microphone feedback squeal. Keeping it all tight and singing at the body end is the classic pairing of Tune-o-matic bridge and stopbar tailpiece; while a dense Corian nut and Kluson-style Tone Pros tuners do their thing at the headstock. Put it all together, and it just could be the Les Paul of your dreams. Each Les Paul Traditional comes protected in a plush-lined hardshell case with black exterior, and includes adjustment and warranty literature, along with Gibson’s Limited Lifetime Warranty and 24/7/365 customer service.

Body and Finish

Crafted from a highly figured Grade-AA maple “plus top” and weight relieved Grade-A mahogany back in the image of the classic Les Paul Standard, these guitars are finished in traditional nitrocellulose lacquer in your choice of Heritage Cherry Sunburst, Desert Burst, Honey Burst, Ice Tea Burst, and Light Burst. For the player who wants a simpler look, Ebony and Gold Top finishes are also available. The guitar’s classic looks are further enhanced by vintage cream binding and transparent gold Speed Knobs.

Neck and Headstock

The guitars neck and headstock are made in the classic tradition of the original 1959 Les Paul. Carved from a single piece of quarter-sawn Grade-A mahogany, and topped with a rosewood fingerboard, the design incorporates a 17-degree back-angled headstock, which contributes greatly to the instrument’s resonance and sustain and has long been recognized as one of the building blocks of the legendary Les Paul Standard tone.

Pickups and Electronics

The Les Paul Traditional carries a complement of pickups and electronics designed to enhance its tonal splendor while retaining the characteristics of the classic Les Paul Standard. A 57 Classic and 57 Classic Plus offer all the tonal depth and versatility required to maximize the potential of this model’s exalted tonewoods, while the traditional control array of two volume and two tone pots and three-way selector switch offer outstanding versatility to the player.
 

Hardware

The Les Paul Traditional is equipped with Kluson-style Tone Pros tuners, a Tune-o-matic bridge, and a stop-bar tailpiece, plus the traditional aluminum strap buttons. This hardware set provides a traditional look, while also maximizing tone and performance.
 

You asked for it—you got it. Introducing the Les Paul Traditional from Gibson USA. With all the fat, sweet, snarling Les Paul tone that purists love, the Traditional plays, sounds, and weighs like the Les Pauls today’s players grew up loving and lusting after. Taking design and visual cues from the Les Pauls of the ’80s and '90s, the Les Paul Traditional starts with an un-chambered mahogany body with traditional weight-relief holes for a beefy tone that maintains the resonance of modern Les Pauls. Each Les Paul Traditional also comes with Gibson USA’s standard black snakeskin case.

TonePros Kluson Vintage-Style Tuners

The Les Paul Traditional is outfitted with Kluson-style tuners from TonePros, which are made to look identical to the vintage tuners found on earlier Les Pauls. These new tuners offer world-class performance while retaining the classic look and feel of one of the most popular—and most copied—tuners of all time. These TonePros machine heads feature completely sealed components with an improved 16:1 tuning ratio.

Vintage Gibson Speed Knobs

The Les Pauls of the 1980s and 1990s were used to play heavy duty rock and roll, and its features were designed to make playing the music as simple as possible. Gibson's classic speed knobs made it comfortable and quick for players to turn up the volume and adjust the Les Paul's tone as needed in a flash.

"Plus" Maple Top

Ever since the introduction of the Les Paul—and especially the models from Gibson "Golden Era" of the late 1950s and early 1960s—one of its most distinguishing features has been the unique, highly distinct patterns of the flame maple top. The "Plus" maple caps on the Les Paul Traditionals emulate the tops of the Les Pauls from yesteryear (Ebony and Goldtop models are fitted with "Plain" maple tops).

Period-Correct Pickguard

The creme-colored pickguard has been a Les Paul staple dating back to the models of the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Many players, however, removed the pickguard from their Les Pauls to show off the beauty of the flame maple tops, moving Gibson to stop installing the pickguard altogether. During the 1980s and 1990s, Gibson began reinstalling the pickguard in the factory, and the Les Pauls from this era once again arrived in stores bearing the classic, creme-colored pickguard. The Les Paul Traditional comes equipped with a period-correct pickguard, designed to protect the maple top.

