Gibson Guitar Board: Lord Summerisle - Viewing Profile - Gibson Guitar Board

I've always had a craving for an ebony Les Paul Custom. Lately, I've found myself admiring one at the Sweetwater site.

Does anyone have any experience of recent Epiphone Les Paul Customs? I'm especially interested in how people find the necks...in my experience, Epi necks vary quite a bit year by year. I'm looking for something slender and '60s-ish. No baseball bats. That, plus general impressions of these guitars. They seem to have garnered mixed reviews over the many years this Epiphone model has been in production.

I guess one thought in my mind is that, for the price, picking up a Tribute Plus with a case for $600 is probably the best Epi Les Paul deal out there these days and a better deal than buying a Custom and a case. Trouble is....well, that craving for a black LP Custom..!

I'm thinking of swapping my Line 6 Spider IV 30 for a friend's Peavey Envoy 110 which is currently surplus to his requirements. The Envoy is not too old (maybe 2009), has never been gigged, and is in good condition. My friend's teenaged son wants a digital modelling amp, and my Spider IV is in good condition, too. The amps are similarly priced when sold new (Envoy is maybe $30 or $40 more expensive) - so it seems like a fair swap?

I have played through the Envoy and quite like it. I was wondering if anyone here had any experience of these amps, or comments on them? Basically, it seems to be a smaller version of the venerable Peavey Bandit 112.

My reasons for being keen on the swap are these:

I bought the Spider IV in a pinch when I was amp-less for a while, because I got it on offer through Amazon for $179, at a time when money was very tight and I didn't see anything used available locally that I liked. Having had it for two years, using it for jamming and some coffee-shop gigs, I'm more than ready for a change. I'm not knocking the amp, but I think the following things are a problem:

Basically, although it's a digital amp, I use it mostly like a regular solid-state amp. I set it to one amp model (usually clean, red) and stick with that.

I hate the fact that the knobs are digital knobs not actual knobs; change the amp model and the amp defaults to what Line 6 has decided are the best settings for that model, rather than your settings, hence the knobs indicate one setting but in fact the settings are now different (until you move some of the other knobs and clear the pre-sets).

I also wish that there was a way of just turning off the effects (a magic button that just switched them all off!) Every time you turn on the amp or change amp models, the pre-set effects come back on automatically. To be honest, they are more than a little cheesy, so the first thing I do is make a dive for the effects knobs to turn them off.

The digital reverb is OK...ish. I've taken to turning it off and using a Holy Grail pedal in front of the amp instead.

The clean tone is the most important aspect of the amp to me, and the clean tone on Spider IVs is what it is...not bad, but if you turn the amp up past studio / living room volumes, it starts to sound a little thin and very "digital."

I'm really not meaning to criticize Spider IV amps. I think I, personally, just find digital modelling amps too fiddly, and the bells and whistles get in the way for me, rather than adding to the amp. Perhaps these are designed first and foremost as studio amps? In a live setting (whether gigging or just jamming), you can't seem to just tweak things quickly to dial in a tone, like you can with a tube amp or regular solid state amp.

Something else occurred to me though - I wonder how much longer good, old-fashioned, solid state amps will be available? Fender used to make great ones in the 1990s (Princeton 112+ and amps like that), but they seem to have cut back on these massively now that they've started marketing those Mustang digital amps instead. I don't see too many new solid state amps around these days - for many companies it seems to be mainly a choice between digital modelling amps or tube amps.

I've always liked good, old-fashioned, solid state amps, so maybe I should grab this Envoy while the going is good...!


Not a photo of the actual amp, but it looks just like this one.

Just a tentative question, given that I'm unlikely to scrape $600 together in the immediate future, but in the happy event that does happen...

I finally encountered an Epi Les Paul Tribute Plus the other night (at a friend's party where we sat down to jam - one of his buddies brought one along).

What a beautiful guitar. I honestly thought that this was the perfect Les Paul (and I've never been that much an LP guy in the past, to be honest).

This has caused immense GAS for a black cherry one of these.

One quick question: does a pick-guard come in the box, so that you can fit it later if you choose (didn't that used to be the case with some Gibsons)? Or would I have to track down a pick-guard that fitted an Epi LP or have one made, myself?

Because a black cherry one of these would absolutely need a cream p/g, imho....

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-20609327

Picked up a sunburst one of these on eBay for under $150 incl. shipping.

http://gregbennettgu.../bass/fairlane/

Looks just like this one:



Sold as "new." Old stock, I guess? Seller is a Greg Bennett dealer and seems like a good guy, and has a lot of positive feedback. I'm hopeful this will turn out to be a very good deal.

I have no experience of these Greg Bennett basses, but wanted something in the Jazz Bass style without dropping many dollars. I was pleased to find this, made by Samick.

I'll post a review when it arrives and I've had some time to see what's what.