Epiphone Goth Les Paul Studio

June 29, 2007 by Jo Minor 


Guitar manufacturers know that some of you want that dark goth look right down to your instrument. Epiphone endeavors to meet this demand with the Epiphone Goth Les Paul Studio guitar.

When you’re researching guitars and trying to figure out just which electric guitar is right for you and your band, you’re going to run across the name Les Paul a lot. Les Paul is a jazz guitarist who is still alive at over 90 years of age right now. In the 1930’s and 40’s he was playing the going thing as far as electric guitars were concerned, but he had ideas to make it better. He got linked up with the Gibson guitar manufacturers, and ever since, his design has become legendary.

The Epiphone instrument makers have been around for a long time, being founded way back in the 1870s in Turkey by a Greek man named Anastasios Stathopoulos, who made fiddles, lutes, and mandolins. By 1928, the company was called the Epiphone Banjo Company, and started making guitars. If you’re wondering where the name Epiphone came from, it was named after family member, Epi Stathopoulos.

The company has quite a legacy. Even the Beatles used Epiphone guitars on occasion. Noel Gallagher and Lenny Kravitz are a couple of modern musicians who play Epiphones. Gibson bought out the company in 1957, and now uses it for lower priced versions of their high quality, and high priced, guitars. Those high end guitars include the Les Paul electric models.

Some of the characteristics that make a guitar earn the name Les Paul are a rounded, single cutaway, solid hardwood body made of mahogany, and a couple of humbucker pickups. The Les Pauls tend to be heavy, but are loved for all sorts of music types. Even though they go way back to the 1950’s in their design and production, they are the instrument of choice for many of the youngest generation of rockers.

Humbucker pickups are so named because the earlier type of pickups, called “single coil,” tend to pick up stray radio frequencies and cause a hum. Single coil pickups, which provide a crisper tone, are still used on many guitars, but the Les Pauls generally avoid them. Humbuckers tend to produce a tone that is fatter, thicker, and warmer.

The Epiphone Les Paul models, including the Goth LP Studio, are finished in polyurethane instead of nitrocellulose lacquer, like the more expensive Gibsons. Polyurethane is a more practical finish that is much less time consuming to apply in the factory, but it not as conducive to a really great tone. Therefore, you can expect the LP’s from Epiphone to have a darker tone with more mids and bass, than the guitars from Gibson.

The Goth Les Paul Studio is distinguished by a satin black finish and open coil pickups. The hardware is all black chrome, and the inlay on the rosewood fretboard is a Roman numeral 12 (XII) at the twelfth fret. It also features a Celtic cross on the headstock. Creepy, huh? Epiphone also makes Goth versions of the G-400, the Flying V, and the Explorer style guitars.

Advantages: The list price is $499, and you should be able to get it discounted. That makes it pretty affordable for a Les Paul. The look is really special, too. It’s a good guitar for beginners. Deep and crunchy tone, for those who are looking for that sort of sound. It’s suited for hard rock and metal, but some players use it for jazz and blues, too. The Epiphone Goth Les Paul Studio electric guitar sounds good run through a lot of different effects. It sounds good distorted.

Epiphone guitars have a limited lifetime warranty against defects in materials and workmanship. They are a nice way to get a good Gibson-style guitar without having to lay out the big bucks. Like all Les Pauls, it has a heavy, solid feel.

Disadvantages: You are probably going to want to change the stock strings, but that’s not a big deal. You might or might not like the matte nature of the finish, as it can scratch up pretty easily. The neck is on the thick side, which makes it more suitable for power chords than getting round quickly. It does not have a really fast neck, in other words. Also, you might miss having fret markers on the lower frets. It’s also reported that the tone knobs don’t do a whole lot.

Specs:

  • Mahogany single cutaway solid body
  • Black satin polyurethane finish
  • Set Mahogany neck
  • Rosewood fretboard
  • 24.75 inch scale
  • 22 frets
  • XII inlay at the 12th fret
  • Celtic cross inlay on the headstock
  • Grover tuners
  • 1.68 inches wide at the nut
  • Black chrome hardware
  • 2 ‘57 classic Alnico V exposed coil humbucker pickups
  • Two volume controls
  • Two tone controls
  • Three way switch

Musician’s Friend has a nice article you can read that tells you all about choosing a Les Paul guitar.

Here’s an example of a suitable case for the Epiphone Goth Les Paul Studio electric guitar.

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