Weight-relieved Mahogany Body

Satisfying the call in the early 1980s to make a lighter Les Paul, Gibson engineers came up with the idea of placing strategically routed holes in the Les Paul's body to lessen the weight of the guitar. After trying several patterns, the final configuration of holes resulted in a Les Paul with enhanced acoustic qualities and improved resonance. This same period-correct pattern is used in the Les Paul Traditional. The body itself is made from premium mahogany, and it goes through the same rigorous processes as all the wood used by Gibson USA.

Pickups: Neck - '57 Classic; Bridge - '57 Classic Plus

Among the qualities that make Gibson's original "Patent Applied For" humbucking pickups so unique are the subtle variations between coil windings. For the first few years of their productions—1955 to 1961—Gibson's PAF humbuckers were wound using imprecise machines, resulting in pickups with slightly different output and tone. The '57 Classic and '57 Classic Plus pickups are the result of Gibson drive to capture and recreate this characteristic. Introduced in 1992, the '57 Classic provides warm, full tone with a balanced response, packing that classic Gibson PAF humbucker crunch. The '57 Classic Plus is the perfect bridge-position companion to the '57 Classic, inspired by those original PAFs that received a few extra turns of wire. Both are made by Gibson to the exact same specs as the original PAFs, including Alnico II magnets, nickel-plated pole pieces, nickel slugs, maple spacers, and vintage-style, two-conductor braided wiring. Gibson added poly-coated wiring, which improves consistency by eliminating thick or thin spots on the wiring, and wax potting, which removes all internal air space and any chance of microphonic feedback.

Revolutionary Plek Set Up

The Les Paul Traditional is the first model from Gibson USA to utilize the revolutionary Plek machine in setting up the guitar. The Plek is a German-made, computer-controlled machine that carefully measures each fret, along with the fingerboard height under each string, and then automatically dresses each fret, virtually eliminating string buzz and greatly improving the overall playability of the guitar. This pioneering process does in minutes what it takes a luthier several hours—sometimes even days—to accomplish. Every fret is accurately aligned, and the guitar is properly intonated, leaving the instrument "Plek'd" and amazingly playable.

Antique Binding

To see the process of putting the binding on the Les Paul Traditional is to really appreciate the effort and attention that Gibson puts into each instrument. A lone craftsman will carefully glue and fit two pieces of binding around the entire body of a Les Paul. He then winds a single, very long piece of narrow cloth around the entire body until the entire surface is nearly covered. The body is then hung to dry for a full 24 hours before it is unwrapped and moved into the next phase of production. It has been done the same way for over 100 years. Some question the value of adding binding, but Gibson believes it is a fundamental part of our rich guitar-making history. The binding adds elegance to the Les Paul Standard, and helps protect the edges of the body. The neck binding is installed over the fret ends, which eliminates sharp fret edges and provides for a smooth neck and easier playability.

Nitrocellulose Finish

Applying a nitrocellulose finish to any Gibson guitar is one of the most labor-intensive elements of the guitar-making process. A properly applied nitro finish requires extensive man hours, several evenly applied coats, and an exorbitant amount of drying time. But this fact has never swayed Gibson into changing this time-tested method, employed ever since the first Gibson guitar was swathed with lacquer back in 1894. Why? For starters, a nitro finish dries to a much thinner coat than a polyurethane finish, which means there is less interference with the natural vibration of the instrument, allowing for a purer tone. A nitro finish is also a softer finish, which makes it easily repairable. You can touch up a scratch or ding on a nitro finish, but you can’t do the same on a poly finish. In addition, a nitro finish is very porous in nature, and actually gets thinner over time. It does not “seal” wood in an airtight shell—as a poly finish does—and allows the wood to breathe and age properly.

Gibson Les Paul Traditional (Heritage Cherry Sunburst) @ Electro Music.
Price: £1749.00.

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