Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

How much of a difference does the Epi maple top make?


The_Sentry

Recommended Posts

I did touch on this before when I got my Les Paul, but perhaps some elaboration as to "why" is still sort of bothering me.

 

To make a long story short: Giving in to GAS for another guitar, I found a used Les Paul standard with a flame top (pictured) for 400 dollars. One thing I immediately noticed after taking it home...

 

the stock Epiphone pickups sounded very bright. AT first I was sold on the premise that it had Gibson pickups in it, but this wasn't the case after I verified it post-sale. (I couldn't exactly pull the pickups out to verify this while buying it...anyway...)

 

It was easy enough to be fooled on this, and to be honest I don't think that even the buyer realized these were Epiphone pickups. They sounded very nice in this guitar.

 

As a sanity test, I took the old pickups from my LP custom (which sounded very muddy and dark in that guitar) and put them in this guitar...they also sounded much better in the flame topped model.

 

What exactly gives here?

 

Some would argue that it's the flame maple top (which isn't on the LP custom), but it's also been stated that as far as the Epiphones go, the actual width of this top is....1/32nd of an inch?

 

Is this the case? And what other reasons would explain why these Epi pickups sound more balanced, and brighter in this Les Paul vs. that Les Paul? And for the money, is the implication here that the Les Paul Standard is a better buy than the Les Paul custom?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First, it's not a maple top, probably alder with a maple veneer, mine is. As for the Custom, I always thought they were the same guitar, just different cosmetics, I honestly couldn't tell you why they sound better in the Standard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It ain't the maple top - it's paper-thin.

 

Possibilities :

 

1. They just sound different acoustically, due to variances in wood etc; how do they compare unplugged?

2. Possible difference in pup height settings relative to strings ?

3. (And my favourite guess) the actual tolerances on the pots and caps Epi uses vary greatly from batch to batch - the combination can have a difference between guitars.

 

Of course it could be all 3.

 

Whenever I change pups, if I haven't already done it I change to CTS pots, Sprague caps - doesnt cost much to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It ain't the maple top - it's paper-thin.

 

Possibilities :

 

1. They just sound different acoustically' date=' due to variances in wood etc; how do they compare unplugged?

2. Possible difference in pup height settings relative to strings ?

3. (And my favourite guess) the actual tolerances on the pots and caps Epi uses vary greatly from batch to batch - the combination can have a difference between guitars.

 

Of course it could be all 3.

 

Whenever I change pups, if I haven't already done it I change to CTS pots, Sprague caps - doesnt cost much to do. [/quote']

 

I also tend to go with the "unplugged' test as well. The Standard gets points for having a slightly more solid tone than the Custom, although the custom is much easier to play. (The LP Custom is a guitar I have probably tweaked the action on some 30-40 times since purchasing it, including insanity at 3 in the morning over obsession with the stop bar placement.) I do have some pots, but on that Custom I did install the Gibson Burstbucker Pro Alcino V's...and that made a huge difference.

 

(The unplugged test has also convinced me that no, neither of these guitars will ever come close to a Gibson in terms of presence....)

 

I should change the pots though when I get around to it. Technically, a 500K pot should be a 500K pot, (and a .022 capacitor SHOULD be a .022 cap) but you're probably right about this circumstance. (Although at this point I'm leery about touching either one of them because I've got them both to a point where they sound great....I tend to use the Standard for more clean work, funk riffs and country-esque licks while the LP custom is set up for rock and metal...)

 

PS: the only thing that is not stock on the LP standard are some locking tuners. But I've sort of dismissed this because although it may help stabilization, it doesn't explain such a stark difference between the 2 guitars...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First' date=' it's not a maple top, probably alder with a maple veneer, mine is. As for the Custom, I always thought they were the same guitar, just different cosmetics, I honestly couldn't tell you why they sound better in the Standard.[/quote']

 

You'd think...but maybe it's just the difference in years manufactured. I'm not so sure. The LP custom I'm sure was manufactured in '07, and the standard in '05...maybe the guitars were better out of the plant back then...it's hard to say.

 

I've also noticed the fingerboard on the custom is slightly wider than the standard. (It certainly feels that way)...I don't know if this is by accident, or if it's intentional...but I can feel a difference there as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll never forget the Daewon Epi LP I took apart last year. (DW0507xxxx)

After getting past the cap and into the body knowing I couldn't reverse what I had done, I thought to myself 'Damn, what a fine piece of wood this guitar has'

One thing I really noticed was a Dawon Manufacturing Plant stamp in the rear cavity on the wood. It was circular like a 'deed' stamp and I was really very surprised by that. The Thing was this guitar had a screwed neck, badly bowed. so I parted with the hardware and disassembled the body. It turned out to be a higher quality piece than I expected.

I really wanted to see what was under the hood. The cap was decent wood of a dark color, and the bottom piece was brownish. Smelled great too. The wires and electronics were of good grade and took some effort getting them out.

Overall a great little piece, too bad Daewon has trouble with shipping due to neck problems...I was told by someone else that Daewon has shoddy final QC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You have to figure that every now and then you'll get one which was made from a particularly good piece of mystery mahogany. It happens.

 

I'm thinking that's what happened with me, it's like I've played other Epiphone Les Pauls, and they just aint the same as the one I have, they didn't have the weight of mine, the neck on mines bigger, i.e. thicker, almost like the baseball bat my Gibson SG had, and even stock it sounded better...but it does have an alder cap. I've said it a few times this is the best guitar I've had in quite some time, I can imagine what an Elitist must be like...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Lauan? WTF is that? God' date=' I thought it at least used real Mahogany! And by "maple veneer", you mean a sticker, right?[/quote']

 

Lauan is real mahogany...

