Sweet all purpose guitar

OK, I’ve got nice guitars and precious ones, precious to me at least because I am no Rockefeller. And because I am not Rockefeller, I wanted to have a guitar I could carry without much anxiety of breaking something.

Apart from these considerations, I am a big fan of Les Pauls (if you still wondered) but also an esthete and a man full of contradictions.

Having all these parameters in hand, I headed to a Gibson Les Paul Standard T with its QuickConnect PCB (printed circuit board) offering the versatility of coil taping, pure bypass and phase reversal. As for the color, I chose something I didn’t have yet but stil in a “classical style” (pink is not for me): the Bourbon burst.

If you ever had a brand new Gibson USA guitar in hands, your nose must have been saturated by this famous vanilla smell. It was the case for me and I immediately associated this guitar to a piece of caramel that I would savor next to a warm fireplace while it’s cold and rainy outside.
From this image came the name of this guitar: ‘Autumn Treat’.
Furthermore, I like to customize my stuff, that’s why I added some white sugar crystals with a mother of pearl switch tip and mother of pearl tuner buttons.

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Far away, so close!

Today was our fifth day of confinement in France. 
It’s not easy being stuck in a small apartment with my wife and our 5 years old son but I don’t complain, this is only the beginning.
Luckily we love each other and care for each other a lot.
In this kind of situation, people reveal themselves. 
I just want to wish strength to those who are alone, or far from family, and of course for those who lost a beloved one.
Mines are sleeping right now and I grab my acoustic, just to change my mind and add another cover to my list.


Things will be different after that… in the best way I hope.
Take care!

The only guitar I didn’t mod (yet)

Time goes on, fortunately you get a bit wealthier and your dreams may become affordable… or close to.

Some years ago, I felt in love (again) with the 2009 Gibson Les Paul Billy Gibbons Pearly Gates 59′ VOS but my pockets were empty.
In 2017, looking at the classified, I found one of the non aged Pearlies in excellent condition. Unfortunately, the seller and I were not able to agree on the price. Since then I had never been able to make the idea of owning a 59 reissue sink again in the deep of my mind. That is how I brought myself to look for my R9.

I looked at several offers around the world and finally shorten my list to two candidates: a True Historic and a Standard Historic VOS, both new (I let you browse the Internet to look at the differences).

In the end, surprisingly for my guitar players (and Gibson’s LP addicted) mates, I chose the VOS. Why?

Well, what I can tell, is just that when I opened up the case of this one, I just said (or thought) “Wow…”. Sometimes, things happen just like that. The guitar may not have the true true vintage specs but something happened at te first sight: I knew that if I returned back this guitar I would regret it for the rest of my life.

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Why not?

Just set a simple picking for this Céline Dion’s song who was written by the famous Jean-Jacques Goldman French songwriter and singer.

I wanted to experiment a two guitars recording with this song, each one being paned on a different side. I used a different Line 6® Variax Acoustic 700 model for each side : the Parlor (based on the 1941 Martin® 5-17) and the Dreadnut (based on the 1960 Martin® D-21). Both are playing the same patterns, with very simple variations which resulted on something nice to my ears and my voice in the middle.

I made some progress on my producing skills which was the main goal of this exercise and of course I hope to do better the next times.

Gibson Les Paul CM 2016 serious upgrade

I felt in love with the Les Paul since Cloudbreaker as you may have understood if you had a look at my gear page…
Recently, I had been looking for a very simple guitar: one pickup, simple setup, light weight and not too expensive but has a killer look and a good sound.
As a good Gibson Les Paul fan, I though about a Melody Maker or a Junior and then while looking for splittables humbuckers for my SG, I saw the Lace Music Deathbucker : 😍!
I then started to look for a Gibson with a single humbucker.
At first I wanted to find a second hand SG-1 but I felt (in love with) on an LP CM 2016 T in perfect state an much cheaper. I had a look at Gibson’s because I didn’t know this model and… Bingo ! This was exactly what I was looking for without knowing it existed: LP shape, thin body, one humbucker.

Nevertheless, in my eternal quest for improvement, I decided to bring in some tonal or aesthetic upgrades to this guitar: 
• New headstock veneer with mother of pearl inlays of Gibson logo and Crown
• Blank Gibson bell trussrod cover
• ABM aluminium with chrome finish wraparound
• Schaller chrome tophat knobs
• Lace Music Alumitone Deathbucker Deceptor (Lace recommends 250kΩ pots and 22nF cap with the Alumitone “for better tone”)
• 250kΩ push/pull CTS pot to “split” the Alumitone on the tone knob 
• 250kΩ CTS pot for the volume control
• 22nF Orange drop capacitor
• Copper shielding of the control cavity and back plate
• Dunlop straplocks

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