acstorfer
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2008
- Messages
- 19,646
- Reaction score
- 21,282
The recent thread regarding would someone call a Traditional a Standard got me thinking about something. Why is a Les Paul Deluxe not called a Les Paul Standard?
Originally the Les Paul Standard had P-90's. If a change of pickups required a name change, why not call the new humbucker equipped Les Pauls the Deluxe? I'm guessing from a marketing perspective Gibson wanted to make mini-humbuckers more desirable by changing the name from Standard to Deluxe (this statement is purely speculative). However, in the case of the humbucker, they kept the model name the same. I would have thought the humbucker equipped Les Paul would have been the step up over the P-90's, and Gibson would have wanted to "upgrade" the model name then.
In the early 70's it was possible to special order a Les Paul Deluxe with full size humbuckers. In those cases though, the guitar still had the model designate "Deluxe". In the mid 70's Gibson brought back full size humbuckers (as the "Standard" model), and kept mini-humbuckers (as the "Deluxe") in production. By having both those designates, it actually made sense. In the late 70's Gibson produced a model with P-90's (with ebony fretboard) and that body route procedure kept the "Deluxe" name by calling it a Deluxe Pro.
While Gibson always differentiated models with humbuckers and mini-buckers since, here is my question. Why are later models that came equipped with P-90s now considered Standards while mini-humbucker models still called Deluxes? Seeing how the difference between a Deluxe and a Standard are the pickup routes (it can't be due to the pickups because there are so many different types) why are P-90 models Standards when in actuality they are closer to Deluxe models in production process?
I have a '73 Deluxe. I will continue to call it a Deluxe. I am very happy to call it a highly modified Deluxe. Still I'm curious as to why the Standard name didn't change with humbuckers if they were going to rename it due to pickup changes, as well as P-90 equipped Les Pauls later became classified as Standards while mini-humbucker equipped Les Pauls are still called Deluxes.
There has been a lot of evolution when it came to the Les Paul. There really is nothing standard about all the models called "Standard". It's just surprising the Deluxe moniker remains.
A rose by any other name is still a rose, this is just some Sunday morning contemplating.
Originally the Les Paul Standard had P-90's. If a change of pickups required a name change, why not call the new humbucker equipped Les Pauls the Deluxe? I'm guessing from a marketing perspective Gibson wanted to make mini-humbuckers more desirable by changing the name from Standard to Deluxe (this statement is purely speculative). However, in the case of the humbucker, they kept the model name the same. I would have thought the humbucker equipped Les Paul would have been the step up over the P-90's, and Gibson would have wanted to "upgrade" the model name then.
In the early 70's it was possible to special order a Les Paul Deluxe with full size humbuckers. In those cases though, the guitar still had the model designate "Deluxe". In the mid 70's Gibson brought back full size humbuckers (as the "Standard" model), and kept mini-humbuckers (as the "Deluxe") in production. By having both those designates, it actually made sense. In the late 70's Gibson produced a model with P-90's (with ebony fretboard) and that body route procedure kept the "Deluxe" name by calling it a Deluxe Pro.
While Gibson always differentiated models with humbuckers and mini-buckers since, here is my question. Why are later models that came equipped with P-90s now considered Standards while mini-humbucker models still called Deluxes? Seeing how the difference between a Deluxe and a Standard are the pickup routes (it can't be due to the pickups because there are so many different types) why are P-90 models Standards when in actuality they are closer to Deluxe models in production process?
I have a '73 Deluxe. I will continue to call it a Deluxe. I am very happy to call it a highly modified Deluxe. Still I'm curious as to why the Standard name didn't change with humbuckers if they were going to rename it due to pickup changes, as well as P-90 equipped Les Pauls later became classified as Standards while mini-humbucker equipped Les Pauls are still called Deluxes.
There has been a lot of evolution when it came to the Les Paul. There really is nothing standard about all the models called "Standard". It's just surprising the Deluxe moniker remains.
A rose by any other name is still a rose, this is just some Sunday morning contemplating.
?
