Dig it! Gibson LP Special p90 review

....and here it is:

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I emailed Gibson last Thursday about getting the replacement titanium nut. They emailed me back in Sunday and said, no problem! They are sending one out!
 
Goddammit, now you got me thinking about one. For what it is, it's cheap as hell. I'm thinking Vintage Cherry.

Did you ever get the bridge pickup height to your liking?
 
I just had about 45 minutes to play the 2015 since im learning a few songs for a jam next weekend.
I lowered the bridge p90 a smidge and it sounds fantastic. Full and thick and it accentuates all the right frequencies. As of right now, I'm not seeing any reason why I'd want to swap these pickups. Maybe once I've had the guitar a while I may want to hear something different from it but right now I'm happy with what it's doing.

This is my first guitar with p90's. They are soooo different from humbuckers and standard single coils. There's just no politeness about them. I'm digging them.
 
Alright, I have 4 days to make this decision, because the Sam Ash $25-off coupon that makes the guitar $554.99 runs out then.

So I have a few questions:

How noisy are the pickups clean and under normal blues-rock gain (say, BB King thru early Sabbath)?

Do they, like other P90s I've played, clean up well and then get gnarly-but-nice pretty easily?

I've heard that the neck width may be offputting for a little while, but you swiftly get used to it. Fair statement? (there's no Sam Ash in Houston that carries this model ... or at least none I could get to post-flood)

The titanium nut swap: what's that about?
 
GDSmithTX said:
Alright, I have 4 days to make this decision, because the Sam Ash $25-off coupon that makes the guitar $554.99 runs out then.

So I have a few questions:

How noisy are the pickups clean and under normal blues-rock gain (say, BB King thru early Sabbath)?

Do they, like other P90s I've played, clean up well and then get gnarly-but-nice pretty easily?

I've heard that the neck width may be offputting for a little while, but you swiftly get used to it. Fair statement? (there's no Sam Ash in Houston that carries this model ... or at least none I could get to post-flood)

The titanium nut swap: what's that about?
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This is my first p90 guitar so that said:
The neck is wider but I got used to it pretty quickly and I have meaty hands and my fingers aren't all that long and I don't have any issue playing it.

I emailed Gibson about the titanium nut and tracking says I should get it today. Looks like it's glued on like any other nut. The brass stock nut seems to bind a bit and causes some slight tuning issues.

As far as the pickups, I don't really have a reference to compare them to but I think the neck pickup sounds awesome clean....nice and round yet still fat and almost Fender-ish. Under gain (and I like gain) it's still very smooth. For what you're describing for blues-rock type gain I think it sounds damn good.
The bridge pup was, to me a touch harsh at first. I lowered it a bit and it smoothed out to where it sounds pretty good to me. They do clean up well with a twist of the volume knob.
I don't notice any buzz on clean settings and they have typical SC type buzz under gain. It's not audible while playing but you can hear it when you stop.
To me, worst case....swap the pups for a noiseless set of you feel the need. I run a noise gate in my rig so the buzz is squashed there for me.

Even if you don't like the guitar, I'm positive you could flip it for at least what you paid and maybe even turn a small profit.
Like I said in my review, it sure won't replace my Standard but it will make a great backup guitar.
 
The new nut arrived on Thursday, and I just installed it now (Saturday). It looks like it's made of nickel and not titanium. I did a google search and it seems that some people received nickel while others got the titanium.
In any case there's an immediate improvement in the guitars ability to STAY in tune. I capitalized that because the robot tuners just don't do a good job about 25% of the time GETTING the guitar in tune. For a home player the G Force is probably a great thing but for a gigging musician I can't at all see how it would be an asset in a live situation. Needless to say, I'm going to try to find a set of Grover or Gotoh locking tuners at GC today. If not, I'll have to order some.
I'm going to be selling both the G Force and the PCB quick connect board from out of my Les Paul Standard, if anybody is interested. Not sure what a fair price is yet so I need to look into what they go for.
 
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