Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

Zippydog

All Access
  • Posts

    103
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

4 Neutral

About Zippydog

  • Birthday 12/03/1951

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    North Carolina near Raleigh
  • Interests
    Blues, drumming, guitar noodling, jam'n with my band, British motorcycles, 60's-70's muscle cars, 60's - 70's blues rock, shutterbug, hang'n with the misses, going to Mexico, traveling in general, my kids and my Border Collie Zip.

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

  1. I own a 2023 Les Paul Special but I don’t have any history playing any other so this is just my personal take. The 7.25 lb. slab of mahogany has a lot of resonance when played acoustically. It strums loudly with out too much effort. All this translates to pretty awesome sound through my Fender Custom Deluxe Reverb, software or just about any amp. And you know what, for being single coil P90's, there really is hardly any noise more if I’m sitting right up to it with guitar facing the amp but I just turn my back to it and no noise, sound level on 5 even with OCD Pedal activated. It’s been a great guitar that I never get tired of playing. In fact the thing inspires me to play more.
  2. Gibson Garage, if you chose, offered me a 10 percenter for military service.
  3. The brown case that came with my ‘22 Les Paul Special is perfect and nicely made in Costa Rica. Latches are robust and case covering is flawless. Smell inside is awesome too! I suspect, just like the guitar inside, some will be duds.
  4. I know this is an old topic but I felt compelled to share my personal story about a guitar with static. I purchased a new Original Collection '21 Les Paul Special in June. The LP was beautiful and felt and sounded great. It wasn’t perfect for a new git, it came with lots of light scratches on the back and the gloss nitro had some cloudy portions on the front and had a dent on the top of the neck just below the binding. All that minor cosmetic stuff was not an issue. My main beef was that it had horrible horrible static when you ran your fretting hand up and down the neck when playing or just sitting still or if you ran your hand along the back of the body it had some outrageous loud pops that drove me freaking crazy. It wasn’t as bad when played clean, but step on the Overdrive, forget about playing it. I tried everything under the sun, in different rooms, various amps, on hardwoods, carpeted, on cement floors outside under humid conditions, sprayed static guard on carpets and chairs nothing worked even the beloved never fail dryer sheet. So I contacted Gibson and talked with their tech. He was sympathetic but really had no solution. He said that it could possibly go away in time but could not say when of course. I thought you know, it may never go,away because I had a lovely 2006 Gibson Studio that I sold three years ago that had bad static too but not as much as the LP Special plus, there are countless stories on every guitar forum that talks about this. I really liked this imperfect LP and thought that I would just ignore the bad static, you know just keep playing. Last month, I got so pissed about having to deal with the static that I contacted my sales person and asked him what my options were at this point. He asked me to send it back to him. He talked to his tech and said they would shield the cavities for me with copper tape. I was stunned that Gibson would attempt this to solve the issue. I was actually thinking about doing my own shielding, but hey having Gibson do it for me sounded like a good plan so i packed her up and shipped it. Two weeks later, he called me and said they were not going to shield it after all. The tech said that my guitar had the worse case of static that he had ever heard and no amount of shielding would ever help. Blamed the problem on a huge static charge that decided to stick like glue during the finishing stage. Wow, I was bummed but pressed on. My salesman said that he could give me a full refund or find me another LP Special. I told him I would think about this. After a couple of days hashing over whether to keep it or get another, I finally decided to have him find me another one but make sure it’s static free please! A week goes by and I get a call that he found another one for me but this would be a ‘22 model. He sent me some pictures and I thought it looked pretty good. It was a nice looking two piece body and had a very dark rosewood fretboard and his tech checked it for static and there was none so I said ok send it. Four days later it arrived. Let me say it’s a happy ending. This LP Special was flawless and it weighed a nice 8 pounds and it was a super resonant when strummed unplugged which to me was a very good sign. Even the case looked better! Had newer more square heavy duty latches and a locking key. When I last spoke to my sales guy to thank him for finding this special Special, he ended our conversation by telling me that my original guitar will be destroyed, turned into firewood was his exact words. I'm glad that I decided to swap. All is good now. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jx0R4Z1B30zflwz3-Z-_AUf5RBxUfeAX/view?usp=drivesdk https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FJXEF2Cwu_nhHiXfspiHwSz72K67ud2s/view?usp=drivesdk
  5. How does a manufacturer determine what gauge is right to set up on a new guitar?
  6. Hey all, You know with the guitar shortages and all, do you think that Gibson should ask retail price for a new 2020 original collection Les Paul Special minus 10%? Is this a fair price or should I walk away.
  7. You’re probably right. After all, why would a guitar company that has been making acoustic guitars for 140 years want to hurt sound quality? Sometimes I think that I think too much!
  8. Thanks Jazzman, Hey, speaking of pick ups, what’s your thoughts on the saddle resting directly on the pickup wire? What (if any) does this do to sound thinking in terms of sound resonance? Would it make a difference if the saddle was resting directly on the wood bridge? I rarely plug in and I’ve been toying with the idea of replacing the saddle (again) with another one taller to compensate for the missing wire. Its the thought of the saddle sitting on the wire that makes me wonder.
  9. Hello all, haven’t posted in a while but thought I would comment on a couple of changes I made on my natural finish EL-00 Pro. I have been wanting to replace nut, saddle and bridge pins with bone and finally did all at once. I messed up my first attempt with the nut and had to purchase another one. The second one turned out well and so did the saddle that I mirrored from the original. I knew I might have an issue with the size of the bridge pins as I did not order make and model specific. They were too thick but that was easily fixed by inserting the pin head into my cordless drill and using some sandpaper to shape the diameter to fit properly. I actually formed each one to fit as the hole diameters were not uniform. This worked out great! At the same time I took care of the fretboard with some mineral oil and polished all frets using my favorite metal polish Simichrome. I'm here to tell you all that if you have not made this exchange, you should. My EL-00 sounded good as stock. With the bones added, it sounds way more lively. The mids are rounder and the lower strings sound deeper. I swear it was such a noticeable change, I keep finding spare time to play it. Feels and sounds like a different acoustic. Surprisingly, the action and relief did not have to be touched. I worked real hard at setting the string height properly at the nut and the results were positive. Now, it is possible that the last change I made, going from stock 12 ga. strings to 13 ga. may have resulted in the biggest change in sound, but I don’t care. I really enjoyed making these modifications and I think that everything done resulted in a successful project.
  10. How would I go about obtaining sales figures for Epiphone electric and acoustic guitars, worldwide for the last 5 years? Any advice is appreciated.
  11. Iggy Pop/ David Bowie’s China Girl. Nile Rogers and SRV’s part. Fun song.
  12. Not sure if this helps but I have the case you described as black with brown trim and gray interior advertised for the Epiphone EL-00 acoustics. I can report that my EL-00 Pro fits perfectly in it.
  13. Thank you sir for the mini concert featuring your EL-00. Really enjoyed listening while eating my breakfast this morning. You and your EL sounded great. Cheers! Ron aka “Zippydog”
  14. It is a great little guitar and I don’t think a lot were purchased in the US maybe in other countries? When I looked into buying one in late 2015, my local Guitar Center was able to locate just one and it was the only one so I ordered it. When I got it, I was pretty amazed at the quality of the build. The only thing I have done to it is replace the saddle and nut with bone versions, de-glossed the finish to satin and swapped the pick guard to an ivory color to match the binding. OP, I would love to see a picture of your white Dove Pro if that is possible.
  15. Hey JJ, I have the same Ltd. Edition EL-00 Pro in natural finish as well. Do you have any idea how many were made? I love that little guitar.
×
×
  • Create New...