..just bought an '81 LP copy (LS60), what to expect?

hey, I wish I'd known about this forum before...I just bought an LS60 from japan, on ebay


wondering what to expect? does anyone here own one?


they seem pretty hard to find over here ( canada)...this one needs a neck repair, but other than that looks ok as a player


ps. besides pickups, what have you guys upgraded on these?



thx!!

Hi Bolero, welcome to the forum 8) .

You mean this one? ? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=38086&item=7323710200&rd=1 ?

Nice looking guitar, & 81 LS60 pretty desirable guitar imho. But I?d be a bit worried about the headstock & sellers warning re. fret buzz etc. ?may need to spend some $$$ to put that right.

But leaving those issues aside ? I have almost identical guitar (82 LS60) & rate the original Gotoh PAF-2 pickups very highly... no way I?d consider changing them. Others here will disagree about that & suggest all sorts of alternative pups, but remember it?s all pretty subjective & some guys swap pickups like they have hot dinners ? I?d avoid getting drawn into that stuff, but it?s your call. Only other proviso is that pickups are un-potted & may need waxing if you play at high vols.

Assuming the issues are sorted, & assuming guitar is all original & all working properly, then I wouldn?t change a thing ? great guitar imho (assuming you want classic woody/raunchy LP tone) :-? .

Ian.

thx Ian!

nice to know there are places like this out there, to find info on this stuff...been doing more reading, and as I suspected, these are pretty good instruments

I was a bit phazed by the neck break, but I've repaired a couple gtrs worse than that...as long as it gets here in similar shape I should be able to fix it up ok. fret levelling isn't much of an issue for me either, I do all my own work.

I'm a huge Cream/Zep/Peter Green fan, so hopefully the gtr fits the bill; looking forward to hearign the pups, and the gtr!!

bolero said:

ps. besides pickups, what have you guys upgraded on these?

Click to expand...

Since you seem to repair guitars yourself, you might consider to change the heavyweight chrome tailpiece for a lightweight aluminium one, if you have it as a spare part (new ones are quite expensive in my opinion). I found it makes quite a difference in the overall acoustic sound, especially in the highs which sound more silky afterwards and not as thin or ice-picky as with a heavy tailpiece.

Pickups are always a matter of taste, maybe you should first listen to that guitar without an amp before changing them, because they might not work well in your Love Rock.

My only concern would be shipping that type of guitar with an already damaged neck in a gig bag. Other than that, looks like a great guitar.

Hello there Bolero, your LS60 looks good - I hope it's OK when you get it. I have a 1980 LS50 and it has the exposed coil pickups but double white bobbins.I'm not sure if they are exactly the same as yours as you have a higher grade guitar. This guitar played beautifully and sounded great acoustically but I was immediately going to replace the pickups when I saw the guitar as I thought they were Dimarzio distortions.What a mistake that would have been. Since then I have A-B'd this guitar against a '59 and '61 Gibson 335's through various vintage valve amps in a friends collection. The Tokai pickups sound amazingly good against the original PAF's in the Gibsons- as good I think - what a revelation that was, and I'm possibly not as Tokai partisan as some, or maybeI was'nt then! My friend was astounded too, especially when you consider the price of a '59 335.Hang on to 'em I say.
Good Luck,
Mike.

Hey Bolero, see what SpikeyMikey says, quote ?I A-B'd the Gotohs against '59 and '61 Gibson 335's & Gotohs sounded amazingly good against original PAF's ? ... there you see, what?d I tell ya? Only kidding :wink: !

Hi SpikeyMikey ? afaik the only difference between your LS50 & 1981 LS60, is that LS60 has 2-piece center-seamed top, whereas LS50 has 3-piece. Otherwise I think fittings are all the same.

Here?s some complete guesswork (feel free to correct me guys, eh?politely please lol!) ?. but, those double cream pups are often seen on earliest Tokais, however, they?re sometimes Gotoh & sometimes Dimarizio (on LS100 & above). After 1981-82 you see more Zebras, and on LS60 should be Gotoh Vintage Paf MK-2 ? I think the early double cream ones may be Gotoh Vintage Paf MK-1 :-? .


