Your experiences buying Norlin LPs

[InTheEvening]

The 1990's Les Paul Classic 1960 series all had hard sounding pickups with skinny necks , they came in many colors of bursts and goldtops too. They looked nice and were decemt weight . Sounds like what you might like. I hated them .....i like the 50's necks 58 fat -to 59 medium , i like the lightbtone wood , and smooth non crunchy pickup , for old 50's and 60's sounds. We are totally opposites....but it sounds like you d love he guitars i hate . And hate any guitar with oversized frets . Early Norlin doesn't sound like your cup of tea. Maybe latter norlins ......but 90's gibsons had what i called awful pickyps , but they might be what you want. There were several super nice series norlins in the early mid eight s ....i had several , they were highly though of by most players , but many are now collectoes items and quite expensive.itage . I loved my Heritage 80 stds. .... but like all really good Les Paul.....a quaility great sounding one will usually cost way more than a great sounding strat and much harder to find . Certain groups of Norlins can be counted on to be good guitars as rule, but thas i said they arenusually the higher dollar. You might be better off with 1990's unless you have alot of time and patience to try out various years old norlins. Maybe gomto big guitar show where you can play a big variety, before you buy. best luck

Thank you, I’ll check out the 90’s Gibsons. That sounds right up my alley haha. Were all the 99’s Gibson models like the standards and studios equipped with those hotter pickups? Or just the classics?
I read the 90’s classic LP prices have been going up too. Would be nice to find one at a fair price.

Good to know the Norlin years differed, I’ll try to focus on the later years if I choose to go that route then.

I was talking about playing loud with tons of gain.

Back in the day we played metal and punk on really loud amps in rather small rehearsal places with hard hitting drummers. The problem everybody was fighting was unwanted high screeching feedback. Mind you we did use distortion pedals so that didn't help either! So unpotted Dimarzios, T-tops, Patent number etc where hard to control.

I haven't seen that episode of Trogly's but I guess he wasn't playing on crazy high levels?

I can imagine, that much gain in a small space would be tough for many guitars.

Yeah, he wasn’t doing super high gain, maximum was maybe AC/DC level.

This is the video.

Nothing a good noise gate can’t solve. Unless the pickups are microphonic you should be good. I haven’t played the t tops through a live cab yet because I play my 5150 into the torpedo live with cab impulse responses but my R8 and replica pickups are hotter so I doubt I’d have a noice issue with the t tops.

Thanks, that’s reassuring to know.
You mentioned your R8 has hotter pickups than the T-tops. Are all the historic pickups usually hotter than T-tops?

 

[decoy205]

Thanks, that’s reassuring to know.
You mentioned your R8 has hotter pickups than the T-tops. Are all the historic pickups usually hotter than T-tops?

I have WB VTPH pickups in my R8 so they are hotter wind aftermarket pickups.

he’s my R8 through the 5150 rig

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

The T tops aren’t as hot but sound super clear. I love them so far.

 

[InTheEvening]

I have WB VTPH pickups in my R8 so they are hotter wind aftermarket pickups.

he’s my R8 through the 5150 rig

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

The T tops aren’t as hot but sound super clear. I love them so far.

That sounded amazing! Nice to see what the historics are capable of with the roght pickups. Finding a used G0 or plaintop R0 and using the saved money on some aftermarket pickups might be another nice option actually. Get the CS build quality and attention to detail, and the higher gain tones.

 

[decoy205]

Thanks man. I don't think you can go wrong with a G0 or R0 if you like thinner necks. I think you'll have more options for finding one w/o issues and the G0's are typically a good value. Post up what you find here and we can help you narrow things down.

 

[InTheEvening]

Thanks man. I don't think you can go wrong with a G0 or R0 if you like thinner necks. I think you'll have more options for finding one w/o issues and the G0's are typically a good value. Post up what you find here and we can help you narrow things down.

Thanks! I definitely will!

 

[judson]

i

If you are a flexible player, and can adapt to the way many different guitars play, then an old holds little fear. You will soon learn how to play whatever you buy.

^^^^ this 1000% ...

a short story long.......

i bought a pawn shop fender squire strat when i started back playing after too many years hiatus...wore the frets down bad, needed a refret or new neck maybe, i freaked out for weeks trying to find a neck or someone to refret EXACTLY like it was before, which really was wasted time...i settled on buying a few other guitars and found out after maybe a year or so i could adapt to almost anything.....kept a few, sold most of them.

fast forward today i own too many guitars, a small handful of Norlins and every one is different and a pleasure to play. I drifted towards vintage things and they all feel great to me and you just adapt to the guitar and play it and see how you like it, how it feels and sounds, some you may prefer some more than others but you do learn to play anything.......

i bought over a dozen online guitars sight unseen, only returned two, one brand new , the other a repaired cracked neck seller didnt tell me about ......so you either take a chance on anything online or go to any shop and pick up one and play it for 2 mins or 20 mins if you have any shops within reasonable driving distance....

do your home work but also dont over think it..Norlin got a bad rap for years, now they command some premium pricing compared to new.....

and honestly...you will buy more than one Gibson LP after your first one...its a pleasurable addiction...

one last thing , when you find one ask questions here, these guys have the most knowledge on the web and can tell you everything about any guitar your looking at with only a pic or two....its amazing the knowledge that you get here..

good luck ...

