Gibson 1954 Goldtop Single P90 Historic Reissue

Essentially a 2003 '54 Gold Top reissue, with the exception of having only ONE P-90 pickup instead of the usual two. Kind of like an up-scale Junior! Nice substantial neck profile..not a baseball bat exactly, but fills the hand well. The medium-size frets aren't historically accurate, but they sure feel better than the tiny vintage ones. Comes with the black Historic case, which is a little different than the regular production brown Les Paul cases...slightly more streamlined, and without the goofy combination lock that no one actually uses (and that provides absolutely no real security at all). Has the Custom Shop certificate, too.

Sounds like...uhhh, a Gold Top with a P-90! I've always liked P-90's..they're versatile and retain good definition whether clean or dirty. I can actually get some almost Tele-like twang out of this guitar when the amp is tweaked right..except with an added "richness" to the tone. I REALLY like how this guitar sounds. It seems to like about any amp, and for a one-pickup guitar, it can be quite versatile if you're the kind of player that likes to get their tone from their hands, and work the volume and tone knob a bit. Probably not a heavy-metal kind of axe, but if you're into classic rock, blues, pop, etc., this guitar sounds great.

Talk about simplicity..! OK..you have one pickup, two knobs, and a one-piece wraparound bridge/tailpiece. First Gibson I've bought in a while that didn't need a fret job. The finish and binding are right-on. I changed out the generic disc cap on the tone pot to an old 50's type I had laying around, which smoothed out the tone a little. Them P-90's got a bite! Nice fast neck. The P-90 is a little noisy, as single-coils are, but no more than any Fender. The only complaint I really have in this category would be the way they did the neck joint; normally another pickup would be there to cover that area, but with the neck/body area being exposed, there's a depression in the finish that CLEARLY shows the outline of the neck tenon. Surely they could have smoothed the wood out to one level before they sprayed it! Gibson kills me sometimes with the details that they overlook on their high-priced stuff.

Play it live a lot...solid as a rock (it IS a Les Paul!). Finish is thin, which is vintage-accurate. That doesn't bother me, because it's one of the things I like about vintage guitars, and I think it helps them AND the reissues sound better. This comes without a pickguard ever having been attached, by the way, so I'm already seeing a little wear from picking, but...who cares? My guitars get played, not put on display or stuck under the bed. I take this out without backup all the time..no problem there.

Bought it used. If it ever needs repaired, I doubt I'd deal with Gibson..more likely fix it myself or find a local qualified person. I can't imagine anything really going wrong with this guitar as far as normal use is concerned. I hope I live long enough to wear something out on this guitar!

I've been playing 42 years, have about 12 guitars..a few other Gibsons too..a few different Dr. Z amps, and just use basic Boss pedals and a Budda Wah. I like all my guitars, but have a few "favorites", and this is one of them. It's NOT for sale or trade, and if stolen or lost, I think I'd have a hard time replacing it, as they're kind of rare. Not sure how many the "limited run" was..I think 100..maybe less. It plays great and all that, but man...what a tone! I'm sure there are regular '54 reissues out there that sound great too, but the "cool factor" of it being rare and the Junior-like simplicity of it give it an extra bit of....something. Are the Gibson Custom Shop guitars in general over-hyped and over-priced? Yes. So are Fenders. So are Harleys. I wanted it, I paid for it, now I'm gonna play my money's worth out of it!

Made in 2003. From the Gibson Historic/Custom collection; a basic 1954 goldtop reissue, maple top, mahogany back and neck, rosewood fingerboard. Wraparound bridge/tailpiece combo unit-I guess that's good for authenticity but for intonation it's not acceptable. Special ordered by the retailer Dave's Guitars in Wisconsin with a single P90 in the bridge position-apparently a special run done just for this dealer from a concept by Billy Gibbons. Very streamlined and sparse look based on what's not there-namely just one pickup and the lack of additional vol and tone and pickguard. Neck carve is 50s rounded style-very substantial and comfortable. Case,cord, and casecandy included. But to prove that Gibson isn't paying attention to what they pack in the case, the accesory pack included a replacement toggle switch cap for the pickup selector. Thanks-but not really necessary for a 1 pickup guitar. The simple look of a Jr. but wrapped in the body of a carved top goldtop is what grabbed me. The tone put me over the edge. Pics and a videoclip of it being used live are up at www.flumetheband.com after I had some work done on it...more below.

I'm getting more into warm and dry sounds with some bite. So a Les Paul with P90s was on my radarscope. I had my SonicCord Bantam combo amp with me when I saw this guitar-plugged straight in-no pedals, and I was getting those warm, dark, midrange heavy sounds I was pursuing. It also works great with the Cage KT66 head and 2x12 cab (aka Sloan) that Pete Cage made for me. It is fully capable of producing some undesireable tones though-the P90 can be overly shrill and become a knitting needle right through your eardrum. Pulling down the treble and boosting the bass and mids is necessary. From there I work the vol knob and can start finding lots of subtle shadings of useful tones. The tone knob needs to be replaced-Gibson still hasn't been willing to upgrade their pots-the taper is nonexistent. At 7-8 you can hear the static "glitch" where it essentially rolls between clear-and then into mud. This is a particular guitar where smoother taper would render more musically useful tones given the single P90 limitation. So to get more mileage out of it, I'll be upgrading that soon-and perhaps the pickup itself too. But it was getting a handful of good sounds out of the gate that I knew would work with the bands material - but it could be so much more once I get it upgraded as I did the tailpiece.

I was also able to try it out with several of Cage's el84 amps and found a world of great tones, mild grit dialed in-using the vol knob to shift the shading around from light to heavy-very effective and dead on simple.

I was moderately impressed with the setup-which typically is laughable from Gibson, even on their overhyped custom/historic series but I knew it would be better with an intonatable bridge. The nut also needed to be recut. I had a qualified luthier do that, and install a TonePros wraparound 1 piece unit. I can now play in tune above the 5th fret (wow!) and there is a slight increase in resonance/bass response due to the better coupling in the TonePros locking studs. Gibson did a nice job on the fretwork and neck-and the goldtop finish is perfect-no issues there. Just wish they'd pay attention to the tone pots and consider upgrading their hardware from vintage-correct to higher performing modern innovations like the TonePros.

Gigged with it several times - no issues now that I've upgraded it and the tuning stability is much improved with the TonePros. I expect it will be durable and just need basic setup work as the seasons change.

Daves Guitar in WI is very cool to work with. Hats off to them for specc'ing out this custom order and continuing to stock them. I haven't contacted Gibson about anything on the guitar other than send in the warranty card which I can't remember how long it lasts. I don't expect lots of customer care from Gibson themselves if I ever need it.

Been playing about 20 years. Had several Les Pauls over the years and this one is unique - would be hard to replace. I love the warm tones that it can get with the right amp. I do wish Gibson would take a hard look at their hardware and update it-but that was a known going into it. I was also looking at reissue Jrs but I am more comfortable with a carved top and the neck on this one was the carve I like-big and round all the way from nut to neck joint. I wanted to let the honeymoon period cool down and get some gigs under its belt before reviewing it. It responds well to different amps-but makes you work a bit to dial out the high end first. Not problematic to handle, but it does take a few seconds to adapt its tone to what room/situation I'm in before finding a tone that works. So in the end you can get some great sounds despite looking like a one-trick pony and that's part of the charm factor that endures with it.