Introducing the Les Paul Push Tone

[chevalij]

Ah, that makes sense. Why the clear cover plate? Just so you can make sure the pots are still there? It's like those lucite Strats they used to make, or the see through Macs that were out about 10 years ago.

[David Schwab]

Ah, that makes sense. Why the clear cover plate? Just so you can make sure the pots are still there?

Gibson's been doing that lately.. same with the Robot Guitar, and that awful raw looking LP.

Maybe they think it's edgy showing the guts.. or "look at us... we gots them new fangled battery circuits in dem geetars"

Gibson never quite gets some things... remember the RD Artist guitars? Why on earth would you want a compressor on the neck and an expander on the bridge pickup? I would have wanted an option to choose!

They start with a good idea and then pull a Microsoft and show a total lack of taste and end up with some clunky execution.

I guess after they spent the last decade buying up things like Opcode and Steinberger, and then screwing those products up, they want to try their own hand at something "modern". When I first heard about the Robot Guitar I wondered what it did... tune itself? That's a big waste of technology if you ask me.

[chevalij]

Gibson's been doing that lately.. same with the Robot Guitar, and that awful raw looking LP.

Do you mean the one that looks like it never made it to the finishing department? If so, I've seen it up close and it's ugly as sin. Actually looks like it's poorly made with 2 X 4' and glue.

[David Schwab]

Do you mean the one that looks like it never made it to the finishing department? If so, I've seen it up close and it's ugly as sin. Actually looks like it's poorly made with 2 X 4' and glue.

Yeah, the BFG. Not only did it not make it to the finishing department, but it never made it to the sanding department! No binding, no fret markers, no pickup rings, crappy looking wood knobs.

The top is pretty much right off the CNC router with a little rough sanding.

[Paul P]

Why the clear cover plate?

Well, if you're going to have "24K gold-plated potentiometers" it would be
kind of dumb to have them hidden .

Paul P

[Djinn Guitars]

Didin't Dan Armstrong/Ampeg do that almost exactly 40 years ago on the lucite guitars and basses? Well, Dan's slid in so I guess that would be a slide tone huh?

[JGundry]

Considering it's a Gibson the street price is not so bad. Although it is way too expensive. But it does seem like a unique tool for the pickup maker as far as humbuckers are concerned. They are limiting the run to 1000. Those probably won't sell. Musician's Friend will probably have it in their clearance center in a year. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get one now. If it makes swapping test pickups a breeze it will be worth it in the long run. It looks decent and it's chambered so you won't break you back if you gig with it. It might just be one of those items that in three years you kick yourself for not buying because it is out of production and hard to find. If they really do limit the production to 1000 it should hold it's value. I mean there is like 1,000,000 pickup winders out there who want one of theses things right?

[David Schwab]

Didin't Dan Armstrong/Ampeg do that almost exactly 40 years ago on the lucite guitars and basses? Well, Dan's slid in so I guess that would be a slide tone huh?

And they make it again!

The original had Bill Lawrence pickups, this one has Kent Armstrong, which is apropos.

I always wanted one of these.

http://ampeg.com/products/daplexi/ada6/index.html

[WolfeMacleod]

Also, have a look at this.

http://www.bostonguitar.com/Merchant...y_Code=EG-MERC

I have a Mercurio guitar.

Way cool. Very well thought out.

[Ruel]

Gibson's been doing that lately.. same with the Robot Guitar, and that awful raw looking LP.

Maybe they think it's edgy showing the guts.. or "look at us... we gots them new fangled battery circuits in dem geetars"

Gibson never quite gets some things... remember the RD Artist guitars? Why on earth would you want a compressor on the neck and an expander on the bridge pickup? I would have wanted an option to choose!

They start with a good idea and then pull a Microsoft and show a total lack of taste and end up with some clunky execution.

I guess after they spent the last decade buying up things like Opcode and Steinberger, and then screwing those products up, they want to try their own hand at something "modern". When I first heard about the Robot Guitar I wondered what it did... tune itself? That's a big waste of technology if you ask me.

It could be worse, David. It might play by itself!

[David Schwab]

It could be worse, David. It might play by itself!

They already have that!

http://www.guitarherogame.com/gh2/buynow.php

[Mark Hammer]

For any dealer who wishes to be able to demonstrate different pickups to customers, the biggest barrier to being able to compare tones is that the pickups are never found in otherwise identical guitars (these pickups in an Epi LP, those ones in a Ibanez, etc). Assuming one can replace the pickups to try them in an identical guitar, the barrier there is that time erodes the auditory memory and makes comparison difficult. This system allows for the speed of interchange that permits more valid comparison between pickups.

[David Schwab]

My only two concerns with the Gibson system is that the pickups are not angled parallel to the strings, and I'd worry about the stability of the neck with a hole cut through the body like that. The LP neck tenon was never its strongest point. Maybe they designed it differently.

But it is a cool idea.

[kevinT]

Gibson's marketing and research team must be on the ball because, to me, this guitar shows that they are hip on the current trends of pickup swaping and how important tone is to folks these days and their quest for it...Maybe we're experienceing a Tone Renaissance of sorts.

On Duncan's forum, almost every other thread asks the question or talks about how a particular magnet sounds after removing the stock mag and replacing it with a new one.

I bet Gibson's next big release is a pickup that is designed so that folks can easily swap the magnets while keeping the pickup in the guitar.

Hey,... what about a pickup in which you can do tone modeling (like amps). To have the ability to dial in specs and have a pickup sound like the particular specs that you give it.

[David Schwab]

Gibson's marketing and research team must be on the ball because, to me, this guitar shows that they are hip on the current trends of pickup swaping and how important tone is to folks these days and their quest for it...Maybe we're experienceing a Tone Renaissance of sorts.

On Duncan's forum, almost every other thread asks the question or talks about how a particular magnet sounds after removing the stock mag and replacing it with a new one.

That reminds me of similar talk over at TalkBass where people swap basses and pickups left and right looking for... something.

I can't believe how many basses some of these people have owed. To me it was always I try it out, and I like it or I don't. I don't end up buying something I'm going to sell a month later.

The unfortunate part is people are putting too much emphases on gear. Good gear is important, but it wont make you something you aren't. If you can't get a good tone from any given instrument, something is wrong!