Questions about Les Paul's (The man, not the guitar) Modifications

[Sailfish]

So, first off, sorry if this is the wrong section, anyways, a few times I have read that Les Paul himself heavily modified his and Mary Ford's guitars. However, I have yet to find any details, and I figured this was the place to come, so does anyone know what the "heavily modified" guitars actually entailed? Thanks!

 

[Bob Womack]

The four I can quickly remember on various guitars he had are a flat top (no carve), an onboard microphone mounted on a gooseneck, and a box to control his playback system. Here is a pic of my luthier, Kenny Marshall, with one of Les' guitars that he worked on. You can see the second volume control for the microphone and, on the side of the guitar above the strap peg, the jack for the microphone.

Bob

 

[Sailfish]

Ok, wow that is interesting, those Les Paul Recording guitars are cool too, with their active pickups, taps, and phase switches etc. Thanks!

 

[poor man's burst]

Les Paul Recording pickups are not active. They are low impedance.

 

[Sailfish]

Oh, yeah, I recall now, It's been a while, I was looking at schematics to try to rebuild that wiring harness, but they are hard to get a hold of! Thanks.

 

[jrgtr42]

I was at a guitar show this spring and saw a couple of Les’ guitars. I don’t know the specific details on the mods, but I understand he liked the low-impedence pickups a lot, and used most of his instruments as test beds for new ideas. Here’s the ones I got pics of.

Edit|: can't upload pics direct in this thread - wonder why not.

 

[jrgtr42]

I saw this one in person,

|And one similar to this, but with a cherry sunburst finish, and not as many controls.