Recent Epi LP Customs

[Lord Summerisle]

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..!

 

[Bluemans335]

Epi LPC's are great guitars, well worth the money. I have a LPC and a Tribute, and like Probuckers better than Gibson '57's. More clarity, better high end. Tributes tend to have heavy bodies and fairly thin necks, if that's what you're looking for. Epi LP's in general usually have 1960's type necks. I have Dots and SG's with thicker necks.

[Dagwood]

Yep, I had an LP custom from '04 to '07. It was a MIK and was better than most "Gibons" I pulled from the wall at the local GC at that time.

[tokairic]

I bought a new Les Paul Prophecy Custom Plus GX in Dark Cherry a few months ago - great colour and pickups, nice tone and coil tapped too, but its not all good news, I'm afraid. First thing was the string saddle heights (which are not adjustable on the Tune o matic bridge). The B was too low and easy to miss, and although e,a and d were in alignment there was a drop in height to g. Intonation was all over the place, Next was some dead notes near fret 14 on the no.1 e string, the ends of a couple of frets were lifting out of their grooves (only by a few thou but its enough). They could be pushed in but would spring out again.

Found similar dead note on fret 17 on the e string again but this time it looks like a fret dress problem. The truss nut is also very stiff to turn. I had to adjust the truss rod as soon as I received it as the neck was just slightly over straight (bow the wrong way).

I contacted the dealer about the saddles etc and he was ok about returning the guitar to be sorted so I have no problem with them but I decided to sort it myself.

A slight dressing to the saddles with a jewellers file got the string height alignment sorted, the loose fret ends were pressed into place and held while Zap cyano was wicked into the fret slot, (worked a treat), A very slight fret dress and polish to fret 17 and 18 near no.1 e string and readjust the action and intonation and all is now sweet.

BUT not what you expect from a NEW guitar and a bit disappointing as this is my first brand new guitar......

I emailed Epiphone suggesting politely that they get on top of their quality control but never got a reply.

I was going to buy an Epi 335 but bought Ibanez 12 string instead (with no issues !!)

[tokairic]

Re. my last post on the LP Prophecy - I forgot to mention the neck which you specifically wanted to know about.

Its really good, not too thick, smooth satin finish, and I can get my short fat fingers round it reasonably well.

Hope this cheers you up a bit.......

[MistaSnowman]

I've had my LPC Pro since March and I absolutely LOVE this guitar! The neck is pretty thin, much like an Ibanez, but is also smooth on the hands. The Probuckers are very comparable to the Gibson 57's in terms of overall sound.