In
crafting the Les Paul Custom Lite, Gibson USA starts with time-tested
ingredients, including the legendary tonewood pairing of a carved
maple top and genuine mahogany body, the latter treated with Gibson’s
traditional weight relief to reduce the load and enhance resonance.
The quarter-sawn mahogany neck is carved to a rounded ’50s profile
and topped with a Grade-A, rosewood fingerboard with single-ply
binding and classic acrylic block inlays. The body and headstock are
trimmed in multi-ply binding, and the headstock carries an Acrylic
Gibson logo and traditional acrylic split-diamond inlay.
Gibson
LE 2016 Les Paul Classic Custom Lite Features
Carved Maple top, mahogany back and sides
Mahogany neck with rounded '50s profile
Rosewood fingerboard with acrylic split-diamond inlays
Powerful 490R and 498T humbucking pickups in the neck and bridge positions
Gold plated Grover keystone tuners with 16:1 ratio
The
beauty of this gorgeous white Les Paul Custom Lite is more than skin
deep, and Gibson USA has also packed added versatility into the
traditional formula. Two of Gibson’s most popular humbucking
pickups from the Modern Classics series offer all the tone that made
the Les Paul legendary in the first place with two tone controls and
two volume controls as well as a 3-position pickup selector. The 490R
in the neck position is made with a genuine Alnico II magnet and
wound with 42 AWG wire in the image of the original PAF humbuckers,
for plenty of depth and warmth with impressive articulation.
The
498T in the bridge position has an Alnico V magnet and extra turns of
coil wire for added punch and growl. A traditional Tune-o-matic
bridge and stopbar tailpiece enhance the sustain that has long made
the Les Paul legendary, and a set of Grover keystone tuners—all in
gold, as are the pickup covers and strap buttons—ensure a lifetime
of smooth tunings. Check out the Les Paul Custom Lite today, from
Gibson USA, and grab a more comfortable hunk of that classic
elegance.
When
guitar star Les Paul and Gibson president Ted McCarty sat down at the
start of the 1950s to design a revolutionary new solidbody electric
guitar, they originally envisioned two versions of the Les Paul
Model: a ‘standard,’ which arrived first in the Goldtop of 1952,
and a black Custom model with gold hardware, intended to be the creme
de la creme. The 1954 Custom debuted with two single-coil pickups,
but McCarty had already set Seth Lover and a team of Gibson designers
the task of developing a revolutionary new humbucking pickup, which
first hit the scene on the Les Paul Custom and Les Paul Goldtop in
1957. While the Les Paul Custom has always been a supremely elegant
instrument—a ‘black tie’ guitar for the formal crowd, as Les
originally conceived it—many have come off the line over the years
considerably heavier than the typical Les Paul Standard.