Les Paul Gothic Morte Electric Guitar

The Les Paul Gothic Morte Electric Guitar's carved mahogany/maple curves and set mahogany neck with '50s-style rounded profile are cloaked in a Satin Ebony finish with matching black nickel hardware and black Grover tuners. Gibson USA GEM active humbuckers supply the dark, foreboding tones to create an epic soundscape. As the members of Spinal Tap put it, "What could be more black? None, none more black."

The beating heart of the Les Paul Gothic Morte (morte is French for death) is represented by a pair of Gibson USA's amazing new GEM (Gibson Electronics Manufacturing) active pickups. Made in the image of the greatest traditional passive pickups of all time, Gibson's own PAF ("Patent Applied For") humbuckers, the GEMs have Alnico II magnets and coils wound with 42 AWG enamel-coated wire. They also include active electronics for greatly improved output and extremely low-noise performance. The GEMs are powered by a single 9v battery that yields approximately 1500 hours of service. They have a voice and playing feel akin to Gibson's popular Burstbuckers, with all of that humbucker's characteristic "smooth with edge" tonal response, and they are immune to the loading effects of volume and tone potentiometers. They offer an extremely fast transient response for unprecedented articulation (yet with all the classic humbucker warmth and smoothness), and are extremely compatible with both effects pedals and clean amp settings. Suitable for all styles of music, the GEM active pickups represent a huge leap forward in performance and versatility.

The skeleton of the Les Paul Gothic Morte is crafted from the same ingredients that have helped to make the Les Paul legendary for nearly 60 years. A carved maple top is joined to a mahogany body that has been strategically chambered for improved resonance and weight relief, and a solid mahogany neck carved to a comfortable rounded "50s" profile is glued in Gibson's time-tested tradition. The most exciting ingredient of the entire tonewood package, however, is the exotic African Obeche used for the guitar's fingerboard. A dark, dense alternative to Ebony, African Obeche is FSC certified and, therefore, fully sustainable. As used on the Les Paul Gothic Morte, the African Obeche fingerboard carries no inlays or binding to extend the model's radical styling. In addition to the guitar's Satin Ebony nitrocellulose finish, the Les Paul Morte wears a black Tune-o-matic bridge with a black stopbar tailpiece, black Grover tuners, and a black Corian nut which has been precision cut on the PLEK for optimum intonation. All in all, it's a powerful reincarnation of the world's premier solidbody electric guitar”now propelled to greater extremes than ever with new active pickups, sustainable exotic woods and all-black styling.