This guitar has a tall feeling fretboard and puts a lot of material in your left hand circumference wise. Its satin finish doesnt need polishing as it doesnt absorb any fingerprints or smudges, this is a welcome relief from poly laquer finish guitars. It doesnt come with a plastic molded hardshell case but Roadrunner makes one with grey felt interior and musicians gear makes the same case with a black felt interior which fits this guitar accurately width and length wise and doesnt leave excess room above the headstock. Since I already own the P-90 pickups in my Single and doublecut similar finish Gibson Juniors, I noticed right away with these Gibson 490r and 490t PAF humbuckers, there is NO distracting 60 cycle hum coming through the amp speaker when you plug this guitar in. Also, having 2 pickups that can either be turned on simultaneously or in tandem gives you more tonal versatility than just having a single pickup. With the 4 knobs and toggle switch on this guitar you will spend a little more time dialing in your tone than having just the single tine tone knob on a single pickup Les Paul. This guitar is considerably heavier than a junior by a couple of pounds yet lighter than a Les Paul Standard. I appreciate that the fretboard uses rosewood rather than the latest psuedo guitar fretboard materials like 'indian laurel or 'obeche or 'pau ferro or 'ebony etc; whatever else we seem to be settling for these days. The maple neck on the backside of the fretboard has a nice solid… read more feel. Maple has long been added to higher end Gibsons, its not a downgrade by any slight. The backside of the neck is the only part of this guitar I polish with pledge and buff dry with a flannel guitar polish cloth, it has a nice flame maple grain and the stain applied to it from the Gibson factory looks beautiful. I usually prefer guitars that have front mounted cable input jacks installed on them so I can kick back on the couch and play guitar but I just use a right angle cable which does press into the couch cushion when I play but doesnt crimp the cord. I financed this through zzounds on the 12 month installment plan but payed it off in a month and a half by working overtime. It was well worth it. This guitar has a nice full sustain and can have as much treble or bass as you want it to with the iconic 490 combo of PAF humbuckers Gibson is known for. Im satisfied with this full size bodied-traditional 24.75 scale length Gibson Les Paul. It doesnt feel like a toy. The white kluson tuners are the right accent to this classic headstock and stay in tune, they are of an off white aged bone tint in comparison to the juniors. String height Intonation doesnt require a luthier on this simple stopbar tailpiece, without using a screwdriver you can lower the action by turning the stopbar poles that the bridge slides onto with just your hand. It takes a couple string loosenings to raise and lower the string the height but youll easily be able to get the bottom of the guitar strings closest to the top of the rosewood fretboard without string buzz, making the string action fast and comfortable. This is a well made guitar, I prefer its finish to the gloss finish and it sells for 1/3 less

Sound
These humbucker pickups dont hum like P-90s, aesthetically I see a lot of people wanting to buy the P-90 version of this guitar just for the way the pickup covers look- not realizing both bright and dark tonal diversity come from the PAF humbuckers in this model

Features
Rosewood and mahagony with a maple neck are all quality materials, the workmanship in the stain application is consistent and the tuning pegs and electronics are of good quality. Some people complain about the quick connections of the electronics inside the routing of the body cavity, but think about it- if many years down the road you needed to replace something electrical, you wouldnt need to do any soldering. Pots will connect in a clean snap for you, no sweat

Ease of Use
The action on the stopbar tailpiece is adjustable by hand so you wont need to spend money on a set up from a luthier, rendering you without your new guitar for a while, youll be impressed by how these humbuckers dont make any noise on their own when this guitar is plugged into your amp

Quality
This guitar is admirable in its construction, the lathing and routing and sanding that went into it showcase the effort and skill coming out of the Gibson Factory in Nashville. Youll admire its fit and finish in person for sure. If only I could figure out how to upload a photo of this guitar

Value
I feel this guitar would be a better value at abou 900 dollars. In the earlier stages of faded Les Pauls, the Specials sold for less than what they cost today...this brand seems to enjoy pandering to inflation on their terms

Manufacturer Support
I have not dealt with Gibson, this model comes with a blank black truss rod bell cover, the previous Specials used to have the word Special engraved and painted white in script lettering on the truss rod cover. The one time I looked into ordering this particular truss rod cover which I felt went to this guitar, Gibson had discontinued it

The Wow Factor
Its a full suze Gibson with an easy to maintain finish. You will only have to graze over any grime accumulated on the surface of this guitar with a damp microfiber cloth, then immediately buff over it with a dry microfiber cloth- thats the sole trick to caring for the finish of this guitar, and not bumping it into anything as not to create dings and chips in the wood itself

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