Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar 

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

I was pleased with the overall tone and ease of the three guitars I own this is the easiest to play and has the best tone.

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

The guitar was beautiful.

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

The big brown truck dropped this off at my house today, a day earlier than I expected...cool! Unpacked ( well packed by the way) checked it out from one end to the other. No flaws, there is no such thing as perfection, least not on this earth, but it is a very fine guitar. Frets are nice, neck is straight, finish looks nice. Plugged it in and nothing. I run through a fender Blues Jr, with a couple of pedals. Behringer and Boss. I tried three different cables, nothing, I'm scratching my head. I start taking pedals out of the loop. Lo and behold the only pedal that works with this guitar is my Boss Fender Bassman. It deos not like my Behringer pedals. I can run straight into the amp with no pedals or through the Boss but not Behringers. My Strat, Tele and SG all work fine with all my pedals but not the LP. Anybody got any idea why, let me know. Otherwise I'm really happy with this guitar. I got the Gold Top, it is nice looking. It actually beats my other guitars...so far. I'm not to far from retirement so I plan on playing this thing a lot...blues, blues/rock, Grateful Dead, etc.
Happy Trails and Keep Calm and Rock On!

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

Bought used with a replaced neck. Great feel. Set up perfectly. Not happy with factory bridge pickup so replaced with dimarzio super distortion. Added a split pot for the bridge pickup. Guitar feels amazing. Plays itself sounds great with excellent sustain. Mates well with my old 1981 peavey amp. Love playing again.

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

I've had this for a little over two years now, and it's done it's job.
I think the tone is very excellent for the money. True, it's not as nice maybe as a $4000 Gibson custom, but for a beginner, or an amateur musician, this is an excellent guitar to do the job.
It does an excellent job with rhythm guitar, which is what I play the most, and it can do leads very well if you know how to set your knobs on the guitar and your amp.
I play mostly rock-rap, and alt. type rock and also Christian Praise songs.
It does have some problems with getting a nice, happy, sparkly sound, but it depends a lot on the strings you use. I have Elixers on it now, and I don't really like the tone I'm getting from them. I have had ghs boomers on it before, which give me good tone for a few weeks, but as they wear out they loose that sparkle again.
One other thing is that the pickup selector has had a few problems. For some reason when I switched to the bridge pickup, it would go almost dead and quiet, but then after a few seconds or some wiggling of the pickup selector, it would come back to normal and then it'd be fine.
If you want something that will be able to sound a little happier, you might want to look a the Epiphone Traditional Pro, which has coil tap.
All and all, it's a good guitar for the money. I didn't give it a full 5 stars because I haven't been totally blown away by it.
This is an excellent, mass-produced, hard working guitar.

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

I bought the previous version of this a few years ago in heritage cherry before they revamped the lineup. I waited a while for the review because I was so new to the guitar I didn't really know what to say.

I can now say that I really like this guitar. The look, finish, and fretboard are very nice. I can't tell much difference between the look of this one and a Gibson.

When you are picking out your first guitar, make sure you play them. I found that there was a huge difference between an intro/low end guitar and something like the Epiphone Les Paul Standard or the Fender Standard Strat/Tele. I had a music background, just not guitar, and I could hear a definite difference. The Les Paul with humbuckers sounds more rich and full than other options.

As I have progressed, I have changed out the pickups (Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded Humbuckers), the capacitors (Orange Drops), the nut (TUSQ), and the bridge (TonePros). To a more experienced ear, these changes have made a good guitar sound amazing. No joke, this guitar sounds BETTER than most of the stock Gibsons I have played, and my ear is very good. Don't let snobby people fool you. Get a reasonable guitar and practice hard. You will sound better with practice than spending $2000 on a new guitar. Now, I am not playing through a 100W Marshall for thousands of people, or recording, so I can't speak to that. My point is you will not hear nuances until your skill level improves, and a good amp goes a long way.

Just to be clear, you don't NEED to change all those things to sound good. I just did it because I like working on things myself, and wanted to see if I could get even better sound. I would recommend changing the bridge at some point, though. Somewhat flimsy. New one really improves things.

Bottom Line: Great instrument. You can't go wrong with this as a first, or even, only guitar. Very happy with mine. Rock On!

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

Disclaimer: I cover practically every facet possible due to my length of ownership.

I bought my Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top in ebony some time in 2008 directly from here. At the time, I already had 2 guitars: A Epiphone Special II which I first started with and also a Japan Les Paul copy that my brother had. Guitar came packaged perfectly, no damage at all thanks to Musician's Friend.

Don't let the Plain Top label fool you. The guitar looks beautiful with the glossy finish. Aesthetically, there's no way to go wrong with it and though they may not be as "pretty" as the plus top counterparts, they still have that beautiful carved top which looks great. Chrome hardware comes standard and the Grover tuners keep everything in tune PERFECTLY no matter how much you may wail and bend the strings. Electronics are quite good and I had no problems at all plugging straight into any amp and have it sound great. Overall, everything about the guitar just looks GREAT.

