Gibson Les Paul Junior Review
By Paul White
Whenever Paul succumbs to his guitar-buying urges and takes away a new six-string, we like to know exactly how he’s gotten on with it on stage and in the studio. His most recent purchase, fortunately, is a much-loved classic.
I don’t know about you but I’ve always had a soft spot for the various incarnations of the Les Paul Junior as they often seem to have a little more tonal ‘attitude’ than the standard Les Paul models — and I just can’t resist that TV yellow finish. This model costs a little more than some of the faded and satin finish Gibson guitars currently inhabiting the lower price levels but it is still eminently affordable for a US made instrument. On my example, the yellow nitrocellulose lacquer was flawless with no messy edges around the neck join, and though cellulose lacquer isn’t as tough as modern ‘thick skin’ finishes, it ages far more gracefully and is also less likely to deaden the resonance of the wood. There was also no paint line where the paint stops at the fingerboard edges. I’d have preferred a slight translucence to allow a hint of the wood grain to show through but that’s certainly not a deal-breaker — this is one very good-looking guitar. The other thing I find irresistible about the Les Paul Junior is its simple one pickup, two knobs design along with that workmanlike wrap-around bridge/tailpiece.
Check Current Pricing of Gibson Les Paul Junior @ DV247.com
As with the original, the single cutaway, flat topped body is made from mahogany, as is the neck. Truss rod access is from the headstock end beneath the familiar plastic cover. The 22 fret neck profile is slim but without being too skinny — it is very easy and comfortable to handle, and what at first glance looks like an unbound rosewood fingerboard is actually made from dark Obeche wood and fitted with simple dot inlays. Medium jumbo frets and a comfortable 12 inch fingerboard radius, combined with subtly rounded fingerboard edges, make the instrument feel familiar and comfortable from the off. This curvature would appear to be a good compromise in a modern instrument as a 12 inch radius is comfortable for chordal playing while allowing for a fairly low action without the risk of the higher strings choking out when you bend them.
The PLEK-cut Corian nut on my model left rather too much string clearance over the first fret so I spent a few minutes with a nut file correcting that. The ‘lightning bar’ tailpiece also needed adjusting as all the octaves were way too sharp, and while Gibson provide a truss rod spanner, they don’t seem to provide an Alan key for bridge adjustment, though any guitar adjustment tool should include one the right size. Because of the ‘lightening’ stepped ridges on top of the bridge, it is only necessary to set the intonation for two of the strings and rest will be close enough not to worry about. My own preference when setting up stop bar bridge/tailpieces is to intonate the A and B strings, though some players simply set up the top and bottom E. Two Alan screws set into either end of the tailpiece push the bridge further away from the neck to flatten the octaves. If you’re a purist you could fit a plain bridge/tailpiece, which gives less precise intonation, though some players believe it produces a better, or at least different, tone.
The headstock is raked back at the ‘old school’ 17 degree angle to provide plenty of down-pressure on the nut while the tuners are sealed modern high-ratio (14:1) types with plastic buttons based on the original Kluson design. A gold Gibson logo completes the picture. As supplied the truss rod was perfectly set to give just the slightest hint of concavity to the fingerboard and the strings sat perfectly in line with the neck without the top E getting too close to the edge of the fingerboard.
The Les Paul Junior’s characteristic voice is due in part to its use of a P-90 single coil pickup where the one fitted is made to the original pattern using 42 gauge wire and powered by a pair of Alnico V bar magnets. This sits under a simple plastic ‘dog ear’ cover, the only height adjustment being the pole-piece screws themselves. The wider than usual single coil also adds to the girth of the sound, which is both punchy and bright with ringing highs and throaty mids making it very versatile. Furthermore, I think that not having wood removed to accommodate a neck pickup helps the guitar sustain — which this one certainly does.
A peek in the control compartment reveals two full-size pots and screened wiring though the small tone capacitor, which seems to work perfectly well, isn’t as visually impressive as the old ‘bumble bee’ striped monsters used in some Gibson originals. Fitted with good quality strings (10s), the guitar comes with a padded Gibson gig bag, manual and truss rod wrench.
Plug it in and you’re in for a rewarding and comfortable playing experience. I’m not a fan of thin necks, but though far from fat, this one felt very ‘right’ as soon as I put my hand around it. Even before you plug it in, you can hear the resonant ‘thwang’ that characterises Gibson’s more basic mahogany body solid guitars and this translates nicely to the amplified sound. P90s are not particularly hot pickups so you may need help from your amp’s gain control or from a good booster pedal to make them sing but they have a wonderful and unique tonal balance that straddles the girth of a humbucker and the shimmer of a narrow single coil pickup. It’s probably fair to say that the overall character also sits between two camps, in this case a Gibson SG (or one of the excellent sounding if slightly ugly SG Melody Makers) and a standard Les Paul model. It doesn’t have quite the ‘bad boy’ squeal of the SG but it still has enough attitude for classic rock or blues where backing off the tone control around a third of the way adds a nice degree of warmth without completely drowning the tone. Back off the gain and you have a great clean sound that can fit almost any genre.
As you can probably guess by now, I liked this guitar so much that I bought it and I think it is fair to say that if you want a guitar that gets very close to the Les Paul Junior of half a century ago but you don’t want to pay out big bucks for a luxury, special edition job, then this is the model to go for. It has a pedigree look, a pedigree feel and an almost magical sound. And it is TV yellow!
Check Current Pricing of Gibson Les Paul Junior @ DV247.com
