Gibson Les Paul GT

 

No, that guitar’s not on fire. It’s a Gibson Les Paul GT -- and it’s supposed to look that way.

Before you notice anything else about the Les Paul GT, you’ll notice that flames. Those are transparent flames painted right on the body. Really. They’re hard to miss. Gibson were sort of going for a hot rod kind of thing. Lots of people think it didn’t work.

Whether you think it’s cool or rad or cheesy or creepy, the flames are about the only thing that makes this model look different from most other modern Les Paul, at least at first glance.

Introduced in 2006 and no longer in production, the GT is a Les Paul Standard with a few bits and pieces added in.

If you can get past the design, you’ll find a great electric guitar with everything you expect from a Gibson Les Paul.

The pickups, for example, are just you imagine they would be. The always-well-regarded 498T Alnice humbucker at the bridge is joined with its usual friend, the 490 humbucker, on the neck. A standard three-way switch is at the body’s top, and there are independent tone and volume controls for the two pickups -- making four knobs total.

Also as you expect from a Les Paul, it’s heavy. The neck is mahogany and is a regular 22-fret version with a 1950s look and feel. It has a mahogany body, a maple top, an ebony fretboard, some trapezoid inlays and a few other cosmetic features that don’t really do much to separate it from a Standard.

A dual truss rod setup makes the neck particularly stable, allowing this Les Paul to stand up to some stress.

But you don’t like those flames, do you?

You either like them or you hate them, and if you hate them, this isn’t the guitar for you -- unless, of course, you’re lucky enough to locate one of the 400 special ones -- Customs with fire engine red paint.

That’s right. Fire engine red. Not much better than the flames? Sorry.

But come on, people. It’s a Les Paul. And Gibson has to do something to get people to keep buying their electric guitars since just about every serious player in the world already has a couple of them. You can’t really blame them for trying out a flame design, can you?

Maybe you can, but you could still do a lot worse than the uniquely designed and somewhat upgraded guitar known as the Gibson Les Paul GT.