Ian.

Hi Ian, the PU's on my LS50 are inkstamped " patent applied for-made by goto" with hex poles. I think supernout mentioned these a while back. Bolero you should check supernouts post of 30-4-2004 on this subject.
By the way Ian - do you know if the LS50's have the lower headstock pitch and how does this affect the tone or feel of the guitar - this feels slightly different to Gibson LP's I have owned in the past.
Cheers,
Mike.

Hi Spikey - the headstock issue is interesting, & far from clear ? see this thread for some detailed discussion http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=3579&highlight=18deg .

Here's a link to the photo posted by ?Kiwi? http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/shai-ann/FRONT-TO-REAR80-150-60.jpg ... two guitars in foreground are said to be 1983 LS80 and 1984 LS150 (respectively), and guitar at the back is said to be a 1978 LS60 Reborn. As you can see, the LS60 appears to have a noticeably shallower angle (presumably 14deg), which implies the LS80 & LS150 have 18deg in that photo .

Ian.

hey, thx for all the info!!

guitar arrived last week, haven't tuned it up yet beccause I want to fix the neck 1st


already got an aluminum TP for it, and am interested in what these gotoh pups sound like.

the gtr wasn't packed as well as I 'd wished ( there was no support at all for the broken neck, it was basically in a gig bag, inside a standard gtr box, with foam around the sides ). when people ship gtrs, they should ALWAYS double box them, as well as support the neck so the headstock doesn't get busted...esp if the neck already has issues


miraculously, it got here ok though....I guess it never had anything heavy stacked on top of it


about the gtr: it's a 3 piece mahag body, ( I was sorta hoping it would be a single piece, looking at the pics in the ad.... but no big deal either way ) and I'm sure the center seam top is solid....had a look at both pup cavities & the grain looks consistent...usually laminated tops are fairly eay to spot, they're too "perfect". it's not the prettiest top, so I can't see it being laminated

I'm dying to try this thing out, but gotta wait util I get some more ZAP cryano woodglue. the stuff I have got old & gelled up on me

cheers!

ps what headstock angle did the '50's LP's have, anyway?


mine appears to be shallow...

Hi Bolero, glad you got it in good nick after all. Hope it sounds as good as the one I have - sorry if that sounds a bit arrogant but these pickups really are good!What amp do you have and what style(s) do you play?If its Page, Kossoff and early Clapton these things nail it imho.

Hi Ian - thanks for the reply on the headstock angle thing - very helpful. Do you have models higher than LS60 in your collection?If so how do they compare feel and tonewise to the 14? headstocks?

Cheers,

Mike.

ha, no problem, I hope it sounds as good as I've heard as well!!

got a couple amps: aluminum chassis 100w plexi with GEC KT66 tubes is probably my favourite....I'm a huge Page/Beck/Clapton/Hendrix fan, Kossoff too 8)


got an old twin reverb & a HIWATT too....Pete would be proud :wink:



can't wait to put this gtr through it's paces!!

Nice stuff -wow! She's in good company!

Mike ? no, the only Tokai I have is the LS60 ? I have other Les Pauls but I?m not really a collector ? mainly play a heavyweight 78 US Tele, which just has a nice feel & tone balances well with my old Marshall.

Bolero ? the original les Pauls had 17deg angle, ie 1952 to 1960. Something many guys don?t realise is that Gibson dropped the Les Paul in 1960, ended production completely (because it just had no sales). What brought it back was purely & simply Clapton?s tone on the Beano album in 66 ? that influenced many pro. guitarists worldwide & Gibson eventually saw opportunity to reintroduce Les Paul in 68 ? the 68 LP was almost identical to the 1960 model, however, by 69 they?d started to make significant structural changes, and by about 70-71 it had become quite different with all sorts of cost cutting measures :-? .

Ian.

Ian,

I was reading last night that Gibson stopped the production of Les Pauls in 1960 because Les Paul left the company. He'd had enough of building guitars. Gibson continued the production of the Les Paul(style guitars) but without the Les Paul name. In 66(or maybe 69 I can't remember exactly) Les Paul came back to work for Gibson and production started again.

