The Gibson Custom Shop has recreated Jimmy Page’s famed “Number Two” Gibson Les Paul. Page, perhaps one of the most iconic Les Paul players of all time, collaborated on the limited edition model by providing Gibson access to the original guitar. Gibson and Page worked side-by-side to recreate one of the most tricked out Les Pauls known to man.
Only 325 will be made with famed aging expert Tom Murphy handling the aging of 125 of the models. We’re pretty sure most, if not all, of these will end up in the hand of collectors with prices ranging $11k - $25k USD.
Gibson has released some of the most beautiful, iconic guitars around. The Gibson Les Paul Standard, the Gibson SG and Gibson Explorer are just a few examples of some of coolest looking guitars known to man. But recently we think Gibson has released some very ugly looking guitars that I’d have a hard time shelling out Gibson prices for.
Everyone has hits and misses. Check out these misses over the past couple of years coming from one of our favorite builders out of Nashville.
Inspired in part by Michelle Obama’s gift earlier this year of a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar to Carla Bruni-Sarkozi, the New York Times has an article today suggesting classic guitars as a good item to buy or give as a gift this holiday season (we should all have friends or family like this). While the first lady gave Bruni-Sarkozy a new model Hummingbird, the article suggests that an original model from the 1960’s might have been a better choice.
According to a guitar-maker quoted in the story, “A Hummingbird from the 1960s would cost in the region of $6,000, about twice as much as the new model. They are both great guitars, but for the extra money you get a level of craftsmanship in the vintage version that has been lost.” Then, the author turns his attention to the guitar that continues to be far and away the most sought after vintage guitar.
Les Paul, jazz guitarist and famed designer of the Gibson Les Paul has passed away today at the age of 94. According to news reports Les Paul died from complications from pneumonia at White Plains Hospital with family and friends at his side.
Les Paul is probably best known as one of the pioneers in the development of the solid-body guitar electric guitar. Born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Les Paul began his musical career at age 8 playing harmonica and later banjo and then the guitar. Unhappy with acoustic guitars Les Paul built the now famous “Log” which comprised of a 4″x4″ piece of wood bridge, guitar neck, and pickup with Epiphone body attached for appearance. The big problem Les Paul solved with “The Log” was feedback. The solid piece of wood helped reduce the feedback that was common in hollow body electrics.
You might remember last week we posted on “How To Build a Fuzz Pedal” and looked around the web at all the various options available for the DIY’er in all of us. After checking out a few great resources on the web we settled on BYOC or Build Your Own Clone as a great starting point. I ordered the EVS Fuzz Pedal that comes with NOS AC 127 germanium transistors to produce a really vintage fuzz sound.
I had an absolute blast putting the pedal together and the results were pretty freaking cool. The pedal, true to it’s name, produces a wooly, thick fuzz sound with lots of overtones as the notes ring out. Check out the highlights of the construction…
You guessed it. The Gibson Les Paul. Who doesn’t love that guitar?
Richie Sambora offers the best explanation for why it had to be the Les Paul:
All my heroes were playing them — God, everybody. I just thought it was the most powerful guitar. It was sexy. It’s got the most output. You plug it into a good amplifier, you’re gong to get more out of it. That’s my staple when I go to a session, my ‘59 custom.
Who is your favorite player of the Les Paul? Let us know in the comments. Or better yet, if that person isn’t already there add them to the Gibson Les Paul page on Fretbase.
We’re writing to let you know about some big improvements on Fretbase.
In the beginning, we wanted to build a website and community for guitarists built on a database of important guitar-related info. In fact, the “base” in our name refers to that database. (And “Fret” refers to the frets in a guitar – not what our families have been doing since we started this venture.)
Today we launched the Fretbase database along with a number of other useful features. We’re fired up to tell you about them.
Fretbase now has over 24,000 pages devoted to your favorite guitars, artists and songs. What this means is that you can now get detailed information and photos of the Gibson Les Paul and hundreds of other guitars. Or maybe you want more detailed information about the guitars and songs played by Eric Clapton. Fretbase has that too. Or perhaps you just want to see some bedroom rockstars play Stairway to Heaven. Check.
The entire database was built on a wiki (user editable) platform. So if you notice a guitar, artist or song that is missing, you can add it to Fretbase in no time. It is O.K. if you don’t have all of the relevant info. Just add your item to Fretbase and our expert editors will do the rest.
Fretbase now has tens of thousands of guitar tabs integrated into the site. If you are just looking for a good place to get tabs for the Beatles’ Blackbird, Fretbase is the place to go.
As a consumer of guitar-related stuff, we wanted to make it easy for you to find the stuff you need. The site now has pages on great local retailers – like Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, links to latest promotions from online guitar stores (see the top right of our top page), and links to download the songs you are trying to play – like Sweet Home Alabama - from iTunes and Amazon.
Most importantly, Fretbase has enabled comments and discussions on every guitar, artist and song on Fretbase. So if you want to talk to other people that have a Fender Stratocaster or if you want to get tips on how to play Hotel California, Fretbase is the place.
Most importantly, we want Fretbase to be useful for all guitarists. If you have feedback, we’re eager to get it. Just post in our comments.
In physics there’s the well known “E = mc2” equation from Albert Einstein. Well in rock we have a similar, iconic equation. “Gibson Les Paul + Marshall amplification = Tone Heaven” and it was Eric Clapton who first pioneered this rock math.
While poking around on YouTube today looking for videos for the
upcoming re-launch of Fretbase (more to come soon!!) I found a great
tutorial video on achieving some classic Eric Clapton tones. This video comes from the blokes over at MusicRadar.com and we’d like to thank them for sharing. I love how many different tones you can get just by playing with your guitars volume and tone knobs.
I recently purchased the Marshall Vintage Modern 2266C after years of playing out of a Marshall JCM2000 DSL401. I wanted to upgrade for a couple of reasons - first I needed a little more volume when playing with my band and second, I wanted a more vintage Marshall tone than the DSL401. Overall I’m very satisfied with the amp and the tone, but there’s a couple things to be aware of when considering this amp.
The key feature that really drew me to the Vintage Modern amp was the ability to control a lot of your tone from your guitar’s volume and tone knobs. You can have your guitar volume on 7 and have a nice mellow, semi-overdriven and then roll your guitar volume to 10 and add a bit more crunch and a little more volume. That control at your fingertips is very alluring and is a throw back to how many players managed their tone before the advent of multichannel amps. It reminds me of a slide player’s ability to hit notes between the frets - your tone and volume knobs now offer you various degrees of sound. To me that is one of the best features of this amp.
The Gibson Custom Shop has recreated Jimmy Page’s famed “Number Two” Gibson Les Paul. Page, perhaps one of the most iconic Les Paul players of all time, collaborated on the limited edition model by providing Gibson access to the original guitar. Gibson and Page worked side-by-side to recreate one of the most tricked out Les Pauls known to man.
