Slash Goldtops hit stores worldwide on Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 5 p.m. Find your nearest dealer here.
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As the lead guitarist of Guns N’ Roses, Slash singlehandedly revitalized the electric guitar with some of the most blistering, colossal riffs known to mortal man. At a time when the spirit of rock and roll and heavy metal was adrift, Slash appeared and with a vengeance slammed it back on course. And he did it with an arsenal of Gibson Les Paul Standards, now immortalized in Gibson’s incredibly popular collection of Slash Signature Les Pauls.
With the introduction of the USA Slash Signature Goldtop and the Epiphone Limited Edition Slash Les Paul Goldtop, Gibson is paying further homage to the man who embodies rock and roll.
Gibson USA Slash Signature Goldtop (With Traditional Weight Relief)
The new Slash Signature Goldtop from Gibson USA – limited to just 1,000 guitars worldwide – is a heartfelt tribute to Slash and one of his most beloved guitars. With Slash offering his valuable input, Gibson USA has been able to build one of its legendary Goldtops with all the individual features and unique characteristics that arouse Slash’s creative and musical instincts.
The new Slash Signature Goldtop from Gibson USA starts with a standard, un-chambered mahogany body with Gibson’s traditional weight relief system, consisting of a series of “Swiss cheese” holes that give it a comfortable yet heavy feel, exactly as Slash likes his Les Pauls. The body is topped by one of the Les Paul’s trademark features — a hand-carved maple top. The body is then painted with the same finish as the first Les Paul model in 1952 – Bullion Gold with an aged Cherry back.
A pair of Seymour Duncan Alnico II pickups – exactly the same pickups Slash uses on many of his guitars – provides all the power, punch and performance expected of a Slash Les Paul. The Slash-designed neck is a solid piece of mahogany with a hybrid profile that takes the roundness of the Les Paul necks of the late 1950s, matching it with the slimness of the necks from the early 1960s. Slash’s personal skull/crossbones and top hat logo with signature adorn the headstock.
At Slash’s urging, the electronics of the new Goldtop were enhanced to include proprietary wiring, caps, resistors and tone pots that give the new Slash Goldtop its own unique tone. It is also set up using the revolutionary Plek system — a computer controlled set-up that carefully measures and dresses each fret, accurately measuring the height4 between the fingerboard and the string, virtually eliminating string buzz and providing unbeatable playability.
Other features include a TonePro Tune-o-matic bridge and stopbar tailpiece, all chrome hardware, Kluson-style Gibson tuners, and a hand-numbered certificate of authenticity in a metal fold-over frame. The guitar comes in a custom-made hardshell case with Slash’s logo screened on the smooth black exterior, and a plush white interior.
The new Slash Signature Goldtop from Gibson USA is a fitting tribute to a true rock music legend, and one of the best guitarists to ever pick up a Les Paul Standard.
Epiphone Limited Edition Slash Les Paul Goldtop
“My new Epiphone signature model is a great playing, great sounding and great looking guitar,” said Slash during a recent interview. “For the money, it’s one of the best guitars you can buy.”
Epiphone is proud to honor the legacy of this bona-fide, modern-day legend by introducing the new Limited Edition Slash Les Paul Goldtop ― a stunning Les Paul entirely designed and built in close collaboration with rock and roll’s most recognizable guitar hero.
The new Slash Les Paul Goldtop is simply one of the finest guitars to ever leave Epiphone’s production facilities in Qingdao, China. As beautiful as they are exhilarating, the new Slash Les Paul Goldtops ― limited to just 2,000 guitars worldwide ― are built using many of the same traditional guitar-building processes and techniques that have made Gibson’s family of stringed instruments the absolute finest in the world.
Each Slash Les Paul Goldtop is built to Epiphone’s meticulous standards by the skilled and gifted craftsmen that design, create and assemble the various parts of each individual guitar.
Each Slash Les Paul Goldtop starts with a traditional Les Paul body, consisting of a hand-selected, premium solid mahogany back based on historically-correct specifications, topped with A-grade maple. Using a traditional roller-type carving machine, Epiphone tediously carves each body creating the sexy curves and subtle “dish” along the outer edge of the top that transforms it into an authentic Les Paul.
The neck is also crafted from premium mahogany then glued into the body using TiteBond® wood glue, utilizing a long-neck tenon typically found on the Les Pauls from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Extending well into the neck pickup cavity, the long-neck tenon provides additional strength and stability to the neck, and offers more wood-to-wood contact between the neck and body, which ultimately results in sweeter tone and longer sustain. The neck also features a “Slash Custom” neck profile patterned exclusively from the neck on Slash’s original Les Paul, and a rosewood fingerboard fitted with 22 nickel/silver alloy medium-jumbo frets.
The pickups are the same ones used by Slash in many of his Les Pauls ― Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro-II ― providing the same crunch, power and performance as Slash gets when he cranks up any one of his personal Les Pauls.
The finish on the new Slash Les Paul Goldtop is the same Goldtop finish introduced on the original Les Paul model in 1952. Applying it is one of the most labor-intensive processes of building guitars, but it’s worth it. There are three different coats of paint in all ― a base coat of black primer, followed by two coats of metallic gold paint, which must be agitated continuously to achieve a consistent and even coverage. Those three coats are then sealed by four thin coats of polyurethane, each one buffed to an illustrious shine before adding the next. The entire process of painting a Slash Les Paul Goldtop ― from primer to the last coat of polyurethane ― takes nine days!
In total, it takes approximately 21 days to finish a Slash Les Paul Goldtop, and it’s clearly evident in every detail and part, including Epiphone’s patent-applied-for LockTone™ Tune-o-matic and stopbar tailpiece, vintage nickel hardware and tulip-button tuners, fully shielded electronics cavities, 12-inch radius fingerboard, custom “Slash” truss rod cover, and the stamped “Limited Edition” logo on the back of the headstock.
Additionally, each new Slash Les Paul Goldtop Limited Edition package comes with a hardshell case featuring a custom Slash logo, a certificate of authenticity personally hand signed by Slash with a limited edition HD laser-cell print of Slash all housed in a beautiful leatherette presentation booklet with the Slash logo embossed in gold on the cover, a custom Slash-inspired leather, metal-studded guitar strap, and 24 custom Slash guitar picks.
With Epiphone’s Limited Lifetime Warranty backed by 24/7/365 Customer Service, it’s a package truly worthy of a guitar-playing legend that put wickedness and decadence back into rock and roll. That guitar-playing legend is Slash. And this is the new Limited Edition Slash Les Paul Goldtop from Epiphone. Only 2,000 will be made ― get yours while you still can.