Nashville, TN (March 27, 2013) -- Gibson recently announced the release of the Joe Perry 1959 Les Paul, based on Perry's original–serial number 9-0663. Here are the details from Gibson's website:
Of all the great original 1959 Standards out there—a pretty small number to begin with—Joe Perry’s own Les Paul has long been acclaimed as one of the finest. The rich, road-worn character of this guitar, serial number 9-0663, is utterly moving, and it seems to throb with the wealth of music and experience earned over decades of being played on stages and in recording studios around the world. In Joe’s own words, “It’s got everything a great Les Paul is supposed to have. The neck isn’t quite as fat as, say, a ’54 Goldtop, but it’s still got a good, meaty neck. It’s not a high-output guitar, so it’s got a lot of tone… And it’s got all the natural sustain and warmth, and when you turn it up it growls.” As stunning a tone monster as this guitar is, however, the story of its passage in and out of Perry’s hands over the years is equally riveting. Slash, Boston area guitar legend Billy Loosigian, and Eric Johnson have all owned number 9-0663 over the years, as it did the rounds through the various ups and downs of Aerosmith’s career. Once it was clear that Joe had made the shift from struggling to thriving as an artist, he sought to recapture his most cherished axe for good. Many years, many phone calls, and many near misses later, this amazing 1959 Les Paul returned to the man who seemed destined to call it his own.
Thanks to Gibson Custom and Joe Perry, you can now own the closest possible thing to Joe’s most prized guitar, in the form of one of a very limited run of replicas based on exclusive access to the original. The Joe Perry 1959 Les Paul was created from painstaking examination and measurement of the original guitar, and delivers the full tone, feel, and look of this highly prized ’Burst. It is available now in a limited run of 50 guitars aged and hand-signed by the artist, 100 aged guitars, and 150 finished in Gibson’s VOS process.
Gibson Custom has gone to great lengths with the Joe Perry 1959 Les Paul to create a guitar that possesses the very spirit of the original. The recreation starts with a solid, one-piece premium lightweight mahogany body married to a hand-selected maple top. The guitar is finished in an exclusive Faded Tobacco Burst with Historic “Vintage” aniline red and dark walnut dye on the back, sides, and back of the neck, just like the original The hand-aged examples show characteristic wear that authentically matches the playing wear on the original, while the VOS guitars display a gently-aged patina in the finish and hardware. The neck is carved from a single piece of quarter-sawn mahogany and profiled to a full and sweetly rounded ’59 shape derived from precise measurement of Joe’s own guitar, then topped with a one-piece rosewood fingerboard inlaid with period-correct cellulose trapezoids. A set of Kluson Deluxe tuners, a lightweight aluminum stopbar tailpiece, and ABR-1 bridge complete a period-correct hardware complement, while vintage cream binding, gold Top Hat knobs, and a cream plastic pickguard enhance the guitar’s vintage looks.
The Joe Perry 1959 Les Paul sounds every bit as phenomenal as it looks and feels, thanks to a pair of Custombucker humbucking pickups designed to closely match the original PAFs in Joe’s guitar. Each is made with an Alnico 3 magnet and wound with accurate plain-enamel 42 AWG plain-enamel wire to specs determine by close measurement of the original pickups, with a neck pickup that reads around 8k ohms and bridge pickup that’s slightly hotter at 8.5k ohms for plenty of authentic growl. Controls include the traditional independent volume and tones, with “bumble bee” tone caps on the latter, and a three-way Switchcraft™ axial toggle selector. Put it all together, and it’s like making this well-traveled, rock-history-making Les Paul your very own—but the Joe Perry 1959 Les Paul is only available in strictly limited numbers, so reserve yours now at your authorized Gibson Custom dealer.
Each guitar includes a Brown Custom Shop hardshell case, along with Certificate of Authenticity, owner’s manual and adjustment literature, and Gibson Custom’s Limited Lifetime Warranty and 24/7/365 Customer Service.
Faded Tobacco Burst Faded/Signed MSRP $18,821
Faded Tobacco Burst Aged MSRP $15,292
Faded Tobacco Burst VOS MSRP $10,351
For more information:
Gibson
Revv G3 Purple Channel Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal - Anniversary Edition
The Revv G3 revolutionized high gain pedals in 2018 with its tube-like response & tight, clear high gain tones. Suddenly the same boutique tones used by metal artists & producers worldwide were available to anyone in a compact pedal. Now the G3 returns with a new V2 circuit revision that raises the bar again.
If 3 Were 6
With six times the controls found on the 1 and 2 versions (if you discount the original’s on/off slider switch,) the LPB-3’s control complement offers pre-gain, boost, mid freq, bass, treble, and mid knobs, with a center detent on the latter three so you can find the midpoint easily. A mini-toggle labeled “max” selects between 20 dB and 33 dB of maximum gain, and another labeled “Q” flips the resonance of the mid EQ between high and low. Obviously, this represents a significant expansion of the LPB’s capabilities.
More than just a booster with a passive tone, the LPB-3 boasts a genuine active EQ stage plus parametric midrange section, comprising the two knobs with shaded legends, mid freq and mid level. The gain stages have also been reimagined to include a pre-gain stage before the EQ, which enables up to 20 dB of input gain. The boost stage that follows the EQ is essentially a level control with gain to allow for up to 33 dB of gain through the LPB-3 when the “max” mini toggle is set to 33dB
A slider switch accessible inside the pedal selects between buffered or true bypass for the hard-latch footswitch. An AC adapter is included, which supplies 200mA of DC at 9.6 volts to the center-negative power input, and EHX specifies that nothing supplying less than 120mA or more than 12 volts should be used. There’s no space for an internal battery.
Power-Boosted
The LPB-3 reveals boatloads of range that betters many linear boosts on the market. There’s lots of tone-shaping power here. Uncolored boost is available when you want it, and the preamp gain knob colors and fattens your signal as you crank it up—even before you tap into the massive flexibility in the EQ stage.
“The preamp gain knob colors and fattens your signal as you crank it up—even before you tap into the massive flexibility in the EQ stage.”
I found the two mid controls work best when used judiciously, and my guitars and amps preferred subtle changes pretty close to the midpoint on each. However, there are still tremendous variations in your mid boost (or scoop, for that matter) within just 15 or 20 percent range in either direction from the center detent. Pushing the boost and pre-gain too far, particularly with the 33 dB setting engaged, can lead to some harsh sounds, but they are easy to avoid and might even be desirable for some users that like to work at more creative extremes.
The Verdict
The new LPB-3 has much, much more range than its predecessors, providing flexible preamp, boost, and overdrive sounds that can be reshaped in significant ways via the powerful EQ. It gives precise tone-tuning flexibility to sticklers that like to match a guitar and amp to a song in a very precise way, but also opens up more radical paths for experimentalists. That it does all this at a $129 price is beyond reasonable.
Electro-Harmonix Lpb-3 Linear Power Booster & Eq Effect Pedal Silver And Blue
