The Gibson Les Paul Modern Studio is designed to serve as a sleek evolution of the Les Paul Studio, offering improved features such as a bound ebony fretboard, Modern Contoured Heel, and additional switching for control over phase and pure bypass.
Part of the Modern Collection, which also includes the recently introduced Les Paul Modern Lite and Les Paul Modern Figured models, the Les Paul Modern Studio incorporates improvements and enhanced features, many taken directly from the Les Paul Modern, including a bound ebony fretboard with a compound radius for improved action and enhanced playability, a Modern Contoured Heel for exceptional upper-fret access, black nickel hardware, and in addition to coil tapping, additional switching for control over phase and pure bypass. The Les Paul Modern Studio is available in a Wine Red Satin, Smokehouse Satin, and Worn White finish, a soft shell guitar case is included with this no-nonsense, high-performance tone machine.
Gibson Les Paul Modern Lite, Figured, Studio & Supreme Demo ft. Jim DeCola
Features
• Bound ebony fretboard with a compound radius for improved action and playability
• Modern Contoured Heel for exceptional upper-fret access
• New black nickel hardware
• Coil tapping with additional switching for control over phase and pure bypass
Gibson Les Paul Modern Studio Electric Guitar - Smokehouse Satin
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Before electrics became branded in the mainstream as typically solidbodies, there were some early 20th-century models that explored alternate avenues.
When you close your eyes and imagine an electric guitar, chances are you see something like a Stratocaster or a Les Paul: a solidbody, a few pickups, a metal bridge. But in the early 20th century, such popular features were yet to be codified by builders as a part of guitarists’ collective imagination.
Back in the early fervor of electric guitar design, builders experimented out of necessity, trying to create working instruments by any means. When studying these guitars today, their choices might seem strange, but they present many wonderful “what-ifs” or guitar-building roads not taken.
qThe instrument we have here is such a guitar: a 1933 Vivi-Tone. This exact specimen appears in Lynn Wheelwright and Nacho Baños’ The Pinecaster: Early Electric Guitars (1920-1955), which explores the “what-if” history of this period in captivating detail.
“When studying these guitars today, their choices can seem strange, but they present many wonderful ‘what-ifs’ or guitar-building roads not taken.”
Vivi-Tone was a company founded in the early 1930s with the express purpose of manufacturing electric instruments—not just guitars, but violins, cellos, mandolins, and even an electric piano. Interestingly, its co-founder and chief inventor was Lloyd Loar, who in the 1920s famously created Gibson acoustic archtops and mandolins that are prized to this day.
A sliding drawer built into the guitar’s body allows access to the pickup, which is set up under the bridge.
By the ’30s, however, Loar wanted to bring out “pure string tone,” as he called it, through the power of amplification. His patented pickup, which can be found in this 1933 guitar and throughout the Vivi-Tone lineup, works in a distinct way from modern pickups. Here, the bridge itself rests on top of a metal bar that is ever-so-slightly suspended over an electro-magnetic pickup system. When the strings move the bridge, the bridge moves the bar, and the resulting current goes out to the amp. While most modern guitar pickups require metal strings to work, Loar’s Vivi-Tone design could work with any material, steel or gut.
The very first Vivi-Tones, released in 1932, were strikingly revolutionary. Loar, with a utilitarian spirit, did not give them much of a body at all. The skeletal design supported the pickup system, neck, and a thin body that featured only a decorative top—there were no back or sides. However, in ’33, public sentiment forced the company to at least pretend their instruments were traditional. So, the then-newly built Vivi-Tones came with a full acoustic body like you see in this model, which features a spruce top and back, and composite sides. The pickup system can be accessed through a sliding drawer built into the guitar’s body.
Before they folded in 1937, Vivi-Tone built just around 600 instruments.
Thanks to another twist of ingenuity, you can actually play this guitar as an acoustic. The contraption you see by the bridge is a lever you can use to separate the bridge from the internal pickup, cutting off any flow of electrons. Perhaps because the internal spine, pickup, and lever made the top too rigid, the guitar’s back is its own resonating soundboard as well. It not only features two f-holes, but is actually inset from the sides so that a player’s body doesn’t press upon it or interfere with its vibrations.
Up for sale by Reverb seller Jay Rosen Music, this 1933 Vivi-Tone (serial number 220) is one of around 600 instruments built by Vivi-Tone before it shuttered in 1937. When new, this guitar likely sold for around $175. Today, being a surviving example in excellent condition—with its original pickup cable still intact—it’s listed for $10,500.
Sources: The Pinecaster: Early Electric Guitars (1920-1955) by Lynne Wheelwright and Nacho Baños, Reverb listings.PG’s John Bohlinger joins Derek Wells in the studio to check out the decorated Nashville hit-maker’s recording rig, which includes a custom-built pedalboard and a six-pack of tube amps.
It might actually be easier to list the artists Derek Wells hasn’t worked with, than the ones with whom he has.
The Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist and producer has lent a hand to more than 100 number one singles over the years, with household staples like Kenny Chesney, Maren Morris, Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, even Shakira. He’s also piled up production credits with artists like Hardy, Lainey Wilson, Maddie & Tae, and Scotty McCreery, and over the years he’s collected a flashy mantle’s-worth of awards: the Academy of Country Music named Wells their Guitar Player of the Year two times, and he was MusicRow’s 2022 Guitarist of the Year.
Wells invited PG’s John Bohlinger to the studio to run down his main recording rig.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
Make It Rain
“The Money Maker” is Wells’ 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG with original PAF pickups.
Twang Town
Wells’ 1953 Fender Telecaster features a Fralin neck pickup and a Fender lap steel pickup in the bridge.
Golden Hour
This 2008 goldtop Gibson Les Paul also sports a Fralin in the neck position, while a vintage PAF pickup holds down the bridge.
Atkins Diet
Wells’ sharp 2003 Gretsch 6120 runs TV Jones FilterTron pickups.
Red Rider
This bloody good 2000s Danelectro Baritone has been upgraded with custom saddles and bridge from Jeff Senn.
Black Cat
Last but not least, Wells’ 2000s Duesenberg Double Cat is dressed up with an Asher Double Palm Bender.
The Magnificent Six
When Wells goes into a studio session, he doesn’t travel light. This time, he’s brought six trusty friends with him: a Supro Black Magick head, a 1960 Fender Tweed Deluxe, a ’67 50-watt Marshall Plexi, a Matchless HC-30 from 1996, a 1961 white knob Fender Bassman, and a quirky custom amp titled The Knob.
This heavy-hitting tonal bullpen runs through either a Matchless 1x12 or a Bogner 4x12.Drowned In Tape
Wells’ amp rack houses a gorgeous old Roland Chorus Echo RE-501, while the rest of his effects are on his pedalboard built by Nashville’s XAct Tone Solutions (XTS).
XTS Ecstasy
XTS constructed Wells’ do-it-all-and-then-some board utilizing a Gig Rig G3 Switching System. Right now, the stomp headquarters includes a Line 6 M9, Strymon’s Mobius and Timeline, a Mission Engineering Expressionator, Electro-Harmonix’s Micro Synth, a MXR Bass Compressor, and doubles of the Boss GE-7 Equalizer (which have both been modded by XTS). Wells gets his dirt from an Ibanez MT10 Mostortion, a REVV Shawn Tubbs Tilt Overdrive, XTS’ own Winford Drive, and Xotic’s RC Booster. A modded Digitech XP series pedal, a Boss FV-500H, and a Dunlop DVP3 round out the collection.