 

[InTheEvening]

^^^^ this 1000% ...

a short story long.......

i bought a pawn shop fender squire strat when i started back playing after too many years hiatus...wore the frets down bad, needed a refret or new neck maybe, i freaked out for weeks trying to find a neck or someone to refret EXACTLY like it was before, which really was wasted time...i settled on buying a few other guitars and found out after maybe a year or so i could adapt to almost anything.....kept a few, sold most of them.

fast forward today i own too many guitars, a small handful of Norlins and every one is different and a pleasure to play. I drifted towards vintage things and they all feel great to me and you just adapt to the guitar and play it and see how you like it, how it feels and sounds, some you may prefer some more than others but you do learn to play anything.......

i bought over a dozen online guitar sight unseen, only returned two, one brand new , the other a repaired cracked neck seller didnt tell me about ......so you either take a chance on anything online or go to any shop and pick up one and play it for 2 mins or 20 mins if you have any shops within reasonable driving distance....

do your home work but also dont over think it..Norlin got a bad rap for years, now they command some premium pricing compared to new.....

and honestly...you will buy more than one Gibson LP after your first one...its a pleasurable addiction...

one last thing , when you find one ask questions here, these guys have the most knowledge on the web and can tell you everything about any guitar your looking at with only a pic or two....its amazing the knowledge that you get here..

good luck ...

Thanks so much for that story. Good to hear from someone who's played many. I'll try not get get too hung up on neck dimensions and just try out everything then. I recently got hold of a Squier strat for free, action was higher than I'm used to, strings stiffer feeling too, but after a few weeks, I love playing it. You're right, not my best playing guitar but I do feel more used to it now.

And I'll definitely use this forum as a resource. Appreciate all the help and advice I've gotten so far, definitely helping me in my search.

 

[judson]

Thanks so much for that story. Good to hear from someone who's played many. I'll try not get get too hung up on neck dimensions and just try out everything then. I recently got hold of a Squier strat for free, action was higher than I'm used to, strings stiffer feeling too, but after a few weeks, I love playing it. You're right, not my best playing guitar but I do feel more used to it now.

And I'll definitely use this forum as a resource. Appreciate all the help and advice I've gotten so far, definitely helping me in my search.

and you will also learn to do alot of the work yourself when a guitar needs some adjustments to make it feel and play better for you...you will have fun with that as well maybe...i also have a half dozen strats that are great to play and practice some luthier skills on without worry of screwing stuff up...keep us posted on your journey

 

[InTheEvening]

and you will also learn to do alot of the work yourself when a guitar needs some adjustments to make it feel and play better for you...you will have fun with that as well maybe...i also have a half dozen strats that are great to play and practice some luthier skills on without worry of screwing stuff up...keep us posted on your journey

Will do! Thanks!

Just got a used G0 historic to try out from Guitar Center. Will do some more research and try the guitar before deciding if I’ll return or keep it this weekend. Price is a bit higher than I’d like, they listed it as an R0 for $3500 but I’ll see if they’d be willing to drop the price to at least $3000 since it’s a G0 model when it arrived. I do love the 60’s neck, the pickups are good but not as hot as I personally like but it might be nice to have something a little different, my other guitars are fire breathing super strats. But I love the feel and finish. Just Classic look.

Some pics.

 

[Daniel.S]

Will do! Thanks!

Just got a used G0 historic to try out from Guitar Center. Will do some more research and try the guitar before deciding if I’ll return or keep it this weekend. Price is a bit higher than I’d like, they listed it as an R0 for $3500 but I’ll see if they’d be willing to drop the price to at least $3000 since it’s a G0 model when it arrived. I do love the 60’s neck, the pickups are good but not as hot as I personally like but it might be nice to have something a little different, my other guitars are fire breathing super strats. But I love the feel and finish. Just Classic look.

Some pics.

Looks good. Remember, you can always swap the pickups out.

 

[InTheEvening]

Looks good. Remember, you can always swap the pickups out.

Very true, if I can convince the store to discount a bit more, I can use that towards some nice pickups and be all set.

 

[judson]

looks great and if it feels good to you and sounds good, try to negotiate something off that price,doesnt hurt to ask.....

 

[Uncle Vinnie]

Don't know if neck shape and thickness makes a difference to you, but I have a '78 Pro Deluxe and an '81 Deluxe: The necks on both of them are ~ .86 @ 1st fret with a lot of shoulder.

I bought both of them online via ebay and had no issues with the purchases or the condition/description of the guitars when they arrived. I've heard stories to the contrary so maybe I got lucky.