Close-up pics of my Gibson USA LP Studio guitar.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

Having lived with my Gibson USA LP Studio guitar for what seems like a couple of years now, I'll have to say this, sorry Gibson but this particular LP Studio guitar has turned out to be an expensive lemon, reason being is that I can't for the life of me get it to stay in tune and play in tune, I've just spent a bit of time trying to get the intonation for all the strings set correctly and I've come to the conclusion that it's futile because of a couple of issues to do with the positioning of the bridge itself, firstly, the bridge seems to be positioned about 1 to 1.5mm too close to the high e-string side of the neck, secondly, I measured the scale-length (24.75 inch) and the bridge appears to be positioned a bit too far towards the bridge pickup, all the saddles seem to want to be set closer and closer towards the bridge pickup, the strings are fairly new too.

A couple of things I've noticed about the headstock is that the G,B, and high E-string tuners seem to be positioned a bit too close to the edge of the headstock, maybe about 1mm or so, this means that these strings have a bit more sideways kink to them (the B and high E-String are the worst offenders)than the low E,A, and D-strings, because of that the strings tend to bind in the nut slots, no wonder I've had no success with replacing the original Corian nut with Graphtech Tusq nuts, a real Bone nut, a Brass nut and a Zero Glide Nut, secondly, I think Gibson made the neck on my LP Studio with far too much back-angle which is also causing the strings to bind due to too much downwards force on the nut, put simply, I reckon the guitar was badly made at the Gibson factory to begin with, and I paid $2000.00 for this expensive lemon of a guitar?, it really should have costed only $50.00 at best, a friend of mine who serviced my Marshall amp even reckons I paid too much for it too.

So, sorry Gibson USA, this will be the very last one of your guitars I will ever buy, and I was contemplating buying an LP Standard when I could afford one, the only good thing about my LP Studio was the pickups.

[Dedman]

I wished my control cavities were than neat! That's a gorgeous guitar Doc. Sorry to hear about the issues

[DrNomis_44]

I wished my control cavities were than neat! That's a gorgeous guitar Doc. Sorry to hear about the issues

I agree, it's a gorgeous looking guitar, but that and the pickups are really all that's good about it, I just wished that it played and stayed in tune gorgeously too, it should have for the money I paid for it, I did some googling on LP tuning issues and apparently even Gibson instruments costing up to $5000.00 aren't without quality issues either, there's apparently lots of unhappy Gibson customers.

[Dedman]

Probably why the Tokai's and Fujigens are so popular, twice the quality for 1/3rd the price. Both Fender and Gibson are trading on past glories and misplaced patriotism (by the US buyers) I think. The days of Made in America actually meaning anything positive are long gone unless it comes from a custom luthier I think.

[wokkaboy]

I agree Deddy, I wouldn't buy a current Gibbo or Fender axe, the quality of the builds has dropped over the years.
Doc I'd get it playing as good as you can and sell it and try and recoup as much of your 2 grand as you can

[andrewdosborne]

Agree with Woks strategy. You probably have done so already but did you take a good look at the saddle set up? Sometimes the break angle is too steep

[Simon Barden]

There shouldn't be any guitar that's properly built that can't be made to stay in tune. I've had a number of Gibsons pass through my hands (some mine, some other peoples) and all of them have been OK with regards to tuning and stability once set up. Gibson did change their standard neck angle fairly recently, increasing it slightly, which meant that the pickups, bridge and tailpiece all stood a lot higher from the body. My mate's LP Studio with P90s had a ridiculously high bridge as a result, and I had to lower the stop-piece tail and put the strings in backwards and then wrap the strings over the top in order to get a decent break angle without the tailpiece being too high. I also wrapped PTFE plumbers tape around the insert threads of the bridge and tailpiece so that there was no mechanical play in the threads. Without that they did rather wobble about, which wouldn't help tuning stability.

On my 1995 Jimmy Page model LP, the tailpiece is screwed right down to the wood and the bridge isn't very far off the body. The tuning on that is as solid as a rock.

My 2014 Les Paul Melody Maker has a wrap-round bridge and that stays in tune.

Even my Flying V with a maestro trem stays in tune (after some fettling and using the PTFE tape).

Like Pablo, I also had a LP DC faded, which I think was a 2004 model which I bought used, early in 2006.



It's only real drawback was the thin whippy neck, rather like an SGs. Like an SG you could hold the body, shake the guitar and hear the tuning change. But it would generally stay in tune and sounded great. I gave it to my nephew for his 18th birthday.

