Les Paul Epiphone

If you want all the Les Paul tone and goodies, but not all the frills, or you just like the clean look of no binding, then the Epiphone Worn Les Paul Studio is perfect for you. This Studio features a satin Worn Cherry or Worn Brown finish on the carved-top Mahogany body with a set, Mahogany neck for true LP sustain with Rosewood fingerboard. Fantastic, vintage tone comes from two high-output Alnico Classic Humbuckers, each with its own volume and tone controls driven by heavy duty pots to match our exclusive toggle switch and output jack to faithfully convey maximum Les Paul tone. Speaking of tone, this guitar pumps more tone and sustain with the Epiphone LockTone™ locking Tune-o-matic bridge and Stop-bar tailpiece. It's everything you need in a Les Paul and nothin' you don't!

User Reviews about Epiphone LP Studio Les Paul Collection Electric Guitar - Worn Brown

Although I didn't buy this guitar on Amazon, I felt it was worthy of writing a review. My original intention was to try it out at the store and order through Amazon but ended up getting it at the store for about $20 less than Amazon (there was a one-day sale at the music store that couldn't be beat).

I used to own a Gibson Les Paul and was a bit hesitant to try the Epiphone thinking it would be "cheaper" feeling. I was wrong. It's a great feeling guitar. Although the manufacturing is done in China it needs to pass quality tests in the US. I say this in that I've played guitars that are made AND inspected in other countries (Mexico and China) and there's a difference. US inspected guitars (of larger brands) tend to have better hardware and better selects of wood.

From the factory, the guitar needs a little set-up (the action is a bit high). Easy enough to do for a veteran guitarist, but if you have someone/somplace else do it, just inspect it thoroughly before and after. The guitar lives up to the Les Paul name. Sturdy, long sustain and great quality tone. Just a fantastic instrument. It's the same things I loved about my original Gibson Les Paul. I added this guitar to a Fender Strat that, up until now, had been my only guitar for home-studio recording. I really missed the humbucking pick-ups and long sustain. I tried other guitars with humbuckers along with the Les Paul and although they had low noise and long-ish sustain, the quality of tone from other guitars just wasn't there. This guitar is well matched (neck to body) and the construction is solid. The tone is truly Les Paul. The finish of the guitar is natural. No gloss/varnish on the neck of body. I prefer this, but a high gloss finish is more common among electric guitars.

I use this guitar in a home-studio environment doing music production. Most of my production uses software emulated effects, amps and cabinets (Logic Pro, Native Instruments). I've been a guitarist for about 20 years on and off. I play a lot of contemporary, jazz, blues and rock. It accompanies a Fender Strat and Martin acoustic very well.

Bottom line: I highly recommend this guitar for the budget-minded musician who is looking for a high quality guitar with the trademarks of Les Paul (sturdy construction, long sustain, great tone). -- Fantastic Guitar for the Amateur Player

I read so much about the sound of the humbucker pickups and the great sustain of Les Paul and decided to go with the Epiphone model. Even though it is made in China it is suppose to have Gibson's quality assuarance behind it. The sound quality of the Epiphone, I read from reviews is similar to Gibson's.

At the shop, the sound/sustain is definitely different from my Fender Strat and it was wonderful!!!

I decided to take the plunge and bought this guitar locally from a well known authorised dealer in Singapore as the price difference from Amazon with shipping to Singapore is very similar.

My only regret is that I trusted the shop
to pick a guitar from the warehouse and
to do the setup for me.

They used too small a screw driver to change the bridge height and slipped! I can see slight damage to the adjustment screw. Ouch!

Where the bridge assembly mates with the body, it was a good tight fit but was not exactly flush with the body. Arrrrrgh!

Oh well, the above are cosmetic, won't affect the tone/sustain/playability and it's going to get dinked anyway sometime in the future. Couldn't wait to play it so I accepted it.

After playing for about half hour at home, I decided to lower the action to my liking; FRET BUZZZZZZZ! I checked the frets and discovered that 4 frets were a little high at various locations of the finger board! ARRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!

I had to send it back to the shop to get the frets levelled.
Gibson's QA missed this one.

Check the area where the bridge hardware meets the body,
most importantly check that the frets are levelled as it affects playability.

U can make a fret levelling checker using an old credit card and slicing off a 2cm x 2cm triangle from one of the corners. Or buy this:
http://www.stewmac.com/shopby/product/3770 (easily understood video included)

If Gibson's QA was good and the frets were levelled, I'd give this a 5 star rating despite slight cosmetic imperfections because of the excellent sound/price ratio.
-- Pls CHECK for level frets before accepting guitar - trust no one

I've never played an electric guitar, but I some classical guitar lessons a long time ago. I went to my guitar store and looked at the Les Paul Standard, which was more money than I wanted to spend. I read that the Studio was not as pretty, but musically almost the same. Without having seen the instrument, I ordered one.

I opened the box and was pleasantly surprised. It really looks nice, a little darker than in the picture. On the heavy side, but feels very well made. I wanted an instrument I won't need to replace in six months, and I'm confident it will stay better than me for the foreseeable future.

It makes a good sound as far as I can tell, but as I said, I'm new to the instrument. Still, very pleased. -- Not an expert, but I like it