Without checking the history (must be masses of it on the Web) I think it went more or less like this ? Les Paul was one of numerous people who?d experimented with a form of electric pickup or microphone on guitars since at least the 1930?s. But he didn?t really do anything with it until Fender produced the first genuine solid body guitar in 1950 (the Esquire). That got Gibson interested (ie seeing what Fender were doing).

At the same time, Les Paul was one of the most famous guitar players in the USA (c.1950), and he?d previously appeared on Gibson advertising. However, it?s unclear how much technical input Les actually had in designing the Les Paul Guitar. In fact Les Paul & Gibson have always had disputes about that. He certainly worked with Gibson?s design team to make the guitar as a competitor to Fender, and Gibson certainly wanted to use Les Paul?s fame to endorse the guitar.

Afaik it?s pretty well documented that production ceased in 1960 due to poor sales. Eg in his book Tony Bacon says (page 44) ?sales declined in 1960 ?& Gibson decided on a complete re-design in order to reactivate sales? ? the new guitar was what we know/recognise as the SG model, except that at first they continued to use the Les Paul name on it.

According to Bacon (page 44), Les Paul never really liked the SG guitar & didn?t really want his name on it, however, by this time Les Paul?s recording fame was in decline & he also had a profile divorce from Mary Ford. As a result of which, Gibson decided to drop the Les Paul name entirely in 1963 (although he continued to have contracts for advertising photos etc.).

But it was only in 1968 that Gibson decided to re-introduce the Les Paul after seeing the sudden explosion of interest following various guitarists using the Les Paul on electric Blues recordings. The first of these, & the one that influenced all the subsequent players, was the Clapton Beano Album in 66. Just chatting on all this, not trying to correct anyone ... but I think that's more or less the way things whent :-? .

Ian.

Right you are, Ian. Good summary.

But just for the sake of debate, that crabby old purist George Gruhn (and he can be really cranky at times, at least in what he has written over the years in Vintage Guitar Magazine) seems to think that Mike Bloomfield was as influential, if not more so, than Eric Clapton was on the Beano LP. They were both playing Les Paul Standards at about the same time.

Could be parochialism on Gruhn's part, I think, in him rooting for an American over a Brit. IMO, Clapton just killed everyone playing guitar (except maybe Hendrix) with his live stuff on Wheels of Fire. I remember hearing it the first time in the fall of '68 at the Audio Visual Club at Oakcrest High School in Mays Landing, N.J. (yes, once a geek always a geek) and having Crossroads stuck in my head for two days straight.

But I remember reading that John Sebastian (who also played a Standard in the Lovin' Spoonful back then, and sold it just a few years ago) visited the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo in the mid-60s and told the workers they should start making the Standard again, and they practically laughed him out of there!

Any way, here's a really good Vintage Guitar overview of the Les Paul Standard that has Gruhn's comments, as well as other Les Paul gurus.

http://www.vintageguitar.com/brands/details.asp?ID=50

Maybe it speaks well for the Love Rock in that it did not take any one player to popularize it - rather just its awesome quality that has quietly impressed guitarists over the years.

what I remember from reading the Les Paul box CD set notes:


Les Paul's electric gtr experiments culminated with "the log", which was a homemade one-piece neck + body carved out of a salvaged railroad tie......eventually he sandwiched on some wings to make it look less like an old 4"x4" & more like a gtr

this strongly resembled the shape gibson eventually used when they started making him his sig model...more of an ES-175 size though, I think. so he must have had some good input there at Gibson


funny though, I remember reading he didn't like the 1st gtrs Gibson made for him, he kept playing his "log" for a long time.


Les also was probably the first person to devise multi-track recording...he actually BUILT & invented it in his garage....RCA or some manufacturer came and asked him about it, then started building the 1st commercial units based on Les' ideas

he built/designed his own pickups for his homemade gtr too, from what I remember. modified record player head, or something....?

Mike who? Anyhow, Clapton started looking for a Les Paul around 1965 after he had heard Freddie King's early recordings with a P-90 Goldtop, talking about history and all that jazz... :roll: