Indie Guitar Company ILP5 FDL

Indie FDL Custom Shop Model, A one off spec guitar built at my request in the original factory. It follows the same spec as a normal guitar for body and woods etc but has Mini Humbucker pickups and all gold hardwear. I wanted a Les Paul Deluxe but thet ones I tried were crap, so My local shop ordered me an Indie!

Sounds a bit browner than your usual les paul but doesn't lackkany grunt in fact it is great guitar with an awesome sound and fill the gap between humbucker and single coil nicely!

Outstanding guitar with great construction and finish! Well deserved pat on the back for the indie boys!

Never let me down, but perhaps a little weighty so I would always use a second guitar to save my back!

Indie boys were great and they listened to my spec and kept me updated all the way through the process! They bent over backwards to help and delivered a brilliant guitar!

If you want something different or special in the guitar world it pays to ask, Indie were phenominal and helped with my order and made a one off fantastic playing instrument!
Don't splash the cash on a name but go for quality and playability every time!

Indie FDL Custom Shop Model, A one off spec guitar built at my request in the original factory. It follows the same spec as a normal guitar for body and woods etc but has Mini Humbucker pickups and all gold hardwear. I wanted a Les Paul Deluxe but thet ones I tried were crap, so My local shop ordered me an Indie!

Sounds a bit browner than your usual les paul but doesn't lackkany grunt in fact it is great guitar with an awesome sound and fill the gap between humbucker and single coil nicely!

Outstanding guitar with great construction and finish! Well deserved pat on the back for the indie boys!

Never let me down, but perhaps a little weighty so I would always use a second guitar to save my back!

Indie boys were great and they listened to my spec and kept me updated all the way through the process! They bent over backwards to help and delivered a brilliant guitar!

If you want something different or special in the guitar world it pays to ask, Indie were phenominal and helped with my order and made a one off fantastic playing instrument!
Don't splash the cash on a name but go for quality and playability every time!

my indie is a pretty standard 2005 model, 2 volumes, 2 tones, pickup selector, les paul shape. firstly, i love the neck fitting, its just so comfy to play, the way it sweeps around with the shape of the body. its got a good quality top, and is really really thick. . . thicker than my les paul standard.

well i mostly play metal and hard rock in my band, but at home i quite often play acoustic style stuff and blues. i put my indie through a fender 15 watt at home. . .unless my parents are out, in which case i slam it into my marshall jcm2000 tsl60 head and cab. through the fender, the guitar sounds either muddy or sharp, depends on what your playing. however when played through my marshall, this guitar is truely in a differnet league. the harmonics literalli sing. the highs are so clear, even wen under distortion, yet i can still get the perfect chugging sound that i need for metal. when played clean through the marshall it just sounds amazing. i cant explain it its just perfect. make no mistakes, on sound alone the indie beats my gibson les paul standard hands down. the indie is deffinately my favorite sounding guitar.

well when i got this guitar, the setup was perfect, it was nice and low and the neck was extremely fast. the wood was of a great quality and i thought this guitar was built to last. HOWEVER. . . i have one slight problem. . . . the high e string keeps coming out of position on the neck. . . and there is a crack in the wood near the bass of the neck. something has happened and it has meant the sustain has gone down from almost 25 seconds!!!! to about 12. 12 seconds is still good enough for me thought, so its not that big of an issue. the high e string is tho. it means im unable to use my fav guitar for gigging. i cant even use it as a back up.

neck cracked! high e string comes out of place. this guitar has been gigged hard, but i expected it to be able to stand up to playing. i cant depend on this guitar live anymore :( but i have to clarify. this guitar is the onli guitar i use and need for recording. the tone is perfect. the finish is awesome though. hard as nuts.

i have no idea for this. my dealer was rubbish. stopped stocking indie so i could never find out who to contact

tone wise, sound wise, and looks wise. this guitar is awesome. its just reliability thats an issue. maybe i was just unlucky in the neck cracking and the high e string going dodgy. . . this guitar is by far the nicest sounding guitar ive played on. i went to the shop looking to buy a prs custom 22 or a les paul supreme. i ended up with this indie, as i cld simply not justify spending so much more money on guitars that are barely any better sounding. for sound alone i give this guitar a 10.

This is a Korean-made solid body guitar in the Les Paul style. It differs slightly from the Les Paul shape in that the upper part of the body opposite the ?horn? is angled back a tad towards the neck pickup, the angle following through to the lower ?horn?. (I hope that makes sense). A slight tweak on the Les Paul shape that is visually very effective, somewhat reminiscent of a Zemaitis Les Paul.

The body is solid mahogany with the most stunning figured maple top- the best I?ve yet to see. The two bookmatched pieces that make up the top are so figured with intricate patterns that they remind me of Wilfredo Lam human caricatures. The finish is ?Honeyburst?. Very very striking indeed. The rest of the guitar is finished in a wine-red colour, with backbinding in a white composite material. The front of the guitar, the neck, and the head are all bound with the same white composite, filled with abalone inlays all round the front edge of the body, the neck, and the head. The fret marker inlays are also abalone in graduated quasi-fleur-de-lys shapes.

I know that aesthetics are subjective, but to my mind, the overall effect of the abalone inlays and the figured maple top is absolutely stunning- a real looker of a guitar. Not too much abalone- just enough to bring out the looks.

The neck is very slim, through-body, made of maple, with a rosewood fretboard: 22 medium frets, radius unknown.

It?s a very slim, fast neck, that will feel very nice to a player who likes a ?V-neck?, but may feel slightly weird to a PRS player, or a ?C-neck? enthusiast. As a confirmed V-necker myself, it fitted me like a glove. Just to add that the neck is based on Gibson proportions, and is not a ?V-neck? in the Fender style. It will just better suit those who like a slim neck.

All the hardware is gold, bar the pickup surrounds, pots, and scratchplate, which are black.

The twin humbuckers are Indie?s own, and the bridge is a ?tunomatic? style.

My test rig: Gallien Krueger 250ML Series 2 with a 2x10 Celestion stereo extension cab.

The bridge pickup is super-smooth with an instant blues sound. Someone else described it as ?creamy? and I would say that is spot-on. Beautiful lead sounds with bags of sustain, if the tone pot is up. If the tone is taken right down to zero, there is some fading, particularly in the upper register, but I?m working on it by adjusting the relevant pickup pole pieces. Still not 100% though.

The neck pickup is an instant ?talker? when overdriven- all those human-like wailing and crying sounds come out straightaway, with no messing around. Nice bite.

The inbetween setting was a bit disappointing. As a confirmed ?chicken grease? player, there was not quite enough ?cluck? for my liking. I will experiment with pole piece adjustments, so maybe it?ll get there in the future, but at the moment, I?m using the GK?s inbuilt Compressor to accentuate the ?cluck?. Time will tell.

Okay. The negative: there is a strange acoustic anomaly with the tone pots, which I?ll try to describe. Pulling the tone pot off and on when the guitar is making a sound creates an horrific crackling noise, as if the pot is dirty. Both tone pots do this. When the guitar is not making any sound, both tone pots are as quiet as a mouse. Strange. I can get away with this in a live setting, but recording? Impossible. As a player who uses this tone on/off a lot, it is really annoying. Now.. I?m no electronics expert, far from it, but none of my other guitars does this, and I must admit it leaves me baffled.

Fit and finish are spot-on.. no gaps or rattling. The build quality is very good. As far as the action goes, it?s now beautiful, but was awful when I first got it. Whoever had set it up did not know their truss rod from their elbow? but now it?s fine.

Time will tell, but I can't foresee any problems.

I tried out an ILP5 at the Southampton (UK) Guitar Show, and a couple of days later, having tried some Gibson Les Pauls (?600-?2500), I decided to buy the Indie. I ended up buying one brand new from a bona fide ( I think!?) Music Shop on the Internet (eBay), but when it arrived, the pickup selector switch wasn?t working, and the action was awful? really much too low with tons of fret buzz and choking-off. I emailed Indie, and received a prompt reply to telephone them. So I did, and told them about the pickup selector and the action and they arranged for a courier to pick up the guitar. Now, I could easily have fixed the action myself, but decided not to, to see what the Indie guys would make of it. One week later it came back, with the action sorted 99%, but with the pickup selector still noisy, although now working in all other aspects. I ruminated whether to ?phone them again, but waited over the weekend, during which time the noise disappeared from the pickup selector switch! A few weeks later, it started to get noisy again, and then sorted itself again! Although I know that the Indie guys would look at it again, I?ll probably do it myself, if it needs sorting in the future. If it needs a new switch, it won?t be expensive to replace. For the moment it?s okay. My point is that the guys at Indie could not have been more helpful. Very good aftersales customer contact.

Likes: looks; build quality; sounds; playability; price.

Dislikes: no locking machines; no hard case; weak ?inbetween? pickup setting; no manual with maintenance and clearance instructions; strange tone pot acoustic anomaly.

I also own a Fender Strat Plus, a Fender Strat Ultra, a G&L Comanche, and a Fender Classic. I?ve been playing 36-ish years, and all-in-all, I would recommend the Indie ILP5 to a player looking for that humbucker sound in a stunning-looking package, but who baulks at paying big moolah for a Gibson or PRS. Definitely worth checking out, but bearing in mind what I?ve written, make sure you check it out fully before buying..

..and don?t forget to budget in the cost of a good hard case. This beautiful guitar surely needs one, but unfortunately doesn?t come with one included.

There is currently a Music Shop on eBay selling this guitar brand new for ?300.. and no bids! Feeling a bit miffed that, had I waited a couple of months, I could have saved myself over ?100.. but a bargain awaits someone.

For that price, this guitar is a steal.

1994 model - thank you Santa for my early present! Made in South Korea, 22 frets, Quilted maple top (looks the dogs b'llcks) with mother of pearl inlay around the edge and continued on the neck, hard maple neck, joint set therein. Rosewood fretboard, diecast gold hardware. 2 x HB pickups, 3-way switch and 2 each of tone and volume. Tune-o-matic bridge. Looks like a Les Paul but scooped out a little more right at the high end of the neck. Check out Indie's website for a nice pic. All the features I want for both lead and rhythm. No accessories at all included, hence the 9.

I use a Laney MXD120 head on a home-built custom bodgit stack with 4 x 12 inch speakers, one of which is about to go bang I think.

I like the Laney because of the effects provided. There are 2 super chorus sounds and the flanger is great for those moody moments where you pick the individual notes of chords. Then you can hit the crunch button and sound like you have 2,000 watts instead of 200. The crunch is controlable as well. But this is not an amp review.

With the switch over on treble, the flanger can sound a bit tinny high up. With the switch back on "rhythm" and crunch introduced, then you get the buzzing chord sound. The guitar seems to be capable of absolutely anything. I don't quite have the action where I want it yet because I am missing a few notes when playing on the hurry-up but I think it is personal more than the guitar

I bought it from a main dealer and they were brilliant. I have lessons with one of the guys there and we spent a while messing with it to get it where I wanted it. They didn't let me have it until they had given it a PDI, which pretty-much involved the guy playing it! But all the same, they made sure it was ready. The finish was perfect because this shop looks after their stuff and doesn't let all the schoolkids in to mess around - as such, they all hang around the shopping mall picking their noses all day. Bookmatch is near I have to say, not identical but then we're dealing with maple here. No flaws with it but then it should be so at that price.

Yes, I plan to use it live. The strings are a bit heavy for my liking but then again, they won't break every 2 minutes. I think it will last although the varnish will probably go dull over time. I think I could depend on it with a backup. My stack is the weak part in my equation!

Not required from the company. The dealer is great though. Although Indie don't give you anything, I came away with a pocket full of picks, a soft case, a thin strap and a lead. I'll probably upgrade the case to a hard one but I know how these things bounce around in the back of the car.

I know I should not probably admit to this but it was the look that attracted me before anything else. As it happens, it plays like it looks.