After many years of being asked "can you build me a Les Paul?" and having to politely say "no", I made time at last to design something that would fill this obvious gap in my model range. It had to follow certain well established criteria without stepping on any toes, so it took a while to finalize, but I believe the outcome was worth the wait.

     I went with the slightly offset body shape to get away from the traditional look, and I used a thicker body for a little added depth to the sound and to give it a different tonal quality than the Standard. The neck joint has an extra long tenon that runs under the neck pickup position.  This really helps to generate great string vibration transfer into the body. 

For maximum playability, I've given the guitar good access to the last frets by making the cutaway extra deep, and I designed a straight pull 3 a side headstock to avoid any hang-ups at that end of the neck.

(This model was subsequently licensed to Premier Builder's Guild as one of their production guitars, and, therefore, I can no longer take any private orders on this guitar.  For any enquiries about the Valiant, please contact PBG direct - see links further down the page.)

Bridge p/u gain 3
 
Bridge p/u clean

Middle position gain

Middle position clean

Neck p/u clean

Neck p/u gain