2005 Gibson Custom Shop VOS Les Paul 57 Reissue Gold Top Review

Aloha!

Today we are looking at a lovely 2005 Gibson Custom Shop VOS Les Paul 1957 re-issue gold top guitar. It came from the factory with a gorgeous Antique Gold finish over the carved maple top, along with single-ply cream binding. This guitar has been subjected to Gibson’s VOS process, so it has a gently worn look (but not really reliced). It is one of the coolest looking guitars ever made, and it is a very good reproduction of the original!

The body is made of mahogany, as is the quarter sawn 1-piece long-tenon neck. The neck is killer. It has a bound rosewood fretboard with mother-of-pearl inlays and no wear at all to the 22 frets. It is a shame that many new Les Pauls do not come with a rosewood fretboard anymore. Of course the neck has the chunky and round 50’s profile, as this guitar very accurately replicates a 1957 gold top…

It has nickel hardware, which includes: Gibson vintage tulip tuners, a stopbar tailpiece and an ABR-1 Tune-o-matic bridge. Nickel is so much classier looking than chrome, if you ask me.

The pickups are the original Burstbucker 1 and 2 models, and the Custom Shop got things right by using CTS pots and bumblebee tone capacitors. They do a nice job of emulating the PAF bite that these guitars were originally known for.

Unlike many new Gibson guitars, this instrument really works well, and The Custom Shop guys should be proud of what they did with this one. The neck and the frets are perfect, and the chunky neck provides a tremendous amount of sustain and clarity. It plays like butter and sounds killer. It is quite possibly the best Les Paul I have ever played.

If you wish you could take a time machine 56 years back to 1957 to buy a new one, this is the closest you are going to get. Of course, you will pay for the privilege.

In 2005, the Gibson Custom Shop 1957 VOS Les Paul reissue gold top had a list price of $4778, and the street price was $3099. Fast forwarding to today, the list price is up to an astounding $6351, which works out to a street price of $4128. Though this is a very good guitar, that is a ridiculous amount of money to lay out. You have to want one of these really badly to drop that kind of coin…

Mahalo!

Fender Custom Shop ‘59 Re-issue Closet Classic Precision Bass Review

Hi there!

Today we are looking at my Fender 1959 re-issue Precision Bass that is a real peach. It is finished in Vintage Blonde nitrocellulose lacquer over an ash body, and it was built by the Fender Custom Shop. It is a Closet Classic, so it has a very light relic treatment. This would be model 015-2100-807 in Fenderland.

The quarter-sawn maple neck has a comfortable C profile and a 1 ¾-inch nut width. It has a 7.25-inch radius to the fretboard, and there are 20 vintage-style frets seated into it. The truss rod adjusts at the heel, so the anodized pickguard has to be removed to adjust it.

The hardware is faithful to the original. This Precision Bass has nickel/chrome hardware with vintage-type reverse tuners and the bridge has threaded saddles just like the original.

The electronics are simple with volume and tone controls wired to a Vintage ’59 split single coil pickup. There is no extra noise and the pickup is punchy with good output.

As far as the appearance of this Precision Bass, it has been factory reliced, so there are a few nicks some lacquer checking and wear. But it was tastefully worn and not over the top, as some their later relics are.

Overall, it is very well made. The frets are well done and the action is very low and playable, which is a great complement to the C neck profile. A bonus is that it is not terribly heavy, coming in at 9 pounds 1 ounce (according to my scale).

p>This bass looks and sounds authentic, and I appreciate the trouble the guys at the Custom Shop went through to recreate this bass. And these basses did not come cheap. This Fender Custom Shop ’59 Precision Bass Closet Classic had a list price of $3696 back in 2008 when this one was built.

There is really no so thing as a keeper in my collection, but this one gets very close.

Mahalo!

1967 Fender Custom Shop Relic Telecaster

Sugoi!

I am usually not a big fan of “Custom Shop” instruments. They seem a manufacturer’s scheme to bump the price of an instrument up exponentially while providing only an incremental improvement in quality. This 1967 Fender Custom Shop Relic Telecaster seems to fall squarely into that category, with a list price of $3800 and a street price of $3195.

That is a metric ton of money for a very simple guitar.

Well, I didn’t pay that much as it came to me in a trade deal for the equivalent of $1200, which puts this guitar back into the game for me. And, this one is a real peach.

This Custom Shop Telecaster has a great unplugged resonance, so you can feel strings vibrating freely through the neck and the body while you play. This resonating interaction between player and guitar really adds to the playing experience, not to mention the how it contributes to the plugged in sound. It sounds like a great Tele should: twang, snap, growl, shimmer, all there.

There is plenty of sustain when bending strings, and lots of ring to the strings when they are strummed open.

The quarter-sawn maple neck is as comfy as you can find, and it has a really nice balance between chunky and thin. It has the classic radius with a 1960s C-shape. The neck’s vintage tint finish is worn just so, so it is very nice feeling and feels great to play. There are the typical relic wear marks on the fret board at the typical places, but there is no fret wear at all.

I also not a big fan of relc’d guitars, but this Telecaster is "tastefully" done in my opinion. It does not look like it has been absolutely trashed through the years, but instead well played and cared for with realistic lacquer checking in the nitro and a few strategically placed dings and gouges.

Nothing sounds like a classic vintage Fender other than, well, a classic Vintage Fender, and these custom shop time machine guitars. And, it is ready to rock as it sits today. Much unlike a vintage 60's Tele is likely to be.

Oh yeah, and it is very light. It weighs in at 7.09 lb., which makes it one of the lightest ones I've come across. Of course it also came with a super nice case and accessory kit, as well as that desirable Custom Shop Certificate of Authenticity.

