Gibson reinvents their most popular guitar yet again with the new Nitrous Les Paul Studio, this time applying hot-rodded color finishes.
This guitar maintains the no-frills look of the Studio line while adding a range of new muscle car style finishes and employing a reconfigured weight-relief system.
Gibson’s Studio line is the cheaper alternative to the Les Paul, thanks to its stripped down aesthetics, so it was quite a contrast to find that the new model prominently features new colorful finishes.
Just like a traditional Les Paul, this guitar starts with a mahogany body cut into that familiar single cutaway shape. The body is then topped by a carved maple top, following the same formula that helped launch the Les Paul brand into iconic status. However after these two components, the Nitrous Les Paul Studio takes a different turn with Gibson routing the body in a modern “webbed” weight relief pattern, the same one used on the new 2012 Les Paul Standard. This unique design results in a lighter body while maintaining resistance to feedback and solid stability.
The mahogany neck is glued-in to the body, and it is carved to a comfortable ’60s era profile that measures .800″ at the 1st fret and .875″ at the 12th. The neck is topped by a nice looking Granadillo fretboard that comes equipped with 22 medium jumbo frets.
The Nitrous Les Paul Studio comes with Gibson USA’s Modern Classics humbucking pickup series. These pickups feature four-conductor wiring that allow for independent coil splitting via their push-pull volume knobs.
The neck is equipped with a 490R humbucker, wound to vintage PAF specs and made with Alnico II magnet. The bridge pickup, which is a 498T humbucker, is designed to be hotter and is made with an Alnico V magnet for improved punch and presence.
The pickups are controlled by a 3-way pickup selector along with independent volume and tone knobs. Pulling up volume knob engages the coil-splitting for either or both pickups, giving you frequency tuned single-coil tones, which still retain excellent hum rejection in the middle switch position thanks to the reverse-wound/reverse-polarity neck pickup.
Other hardware include the usual Tune-o-matic bridge and Stopbar tailpiece pairing and Grover kidney tuners with 14:1 ratio.
The current retail price for the Nitrous Les Paul Studio is around $1,399. For further details, you can head over to Gibson
Related Articles:
Gibson 1957 Les Paul Goldtop Reissue
Epiphone Tommy Thayer Spaceman Les Paul Limited Edition
The Top 10 Guitars of All Time!
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Gibson are running out of ideas? I mean when your primary selling point for creating a new model is just a paint job, are they losing their way?