Recent Posts
The best "fast basic 24 fret Strat", Charvel Pro-Mod DK24 HH HT E	Relic of 2000s styling, the "tribal graphic"
Jackson Kelly JS32T, the cheapest Explorer shape	I love '70s Stratocasters (but I'd never own one)

I bought a "real" Les Paul

Enter the Epiphone Les Paul Traditional PRO-III

Deciding upon this specific guitar was a rather laborious process.

Now in all honesty, I could have taken the dirt cheap way out and bought a guitar I owned before, the Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90. That guitar mostly held all the requirements I was looking for. But going with that guitar would have been a notable step down in quality when compared to the Ibanez guitars. I wanted something at least as good as the AX120 as what I was parting with if not better.

The guitar had to have the following features:

Above average build quality
Solid body
Scale length between 24" and 24.75"
Top loader
Total weight of under 8 pounds
Satin urethane finished neck
Neck with thickness to it that was not U-shaped
Priced under $500

Only the Epiphone Les Paul Traditional PRO series meets all these requirements - if you can find one under 8 pounds, which I did. Mine is 7.8lbs.

The neck is absolute best selling point of the PRO-III

On the PRO-III is a satin finished D-shape neck with some actual chunk to it. It's not super chunky but definitely thicker than the Ibanez neck was.

The Ibanez AX has what I called a "squashed U" neck shape, which results in a neck that's thin with pronounced shoulders. It was the shoulder that was causing my fret hand pain. With less wood to grab, that pad on the palm of my fret hand under my index finger was pressing against that neck shoulder in a bad way.

My hand didn't start complaining loudly until playing those Ibanez necks for about 3 months. Then when I did that marathon guitar playing session as mentioned earlier and the pain didn't clear in a day, I knew the guitars had to go.

Since owning my Les Paul, the pain is all but gone now. Some soreness still remains, but it's nowhere near as much as when I was still playing the Ibanez guitars. My fret hand is healing up properly since I'm not damaging it any further.

There is only one real flaw with the Epiphone neck. It's ugly.

◀ Back Next Page ▶

Published 2019 Apr 22

Best ZOOM R8 tutorial book
highly rated, get recording quick!