Does anybody need a Fender Custom Shop Relic? No. But I have to admit that this guitar just feels and sounds right, and could be worth it if you are willing to pay a super premium to get exactly the *right* guitar for you.

Mahalo!

Gibson Custom Shop Zakk Wylde Les Paul Custom

Hi there! Today we are looking at the coolest-looking guitar ever made. It is a black and white bullseye Gibson Les Paul Custom Zakk Wylde Model.

For those of you who have spent the last ten years listening to Matchbox 20 and crying at Twilight movies, Zakk Wylde is Ozzy Osborne’s former guitarist, and is the founder of the Black Label Society. He is a guitar hero of the highest order, and this guitar is a fitting tribute to him and his mad skills.

For starters, it is a Les Paul Custom, so it has the traditional body shape, multi-layer binding, pearl block inlays, and gold hardware. It has a one-piece mahogany body with a carved maple top. There is nothing really out of the ordinary with these parts. But, it does have some pretty major differences

The most significant difference is the electronics package. It comes with high-power EMG 81 and 85 pickups, with two volume controls, two tone controls and a 3-way (3-way!) pickup selector switch. So, it is going to have that EMG sound, love it or hate it.

Also, these guitars come with an unfinished 3-piece maple neck with an ebony fretboard.

Cosmetically, obviously there is the dizzying bullseye paint job, as well as the special Zakk Wylde graphic on the back of the neck and the gold truss rod cover.

The guitar we are looking at here is serial number is ZW 478, dating it to early 2001. I sold it a few years back, but it was a very fun to play guitar. It brought out my inner Fonzie.

It was in excellent condition, with no issues. It was unmodified, and never needed any repairs during the time that I owned it. I had it set up with Zakk Wylde GHS Boomers (.010). Not the world’s greatest strings, but it only seemed appropriate. Rawk!

It sounded incredible (I like EMG pickups), but my favorite part of it was the maple neck. It had a great feel, and I felt that the maple neck gave it an even more aggressive tone.

So, it is cool, but here is the deal-breaker. The list price on this guitar is now an eye-popping $6880.00. The cheapest you can get them online is at Musician’s Friend for $4699.99. That is a hard pill to swallow. Perhaps it would be better to build your own, and spend the $2500 you would save on lessons.

Philip Kubicki Factor Basses

Philip Kubicki worked for Fender before starting his own shop in Santa Barbara in 1973. He is the man who built George Harrison’s legendary rosewood Telecaster. Factor bases are his brainchild, and are a lasting contribution to the evolution of the electric bass.

Kubicki Factor basses were introduced in 1985, and were quickly adopted by John Taylor and Stu Hamm. The Factor basses were innovative, both in their appearance and their sound.

Most obviously, these are headless basses. The bridge/tuner assembly is integrated into the end of the body, instead of being bolted to the top. The bridge is very different than the Steinberger system, in that the strings (normal strings, not double-ball strings) wrap around large drums, which provide a mechanical advantage so the tuning knobs are much easier to turn. Steinberger bridges use claws with narrow threads that are prone to wear due to the high stresses placed on them. I have never seen a worn-out Kubicki bridge.

The bodies are ergonomically contoured, and are very nicely balanced. A nice touch is the location of the output jack, which is next to the bridge. This makes it difficult to accidentally pull it out, and the bass fits nicely in a stand without the cable hanging up.

The necks are amazing, with a nut width that falls somewhere in between the Precision and Jazz bass profiles. They are crafted of 34 laminated pieces of maple with an ebony fretboard. I have yet to see one that warped or twisted. There is a conventional truss road that is accessed at the headstock, so you can adjust it while watching the relief. There are different necks for the standard Factor bass (34-inch scale, and the Ex-Factor, which has a 32-inch scale, and a clever detuner lever for a 36-inch scale E/D string. There are slotted fret markers on the sides of the neck, and these are the only thing I have ever seen consistently go wrong on these basses. On early basses, the filler for these expands, and becomes over-flush. Fortunately, it is an easy enough job to have them trimmed down to normal height again.

Serial numbers are stamped on the back of the headstock, as well as the production date, shown as month and year. Example: 1238 01 89 = serial 1238, made in January of 1989.

The original Factor basses have 18-volt active electronics, and all of the basses use two Kubicki-designed humbucker pickups.

The controls are: two stacked pots (volume/pan, treble/bass boost), and a rotary selector switch with three passive, two active and one standby playing position.

Used Factor basses sell for around $1000 to $1500 on eBay, depending on condition and year.

From 1988 to 1991 Fender was licensed to build Factor basses. The serial numbers for these are from 1287 to 3850. The basses are essentially the same with the exception that many (but not all) came with 9-volt pre-amplifiers. There is also a Fender Custom Shop sticker under the clear coat on the back of the neck (under the clear coat). These generally sell for a little less money on the used market.

If you love the sound of the electronics, but do not want to pay the higher freight to get a Factor bass (or if you just do not like the styling), you could opt for a Fender Jazz Plus. These sell for around $500 to $800 on the used market. They were produced the United States from 1989 to 1994 as both 4 and 5-string models.

I have owned around a half-dozen Kubicki Factor basses over the years, and really like them. They are comfortable to play, and sound like nothing else on the market. The two active settings are simply thunderous, and there is no extra noise or hiss. Of course, you might not need this aggressive tone for all types of music, so it is nice to have the option of the three passive settings.

Philip Kubicki has moved his operations from Santa Barbara to Colorado. He is still building the basses to order in many different configurations. Last year, I needed a little information about replacement parts for one of his basses, so I used the phone number provided on his web site. Philip answered the phone, and was very friendly, letting me know what thread pitch was used for one of the machine screws, and where to find one of the grabber-style strap hangers. A true gentleman, indeed.