Gibson is renewing the Studio series. It’s been close to ten years that they introduced this range and today they’re adding a whole lot of new features to the classic Gibson Les Paul Studio series. They’ve added coil-tapping, made it lighter with a mahogany body with a carved, plain maple cap and created four color variants that are pretty awesome to look at. Let’s take a look.
Gibson Les Paul Studio:
The “Les Paul for the People” is back! Gibson is updating one of its most popular midrange LP series with new colors and slight modifications. Regarding wood, it’s still a mahogany body with a maple cap. However, Gibson says this new version is significantly lighter than its predecessor. The SlimTaper set-in neck is still mahogany, but it now comes with a Rosewood fingerboard.
You get the classic trapeze inlays, a Graph Tech nut, and 22 frets. In terms of hardware, you still get Vintage deluxe machine heads with keystone buttons and a single-ply pickguard. How does this differ to the recent Les Paul Modern Studio?
Les Paul Studio vs. Les Paul Modern Studio
Besides the different wood material for the fingerboard (ebony), it’s mainly the pickups. They’ve opted for two Burstbucker Pro pickups for the Gibson Les Paul Studio compared to 490R and 490T humbuckers in the Modern series. As usual, these can be separately controlled in terms of volume and tonality.
Gibson has also changed from coil-splitting to coil-tapping, much like they did with the Les Paul Modern. This way, when you switch to single-coil voicings, the often dramatic drops in volume can be avoided.
How much does the new Gibson Les Paul Studio cost?
The Gibson Les Paul Studio is available in four color variants: Cherry Sunburst*, Wine Red*, Blueberry Burst*, and Ebony*. Each model costs $1,666 / £1,544 / €1,799 at Thomann, and a gig bag is included.
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