Epiphone 2008 Les Paul Custom: Don't Call It A "Comeblack," That's Not Even A Word
The Epiphone Les Paul Custom may not get the respect that its upscale Gibson progenitor does, but this member of the blue-collar monarchy does more than coast on its birthright. For 2008, Epiphone announced a throne-load of upgrades for their Les Pauls, and Owen O'Malley outlines each one as he vets the ax for a place in the Gearwire price-performance hall-of-fame.
Next up: Owen shows you how, in a clear and easy to understand step-by-step instructional video, how to affix a clip-on bow-tie.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE EPIPHONE 2008 LES PAUL CUSTOM]
OWEN O'MALLEY: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. I'm Owen O'Malley, and this is the new 2008 Epiphone Les Paul Custom. It is a pretty heavy guitar. It's a pretty sweet guitar. It's got maybe the best action of any Epiphone I've ever played. It has an incredibly straight neck, incredibly even frets for an Epiphone, and this guitar goes for about $800.
The 2008's feature the new Epiphone Wax-Dipped Humbuckers. They're wax-dipped, vacuum sealed, a new winding design too I believe, and it also features their new Tune-O-Matic bridge design. Typically, on the old Epiphones are even, you know, any guitar that has a Tune-O-Matic bridge, when you are changing the strings, you can take all the string off, the bridge falls off. They put a really simple spring clamp system into this new tailpiece so it doesn't go anywhere when you take the strings off.
Otherwise, it's a pretty much a standard Les Paul, a standard Epiphone Les Paul, mahogany body and neck, rosewood fingerboard. This has 12, 15, 17, 19, 21, 22 frets. Twenty-two frets on this guy. Good, stable tuners. They're Grover tners on this guy, your typical Les Paul control layout, and your typical switching, and a really just awesome looking guitar. Very, very near flawless finish on this guy, and like I said heavy and really well balanced.
Let's just listen to these pickups clean so you get an idea of what the clean sound of this guitar is like.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE EPIPHONE 2008 LES PAUL CUSTOM, BOTH PICKUPS]
So that's with both pickups on. We're running through our little Tech 21 Trademark 30, and we're mic'ing it with a Sennheiser e609. Let's just listen to the neck pickup here.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE EPIPHONE 2008 LES PAUL CUSTOM, NECK PICKUP]
Like I said, really even neck. It just there -- It doesn't sound like there's any dead spots on this neck.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE EPIPHONE 2008 LES PAUL CUSTOM, NECK PICKUP]
But it's got a setup that can rival any Gibson under $2,000 probably.Let's just listen real quick to the bridge pickup here.
[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE EPIPHONE 2008 LES PAUL CUSTOM, BRIDGE PICKUP]
Haha! Anyway, so you get a good idea of the sort of range of tones this guitar is capable of. Good for sort of classic rock stuff, hard rock stuff. It's a really good punk guitar. I think it sounds great for sort of just mashed power chords, and it can do a lot of pretty sweet, full sounding, clean tones too. It's basically that Les Paul sound for under a thousand dollars made by Epiphone, and it looks pretty sweet. It is the 2008 Epiphone Les Paul Custom. You've been watching Gearwire.Com and I'm Owen O'Malley. See you later.
Owen...
... you're dead right. Have had my Epi LP custom for years and it's still my main guitar. Totally solid, beautiful action and I can get great tones on a variety of amps. Glad to hear their new gear is still cutting the mustard.
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