Can you take a sideways-on picture of the bridge and tailpiece, Doc? As Andrew says, the break angle is important and too shallow or too steep (the strings shouldn't touch the rear edge of the bridge) can have an impact on stability.

Also, if you really loosen or remove all the strings, do the bridge and tail posts screws have a lot of slack in them? If so, it's worth trying my PTFE/Teflon tape trick. It's cheap to do and easily reversible. Doesn't seem to affect the string earthing either.

[DrNomis_44]

There shouldn't be any guitar that's properly built that can't be made to stay in tune. I've had a number of Gibsons pass through my hands (some mine, some other peoples) and all of them have been OK with regards to tuning and stability once set up. Gibson did change their standard neck angle fairly recently, increasing it slightly, which meant that the pickups, bridge and tailpiece all stood a lot higher from the body. My mate's LP Studio with P90s had a ridiculously high bridge as a result, and I had to lower the stop-piece tail and put the strings in backwards and then wrap the strings over the top in order to get a decent break angle without the tailpiece being too high. I also wrapped PTFE plumbers tape around the insert threads of the bridge and tailpiece so that there was no mechanical play in the threads. Without that they did rather wobble about, which wouldn't help tuning stability.

On my 1995 Jimmy Page model LP, the tailpiece is screwed right down to the wood and the bridge isn't very far off the body. The tuning on that is as solid as a rock.

My 2014 Les Paul Melody Maker has a wrap-round bridge and that stays in tune.

Even my Flying V with a maestro trem stays in tune (after some fettling and using the PTFE tape).

Like Pablo, I also had a LP DC faded, which I think was a 2004 model which I bought used, early in 2006.



It's only real drawback was the thin whippy neck, rather like an SGs. Like an SG you could hold the body, shake the guitar and hear the tuning change. But it would generally stay in tune and sounded great. I gave it to my nephew for his 18th birthday.

Can you take a sideways-on picture of the bridge and tailpiece, Doc? As Andrew says, the break angle is important and too shallow or too steep (the strings shouldn't touch the rear edge of the bridge) can have an impact on stability.

Also, if you really loosen or remove all the strings, do the bridge and tail posts screws have a lot of slack in them? If so, it's worth trying my PTFE/Teflon tape trick. It's cheap to do and easily reversible. Doesn't seem to affect the string earthing either.

Yep, I can take a sideways pic of the bridge and tailpiece of my LP Studio for you, I've got the string action at the 12th fret set as per Gibson factory specs and both the bridge and tailpiece are sitting above the body due to the neck angle, hang on a sec and I'll take a pic for you so you can see for yourself.


Here we go, first here's a pic of the bridge and tailpiece, I've got the bridge set to Gibson factory specs, and the tailpiece is set so that the strings are not touching the bridge, see how high I had to adjust it?:



Here's a pic showing how the intonation for each string ended up after tweaking it for some time today, it still isn't correct, some of the saddles still want to be adjusted closer to the bridge pickup, I measured the scale-length and the mark on my steel ruler at the 24.75 inch point ends up closer to the tailpiece side of the bridge, and the strings are relatively new too:



And finally here's a pic looking down at the fretboard near where the neck joins the body, notice how the high E-string looks closer to the edge of the neck, either the bridge is mis-aligned with the neck or vice-versa:

[andrewdosborne]

Hey Doc just a quick thought have you tried having turning the bridge around it should give you a few more mm's for intonation?

[DrNomis_44]

Hey Doc just a quick thought have you tried having turning the bridge around it should give you a few more mm's for intonation?

Yep, I tried that, and it didn't really make much difference, I'm sure that I'm going through the intonation-adjustment procedure correctly, it's just that the position of the saddles seems to indicate that there's something wrong somewhere, I wonder if the neck is still any good, it doesn't appear to have any twists or excessive bowing/warping in it, I've got the neck relief set to give a .012 inch clearance at the 7th and 8th fret for the two E-Strings when a capo is placed just behind the 1st fret and each e-string is fretted at the 17th fret, everything checks out, yet the string-intonation for each string seems to be very difficult to set correctly, and even when I think I've got it all set correctly it still sounds out, I've even tried taking the strings off and putting a brand-new set of strings right out of the plastic bag on the guitar, the strings are 46-10 gauge DAddarios, and even then the intonation is a hit-and-miss affair.

The installed tuning machines are a set of new locking Kluson Revolutions.