Feel and tone are huge for me, now more than ever, and this guitar to this day still has not disappointed me. The neck just FEELS great in my hands. The 60s Slim-taper neck sits very well and gives me complete access to everything. To this day, I'm hard-pressed to find a better neck fit which complements me very well. Strat and tele necks feel a bit "small" to me and though quite easy to play, I felt I needed a bit of resistance. Compared to a true Gibson, the Epiphone 60s and Gibson 60s neck are quite similar but still, I find more comfort from my Epiphone! Weight-wise, it does carry some weight. Not very light but not at all as heavy as the Gibson brethren. I've played this thing for hours on end and never has it felt heavy. The mahogany/maple combo on the body is perfect and with the mahogany/rosewood neck and fretboard, makes for strong woods providing a very balanced, fair tone throughout. As for the pickups, the response you can get from them is amazing. Differences made in the volume and tone knobs makes for easy variances in the sound and can turn a fully distorted tube amp into a luscious clean tone all by lowering the volume on the guitar. That's the kind of response you want and makes for fine tuning the tone you want even easier without worrying about the amp settings. Electronics are good, frets are good, no noise, no sort of faults pickupwise.

After my 6 years of playing guitar, I've played many guitars and have had the privilege to use some other guitars of other major brands but for the quality of guitar you get in this price-range, I've still to disregard an Epiphone LP as a literal STANDARD for when it comes to guitars. Obviously you can some very great jazzy/blues/classic rock tones but throw this thing whatever musical idea you have and it will form a basis and foundation for your canvas. Though there are obviously guitars that just do certain things this can't, this is just the all-arounder. The workhorse. The crescent wrench of your metaphorical toolchest. It may not do EVERYTHING perfectly (see below) but man does it accomplish many tasks.

Is this guitar absolutely perfect in every way, shape, or form? Honestly, I don't think many guitars are; especially at this price range. The pickups can be a bit extreme for my tastes. Sometimes the neck 'bucker can sound just too muddy for my tastes and other times, the treble position can be a tad bright even with the tone rolled off. I contemplated swapping them out which may be something you may want to do but well worth doing. With my guitar, there was some fret-buzz and thus needed a proper set-up. If you have no experience with setting up guitars, take it into a shop and get it set up. Some are actually set up rather well (especially if you check them out at a shop usually) but if buying online, expect to set it up. The plastic bits of decoration such as the humbucker rings (the cream things around humbuckers) and the input jack plate experience wear and cracks and had to be replaced.

Other than these 3 issues, I've never had any other problems after 4 years of ownership. Stock pickups are still in, I still use Ernie Ball slinkys (typically 10s but now using hybrids), frets have a little wear. The only modifications I've made are adjusting pickup height and sanding the back of the neck to make it a bit faster. I've turned my Epiphone LP into a player's guitar for me and for the $400 budget I originally had, there is no better guitar than this.

Sure, I wish it had coil-tapping (those new LP Pros!) or they came with better pickups but there's no better value than this guitar. If you have a higher budget (say around $800) and definitely want an LP, do check out the Gibson LP studio. If you want an even BETTER guitar for the money, I'd highly highly recommend the PRS SE Custom 24 which is the best of both worlds combining single coil and humbucker sounds (and another recently acquired guitar).

But if you are barely getting into playing and want something that will keep working and working and for many applications and just crave to jam out to The Rover off of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, there's just no better guitar. I've used this for church, for gigs, for jamming, for practicing, for backups, for more professional venues...it just WORKS. I could own another 5 guitars but I'm keeping one of these in my collection. Even if I end up breaking it, I'd get myself another one. 5/5

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

This is my first electric guitar. As a beginner I didn't want to settle for a "starter" axe. The Epi. was a good choice. Mine is the plus top in Vintage burst. After eight days the guitar neck split between the fretboard and neck, on both sides of the neck, all the way up to the second fret. I did not purchase this guitar from Musicians Friend, but I want you to know my story. The on-line outlet handled my return with no problems. Six days later I received the new one. The guitar is all I can ask for. It plays well. The only draw back is the weight. Small problem. Epiphone did well to produce a nice piece.

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

Waited a long time for this to finally come off the production line. I got the Pelham blue model. It is everything you could want in a Les Paul. The finish is great and really impressed with the binding quality all the way up the neck - flawless. I play primarily through a Mesa Mini Rectifier into an Egnater 2x12 cab. Needless to say I can get about every tone imaginable from shimmery clean to ear bleeding gain. This guitar is awesome for both and everything in between. My biggest beef with Les Pauls has always been the tuning and I was worried that this guitar would have the same problems. I was very pleased however. The Grovers do a great job and though not perfect, the guitar stays in tune very well. I have an Epi Dot with the Grovers as well and they are great. As far as sound, my only tick would be with the Treble pup to me sounds slightly compressed and heavy on the mid punch, but that is how the pups are designed to sound, so I may check out more vintage type pups someday, but this is a splitting hair thing really. Overall they sound incredible. Great output, nice balance all around. Nothing sound wise I can't use for sure.
Bottom line, I would like to blind fold a purist and put this guitar in their hands and I would bet money that they wouldn't know it wasn't a high dollar instrument. It's that well built. The craftsmanship, components, sound, feel, etc. Epiphone knocked it out of the park with this one. It is heavy, but hey ... It's a Les Paul. The only difference is the price. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed with this guitar. It is Killer!

Comments about Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top Electric Guitar:

Getting back into playing and this
guitar is great for me! Fits me well,
sounds great. A little weighty.
Good buy.