Gibson Les Paul Custom AW

This is a review of a Les Paul Custom Apline White purchased from Thomann.

Firstly the service from Thomann was excellent. Very helpful communication by phone and email and a 4 day delivery time to the UK. The guitar arrived nicely packaged. I have bought from Thomann on 4 occasions now and have always
had excellent service.

Back to the guitar.

Box/Case/Guitar:
The guitar came in a sealed boxed that I think had not be opened since it left the factory in the USA. Inside was the newer Custom tan case and custom shop certificate passport. I think I prefer the older black cases but that just my opinion. The case doesnt include any candy at all. No lead,stickers,cloth etc. I like this though. Just minimal splendour. I love the Apline White finish with Gold Hardware. It's a fine looking instrument.

Build/Fit/Finish Quality:
Having watched how Gibson builds guitars on YouTube and in particular the Les Paul Custom I was impressed with the build quality and finish. I know that a lot of the build is done by hand. The binding in particualr is a highly skilled process. I also know that the white nitro finish is a demanding process as white shows all airbourne impurities when spraying. I couldn't find any flaws at all in the finish. All the hardware was fitted nicely. There is a sense of "by hand" craftsman ship with this guitar. They will all be slighly different and unique. I like that.

The only one minor "flaw" I noticed is that there must be a tiny piece of dust/wood shaving in the chamber cavity. There's a very slight noise of something moving around in there. It's not too audible and doesnt impact playing at all. I will class this as a personality trait.

Setup/Playing experience.
The out of box set-up was suprisingly perfect to my taste. The action was perfect, the fretword immaculate. It was nice to see fine tooling marks where the binding on the end of the frets had been dressed by hand. The guitar has good intonation and is resonant. The pickups were set up with good balance. This guitar plays like butter.

Sound: Im not going to be able to describe this well. Sound is too subjective. To my ears the the Custom has a wide array of sounds in the 3 pickup positions.
All genres of music could be played on this from Jazz to Metal. The tone pots are very usuable and offer a lot of variation. I have 3 Les Pauls. A 2008 Standard and Les Paul Deluxe and now the Custom. They all sound different but fabulous. I would say the Custom has a more varied musical range of tones.

Richlite v Ebony - the big debate: Initially I was a purist Ebony fan. But common sense took over. I've played a few guitars (mainly acoustics) with Richlite and cannot fault it.

My guitar has a Richlite board (calm down its ok) and I think its a fine material. Yes its not organic or as aesthetically pleasing as Ebony but as functioning material I cant fault it. It looks nice, solid, stable and jet black and plays very smoothly.

Summary:
The Custom is an outstanding instrument. It's a privelege to own and play. I would recommend trying one. Once bitten forever smitten though.

Randy Rhoads most inspired me as a guitar player, and even though I cannot play anything like him, it was my dream to have a white Les Paul Custom. I was nervous about ordering such an expensive guitar online, without playing it first, but took the risk, and have zero regrets. It looks, feels, and sounds amazing. I previously was playing a 2013 Les Paul Standard Premium, which I loved, but this custom shop Les Paul is really so much more subtle and pleasant to play that I sold the other. Only one thing that annoys me is the inevitable oxidation of the metallic parts in a humid environment like where I live (Singapore). Another thing for prospective buyers to consider is that white, will slowly fade to yellow, over time, which some people love, others not so much. Will still sound great!

La Gibson Les Paul Custom no solo es un instrumento estéticamente bello. Es cómoda de tocar, con una acción estupenda, buena construcción... y, sobre todo, su sonido. Qué sonido!!. Esto es puro rock. Al tocarla te das cuenta de por qué tal o cual canción de tu grupo favorito sonaba como sonaba. Sus pastillas son un cañón, que dispara en la dirección de los sonidos míticos del rock: desde rock clásico a punk, pasando por hard rock o powerpop. Aunque, si lo necesitas, también maneja sonidos limpios con facilidad y potencia.
Tengo muchas guitarras, incluidas dos Gretsch de gama alta (Nashville y SilverJet); son geniales, y cada una se adapta a un estilo. Pero ninguna es como la Gibson Les Paul Custom. Se nota al enchufarla a casi cualquier ampli (la he tocado con Orange, Marshall, Fender, Vox y Mesa Boogie, y con todas es brillante, apenas necesitas toquetear los potenciómetros para lograr un gran tono). Acordes abiertos, con cejilla, solos o palm mute, esta guitarra suena a...lo he dicho antes: puro rock. Excelente.
Como extra, venía con un estuche Gibson de alta calidad. Buen añadido, aunque lógico y esperable, dada la gama y precio de la guitarra.

... in einem Satz könnte man sagen: "Die spielt sich von selber!"

Die Gitarre ist ein Traum! Fühlt sich geil an, Spielt sich wunderbar leicht und geschmeidig. Klingt hammermäßig. Sehr gutes Sustain und sehr sauber verarbeitet!

Mit meiner Studio bin ich auch sehr zufrieden, aber zwischen ihr und der Custom AW liegen Welten.

Selbst die kyrillischsten [:-)] 7sus2-Akkorde klingen auf dieser Gitarre einfach gut. Das Teil ist jeden Penny wert, ich würde sie wieder kaufen!