Epiphone Zakk Wylde Les Paul Custom Electric Guitar

August 9, 2007 by Jo Minor 


The Epiphone Zakk Wylde Les Paul Custom electric guitar, with its black and white bulls-eye stripes, will have you looking and rocking like Zakk Wylde. This Epi retails for $1,332, but you should be able to find it for as low as $800 or so discounted. This means you can have Zakk Wylde looks and legendary Les Paul tone for a lot less than if you had to get the Gibson version of the guitar.

Les Paul style guitars are favored by many top music artists, in addition to Zakk Wylde. With its high output humbucking pickups and resonant mahogany-rich body, the LP is particularly suited to metal styles. The details that make a Les Paul guitar what it is, though, originally were designed for playing jazz. Les Paul himself earned his fame in playing jazz guitar. Well, for jazz playing and for his inventions.

Did you know Les Paul was also an important pioneer in the development of multi-track recording? Where would modern music be without the wonders of multi-track recording? But that is off the subject. He is best known for his part in the evolution of the solid body electric guitar. Les Paul was born Lester William Polfus and is from Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was inventive from an early age, with interests in both music and electronics.

Les Paul’s designs in solid body guitars were eventually used by Gibson guitars, with the first Gibson Les Paul electric guitar debuting in 1954. Rock musicians discovered the guitar style some years later, since rock music was not even thought of yet! Anyway, Zakk Wylde is just one of the influential rockers that has chosen the Les Paul for his own signature sound.

Wylde became lead guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne in 1987. He was replacing Jake E. Lee, who had replaced the late Randy Rhodes. Many of the most well known rockers have painted their electric guitars with a signature look. Jimi Hendrix, for example, created art on his guitars. Eddie Van Halen is also well known for his uniquely painted guitars. Randy Rhodes was known to sometimes play a V-shaped Jackson guitar painted with polka-dots.

Wylde’s choice of a unique paint job for his guitars was a bulls-eye design. It is said that it was originally supposed to look like a spiral, but the luthier painted a bulls-eye instead and Wylde liked it, so the design stuck. Anyway, if you have wished you could have a guitar like his but could not afford the Gibson variety, Epiphone can get you in business for a lot less dough.

 

 

Advantages: The use of alder and maple woods along with mahogany give the Epiphone Zakk Wylde Les Paul Custom electric guitar a bit lighter weight than the normal solid mahogany Les Pauls. It is a versatile guitar, able to handle all types of rock music, and hold its own on country and jazz, too. Stunning, unique looks, great Les Paul tone, and that it is endorsed by a favorite of many rock fans are other reasons you might want this guitar.

Disadvantages: The EMG humbucking pickups on the Epiphone Zakk Wylde LP are passive instead of active pickups. These stock pickups seem to be more suited to softer styles of music, like jazz and blues, rather than screaming hard rock. The guitar has also been accused of being neck heavy. The neck is also finished with a substance that has been called “sticky” instead of being left unfinished, which is the way many guitarists prefer. The paint job is reported to be just a “decal,” too.

A number of reviewers feel like the price is too high, that you are just shelling out extra cash for a catchy paint job and Zakk Wylde’s name. Others say if you change the passive humbuckers to active ones you will have a good sounding, good looking guitar you can wail like Zakk Wylde on.

Specs:

  • Mahogany-alder body in rounded single cutaway shape
  • Maple top
  • Black and white bulls-eye finish
  • Hard maple set neck
  • Neck joint set at 16th fret
  • Rosewood fingerboard
  • Pearloid block inlays
  • 24.75 inch scale length
  • 1.68 inches wide at the nut
  • Binding on body, neck, and head
  • Gold hardware
  • Dual EMG humbucker pickups (HZH4A and HZH4)
  • Limited lifetime warranty

 

 

Here is a lesson in major and minor pentatonic scales, which are necessary to know in order to play Zakk Wylde style solos.

Here is information about the MXR ZW-44 Zakk Wylde Overdrive pedal.

Finally a bio of Les Paul that focuses on his music instead of on his connection with the development of the solid body guitar style that bears his endorsement.

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