Since its name has become synonymous with plywood it has a debatable reputation in the guitarindustry. Personally I think it's a fine wood(I used it for a neck). But depending on selectionproces(if any) and productionmethod(how may slabs are used) on a say sub-$600 guitar, it's sheer chance you will end up with a great sounding specimen.

 

A veneer is a thin slice of wood.

I seem to recall a post(a couple of weeks ago) from a dude in the UK who stripped the paint from his Epi LP, and claimed it had a solid tigerstripe cap. I expect this to be exceptional(as in rare) though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While we are talking about woods, I went back last night ans watched "Some Assembly Required (Episode 1 original air date 1-08-08). It was still on my DVR. This was a tour of the Gibson manufacturing plant in Nashville, TN. They highlighted the Les Paul assembly line. I replayed and verified what I saw and heard to make sure.

 

According to the program, ALL Gibson Les Paul bodies are made of 3 pieces of mahogany with a 1/2" maple cap. I watched them take what looked like 2x6, and 2x2 pieces of mahogany and glue join them together. They are then placed in presses for the glue to dry. After a couple of hours, the maple cap is glued on and another press period is employed. Then, the bodies go to automated routing machines that cut the pickup and control cavities. After that, the body is bandsawed to the LP shape, and then a robot router cuts and shapes the carved maple top.

 

We all have heard that the difference in the Epi and Gibson is that a Gibson is made from a single piece of higher grade mahogany. The higher grade part is correct, but they are both made of three pieces of wood. The headstock is also made from 3 pieces. The neck is cut from one piece, including the headstock, which is cut to a break angle, and then "wing blocks" are glued to the sides of the headstock to make it wider than the neck and then it's cut and shaped to the correct dimensions for the headstock.

 

The tenon for the neck joint is a massive one. The tenon is cut to a slightly larger dimension than the neck pocket and it is hand fitted to the neck pocket and then glued in. The bottom of the tenon stops just about where the body cutaway under the neck ends. I backed up and paused to verify that. I don't know if that was a long or short tenon, but the fingerboard extends slightly farther than the actual neck tenon.

 

If you have a DVR, do a search for the program and watch it. It's very interesting. I was impressed by the precision process. It would be nice if Gibson and Epiphone would publish a FAQ that detailed the process and the materials used in each. Maybe it would stop some of the guess work we become involved in here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, all I gotta say is if my Goldtop was a 3 piece body, them good 'ol boys at Gibson did a hell of a job matching the pieces, cuz it looked like a solid piece of wood to me, I didn't see any seams, and that was the first thing I looked at when I bought it. The peghead DID have the extensions, other than that it too was one piece. 'Course, they were a bit confused about the serial number sequence for U.S.A. Gibsons, so it may be the same scenario for construction tecniques there too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Matiac, I just went upstairs and examined my Gibson LP Studio. It's wine red, so you can see the grain. I can see where the maple top is joined, but I can't tell a definite join in the mahogany. Mine's a '92. I can almost see a difference in the grain in a couple of spots, but they must have book matched the grains very well if it's not a single piece of mahogany. In the video, you can't tell where the glue joined once the body is routed and sanded. They also have varying shades of mahogany in the stacks and they must do a match between the pieces to make it look like one.

 

On my Epi flametop LP, you can see the joins on the ends of the body, but you have to look very closely. I just looked at the Epi Goldtop and I can't find the joins either. They did a good job.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If these guitars were made of one piece of lumber, they would probably all warp unless the material was perfectly quarter sawn, which happens to be the most expensive way to cut lumber because of the low yield, and I’m sure not the way Epi does it.

 

The Epi’s I’ve seen are veneered both back and front so the only way to tell if the body is laminated is by checking the end grain for joints, this can be tricky thought because of the way these guitars are stained/painted/finished.

 

After 30 years of working with all types of mahogany, making everything form chairs to instruments to boats with the stuff, I can tell you it is entirely possible to get either an excellent piece or a very poor piece of lumber from any given bundle – be it the lowest Philippine/Asian or the most expensive Tropical South American.

 

You could easily pick up an Epi that sounds better than a Gibson because of the lumber used in the body/neck, I think the likelihood of this happening is small, but rest assured it does happen all the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We all have heard that the difference in the Epi and Gibson is that a Gibson is made from a single piece of higher grade mahogany. The higher grade part is correct' date=' but they are both made of three pieces of wood.

[/quote']

 

oh boy....

 

First of all, as you should know by now, the two are not made from the same species of wood (although both are called mahoganies by the industry). It's simply a "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" thing. Good enough but not the "real" stuff.

 

Second, Gibson changes their specs almost as often as regular people change their socks. To say that Gibson solidbodies are made of X pieces of wood, you're talking about just one short time period in the history (or present) of Gibson USA models (Gibson Custom is yet another story). Not everything the corporation tries to feed you is as simple as they claim...

Like that "higher grade mahogany". It's just good mahogany, which they grade and send the best stuff to the Gibson Custom Shop. The rest they grade further by weight so that the chambered models probably get the heaviest stuff.

Now, which model from the Gibson USA gets the "higher grade" stuff? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

Back to pieces of mahogany. Let's see; talking about Gibson LP backs only, there were one piece backs on some 2001/2002 Classics, two piece backs on Classics from 2005 forward, and on Standards from 2006/2007 (stats from a forum far, far away). Have you ever heard of Gibson's pancake bodies?

 

And now they have new LP models again, for which they have rewritten every spec again, including the neck joints. I wonder how many pieces they are made, at the moment :-

 

So I'd claim the story of the difference is not entirely accurate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...