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Post by bloodrose on Aug 5, 2008 8:49:40 GMT -5
Well, I played a new 2008 LP Standard with the updates and must say it was the nicest Gibson LP Ive played in awhile. This had straplocks, (nice) the asymetrical neck, the pleck treatment. The fret work was nice and played with very little effort. I thought the pickups were alittle bright/harsh tho. The only visible flaw was stain on the neck binding.
Now, what I thought was cool was the back control cover was a see thru smoke colored plastic. What I found odd, was this... On my studio, the pots and guts are all mounted to a metal plate that sits in the cavity.. The new one actually looks like a circuit board and the "pots" are all square. Whats up with that??
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Post by efnikbug on Aug 5, 2008 14:37:48 GMT -5
Gibson LP hierarchy is like this: Expensive, more expensive, ridiculously expensive and then you have to be freaking kidding me.... So, not to be funny, what category would you say the LP you played fits in? |
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Post by bloodrose on Aug 5, 2008 16:42:42 GMT -5
At $2500, I'd code this one as More expensive. But, with the upgrades, at least I felt it wasnt sub par like many Ive played of late and with the mods, it seemed like more of a value..
It still didnt play and feel as good as my Burny. But was much lighter!!
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Post by Ray M. on Aug 5, 2008 17:30:44 GMT -5
What I found odd, was this... On my studio, the pots and guts are all mounted to a metal plate that sits in the cavity.. The new one actually looks like a circuit board and the "pots" are all square. Whats up with that?? I don't know about the circuit board....and changing pickups might be a challenge. ....but, I've read that the pots are military grade stuff and that might be an improvement. I'm going to have to hold judgement on this one.... ...and it'll have to be word of mouth, because I ain't buying one.  edit...I'd add this: I'm going to have to put that up one notch to "ridiculously expensive" considering I bought my R7 for 1900 bucks. of course, that was a few years ago now.... |
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Post by Rob DiStefano on Aug 6, 2008 5:55:24 GMT -5
Once again, Gibson steps up to the plate and delivers another skrewball of stupidity inside the control cavity. Grrr.
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Post by bloodrose on Aug 6, 2008 8:00:24 GMT -5
Yeah, I saw that board and thought "what a nightmare". Had they had a normal cover, Id never have known.. I def would want to change the pups.. they seemed very bright.
Seems like Gibson stepped up with this one, but then I saw that control panel and thought What???
I had just played the self tuning one and was looking at all the wiring on that one. It also had the clear cover . Funny, that guitar is basically a studio model with all the gizmos.
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Post by bloodrose on Aug 6, 2008 15:31:08 GMT -5
Word on the street is that the pots snap in and out making pot value changes a breeze..  providing the replacements dont cost a mint.. Still dont see how pup changes will be done unless pups start coming with quick connectors.. (Ive thought for YEARs that they should..) |
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Post by Ray M. on Aug 6, 2008 19:46:21 GMT -5
Word on the street is that the pots snap in and out making pot value changes a breeze.. providing the replacements dont cost a mint.. Still dont see how pup changes will be done unless pups start coming with quick connectors.. (Ive thought for YEARs that they should..) well...those pots look waay soldered on to me. I've always thought connections for pickups would be nice too.....but why not use an RCA setup.... Unless Gibson sources those connectors out (they've probably got some sort of forever lockout patent), you'll be stuck with their pickups....or a ripout/redo. |
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Post by gmello on Aug 6, 2008 21:23:43 GMT -5
well you can always clip the wires before the connectors and solder the new pickups directly to the wire.
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Post by efnikbug on Aug 7, 2008 9:56:10 GMT -5
What bugs me in that picture, despite the efforts to clean things up, the bottom left pot is not on straight, and one of the leads doesn't have heat-shrink tubing on it. Why go through the trouble if you're not going to go all the way? Like washing the car but skipping the windows.
I've put on connectors on wire like that before. It's pretty tedious but the convenience factor afterwards might be worth it. But I'm sure the crimping tool needed would not be cheap. And there's also the school of believers who think a soldered connection is the best connection for signal.
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Post by Rob DiStefano on Aug 7, 2008 12:08:07 GMT -5
There is nothing more service-friendly than "hand wired" - true for amps and equally true for guitar electronics. What Gibson has done is cut down the human labor on LP builds by introducing a PC board with soldered on pots. And of course they're gonna make you think you're getting something better, something you need. Hah!   |
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Post by Ray M. on Aug 7, 2008 19:58:09 GMT -5
If it wasn't cheaper for them....it wouldn't have happened.
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Post by Rob DiStefano on Aug 7, 2008 20:39:16 GMT -5
And man, is it ever a b!tch to work on those soldered pots and amphenol connectors. You wind up having to remove the whole innards by first unsoldering ALL the connnected pot, switch, ground and jack wires, then remove the ground/shield plate - but the worse is yet to come: desoldering the three legs on a pot to release it from the PCB. Yuk. We techies already hate just thinking about working on such junk, and you know the labor rates are gonna go up at least 50%. Thanx Gibson.
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Post by efnikbug on Aug 7, 2008 21:05:44 GMT -5
And man, is it ever a b!tch to work on those soldered pots and amphenol connectors. You wind up having to remove the whole innards by first unsoldering ALL the connnected pot, switch, ground and jack wires, then remove the ground/shield plate - but the worse is yet to come: desoldering the three legs on a pot to release it from the PCB. Yuk. We techies already hate just thinking about working on such junk, and you know the labor rates are gonna go up at least 50%. Thanx Gibson. I'm no techie, but I use a spring loaded vacuum sucker thingy. I melt the solder and bring the tip of this little sucker thing to it, press the trigger, and it sucks up most of the solder. Depending on the size of the hole, it's easy as just pushing the lead away from whatever side of the hole it's stuck on to to free it. My dad being the electrician, he has an actual motorized vacuum that has a hollow tipped soldering iron. Now that's convenient. |
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Post by Rob DiStefano on Aug 7, 2008 21:18:51 GMT -5
I've always found the spring vacuum desolder tools to, well, suck - and not in a good way. I use a teflon tip sucker bulb, or desoldering braid, or just a bit of pre-fluxed fine strand copper wire. The problem with getting any multi-legged component off a PCB is that when you think you've sucked up all the solder on one leg and go to do another leg the heat re-solders the first leg. What I prefer doing is to flux all the pot legs, use a 45w iron and place the tip across all three pot lugs and pull up on the pot. That usually works bestest and fastest. Then I throw away the PCB board and the pots, lay down a bed of heavy aluminum foil, and bolt in a new set of CTS pots.  |
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