Gibson Les Paul "faded doublecut"

P90s can be reaaally nice. I played a flying V for a couple of hours last night - ugh! Sounds like ass, except with fairly heavy overdrive. Gotta love the access to the whole 22? frets though. It felt so strange never hitting the body at any point. But for a single-coil freak like me, there's so little definition in those p/ups.

that kinda looks like a brian may guitar

I had one for a bit. Great rock'n'roll guitar disguised as an old fencepost. fwiw, while I dig TV Yellow the cherry finish works much better on the fadeds.

I saw the same reviews you did griping about fingerslicing fret-ends, but mine was just fine. I figured it for the usual gibson-hating multiplied by the availability of more finished and/or blinged out guitars at simmilar or lower price points e.g. PRS SE, Schecter, Daisy Rock etc. Since then I have run into a few that could use some filing above the 12th fret, but it's really not the biggest deal (except among prissy online guitar collectors). File once and forget.

The faded finish actually makes for a VERY comfortable neck, and the P90s are everything they're cracked up to be, fat and chimey cleans, fat and raunchy drive tones. I ended up trading up to a mid-90s singlecut, mostly because I ended up preferring the more stable neck setup (the neck design on DC jrs and specials really does double as a trem), but those were loaded with P100s and I do feel and hear the difference.

If you dig 'em and can find one at a reasonable price I'd hit it without reservation.

I'm a huge fan of P-90's, they seem to be one of those underutilized sounds that people really ought to be gravitating towards (although in recent years lots more stuff is coming out with p-90 loads, so maybe the industry is catching up a tad.)

Mike Ness has yer back!

There is a guy around here that has one of those P90 double cuts in faded white, that is a beauty of a guitar. A local guitar tech around here got it as a gift from Gibson and he ended up selling it off to a local blues guitarist. It is a sweet looking guitar.

The finish on the faded Gibson guitars is real thin, which is going to wear easy, but it is a plus for tone. If you do get one, put a paper towel or cotton wash cloth on your rubber guitar stands. The rubber will literally eat this thin lacquer satin finish in no time. The sticky necks on new Gibson guitars will go away in time. I bought my SG new and it took a year or so for it to go away.

At least from the ones I have come across, the problem isn't that the frets are not level as much as the fret ends need filed, which you sometimes have to do on lower end Fenders. The necks on these guitars seem to really need a good oiling, which will expand them back out a bit.

I think you generally have to tweak all guitars a bit after you buy one.

am i crazy or does it seem like no one plays les pauls anymore?

I'd play one if I had one.