
lpdeluxe
The Precision Bass Guy
Mine is pictured in my avatar (pretty poor resolution, LOL).
It's a conventional mahogany/maple cap Les Paul, with a mahogany 3-piece neck and body binding. It's finished in gold on the top and natural on the sides and back and neck, which was the original LP finish.
It's from the era when Norlin was reissuing the Les Paul, but they couldn't figure out which version to market. The early reissues had P90 pickups, and right away the dealers told them that the humbucking versions were what Eric Clapton and Peter Green were playing, so Norlin was stuck with a lot of LPs that had already been routed for the small single-coils.
Along came some bright guy who noticed that the Epiphone (which Gibson had bought, lock, stock and barrel in the late 50s) mini-humbucker fit right into the rout for the P90.
Thus was born the Deluxe, a pretty much ordinary LP with mini-humbuckers instead of the full sized ones on the Standard, Custom and so on.
The sound is brighter than the full-size pickup models. In fact, I was never a fan of LPs until a friend bought this one in 1984. I played it and fell in love. Thirteen years later (!) he decided to sell it, so I got it in 1997.
The bridge pickup was dead, and I replaced both with Seymour Duncan SM-1 minis. They retain the sound of the stock ones, which was what I was after.
Other than that, everything is original. As I've noted, it's a boat anchor, but it sounds so sweet I can't give it up. It became my main gigging guitar (taking over from the Chet Atkins I talked about earlier) and is now my one and only electric, after a motley collection of Ric, Strat, Country Gent and too many pawn shop prizes to count.
At the moment, though, it resides in its case most of the time, since I'm currently playing bass in a working band.
I'd love to attach a pic, but I don't have one small enough -- other than the avatar. Let's see yours.
It's a conventional mahogany/maple cap Les Paul, with a mahogany 3-piece neck and body binding. It's finished in gold on the top and natural on the sides and back and neck, which was the original LP finish.
It's from the era when Norlin was reissuing the Les Paul, but they couldn't figure out which version to market. The early reissues had P90 pickups, and right away the dealers told them that the humbucking versions were what Eric Clapton and Peter Green were playing, so Norlin was stuck with a lot of LPs that had already been routed for the small single-coils.
Along came some bright guy who noticed that the Epiphone (which Gibson had bought, lock, stock and barrel in the late 50s) mini-humbucker fit right into the rout for the P90.
Thus was born the Deluxe, a pretty much ordinary LP with mini-humbuckers instead of the full sized ones on the Standard, Custom and so on.
The sound is brighter than the full-size pickup models. In fact, I was never a fan of LPs until a friend bought this one in 1984. I played it and fell in love. Thirteen years later (!) he decided to sell it, so I got it in 1997.
The bridge pickup was dead, and I replaced both with Seymour Duncan SM-1 minis. They retain the sound of the stock ones, which was what I was after.
Other than that, everything is original. As I've noted, it's a boat anchor, but it sounds so sweet I can't give it up. It became my main gigging guitar (taking over from the Chet Atkins I talked about earlier) and is now my one and only electric, after a motley collection of Ric, Strat, Country Gent and too many pawn shop prizes to count.
At the moment, though, it resides in its case most of the time, since I'm currently playing bass in a working band.
I'd love to attach a pic, but I don't have one small enough -- other than the avatar. Let's see yours.