Orville Les Paul - Collectors nightmare, players dream?

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JohnA said:
JVsearch said:
It's actually quite disappointing to see an ObG (supposedly the premium MIJ brand in some circles) with a body and top made of so many pieces. Sure, it may not affect the tone at all, we can't know that when buying off the internet, but the guitar is just not made like a top quality LP.

Just checked the pics and was supprised to see that too, then I realised it's an Orville, not an OBG.

I know someone who had a real 57 goldtop refinished :eek: and the top was 5-piece

Hopefully it still had a one piece body?

And yeah, then there's the story about the guy who stripped his 57 GT and it had a flame maple 2 piece top! :eek: :lol:
 
JohnA said:
JVsearch said:
It's actually quite disappointing to see an ObG (supposedly the premium MIJ brand in some circles) with a body and top made of so many pieces. Sure, it may not affect the tone at all, we can't know that when buying off the internet, but the guitar is just not made like a top quality LP.

Just checked the pics and was supprised to see that too, then I realised it's an Orville, not an OBG.

Aha! I guess that makes it alright then?
 
JVsearch said:
JohnA said:
JVsearch said:
It's actually quite disappointing to see an ObG (supposedly the premium MIJ brand in some circles) with a body and top made of so many pieces. Sure, it may not affect the tone at all, we can't know that when buying off the internet, but the guitar is just not made like a top quality LP.

Just checked the pics and was supprised to see that too, then I realised it's an Orville, not an OBG.

Aha! I guess that makes it alright then?

as long as is sounds great who cares :wink:
 
JohnA said:
JVsearch said:
JohnA said:
JVsearch said:
It's actually quite disappointing to see an ObG (supposedly the premium MIJ brand in some circles) with a body and top made of so many pieces. Sure, it may not affect the tone at all, we can't know that when buying off the internet, but the guitar is just not made like a top quality LP.

Just checked the pics and was supprised to see that too, then I realised it's an Orville, not an OBG.

Aha! I guess that makes it alright then?

as long as is sounds great who cares :wink:

Yes, there may be no link whatsoever between build quality/methods and tone! :lol:
But nobody knows what this thing sounds like, and if it's a turd then buying it at the current price will probably mean the buyer loses out when re-selling. It should be a $1 auction IMO.
 
JohnA said:
JVsearch said:
It's actually quite disappointing to see an ObG (supposedly the premium MIJ brand in some circles) with a body and top made of so many pieces. Sure, it may not affect the tone at all, we can't know that when buying off the internet, but the guitar is just not made like a top quality LP.

Just checked the pics and was supprised to see that too, then I realised it's an Orville, not an OBG.

I know someone who had a real 57 goldtop refinished :eek: and the top was 5-piece

I know of one and it is a 3-piece
 
Just about all guitar factories are going to cut costs on lower models by using what's around at the factory at the time.

With solid colours, they can hide multiple pieces of wood, especially for the top of a LP.

In my playing experience, the number of pieces of wood is not such a big deal to the final sound. I'ts more about what type the wood piecs are and also the state of the wood (moisture content etc) and how well the pickups match that particular guitar and pickup/guitar matching is a lot about personal taste and trial and error.

A guitar made from multiple pieces of wood and considered to be junk by the way it looks can often be made to sing with the right pickups that match that body according to personal taste.

Some pickups work well in some guitars and don't work as well in other guitars, it's a roulette wheel.

There are so many pickup variables, like windings, magnets coils spacings etc etc and combine this with wood variables like wood type, what part of the tree the wood pieces came from, wood moisture content and texture etc etc then it's just not really predictable what the final sound will be.

The guitar body combined with the pickups really form a frequency filter (like a EQ) that sets the overall frequency response just like speakers do and speaker frequency response is variable and so is the combined guitar/pickups frequency response and sustain also depends on how steep the filter cut off slope is..

Some guitar/pickup combos will cut the mids,highs,lows or boost the mids,highs or lows and it's not really predictable beforehand just what is going to happen with certain guitar/pickup combinations.

I can't really judge a guitar until I can try 5 or 6 different pickups in it.

A so called lemon is often a diamond if you can mix and match pickups.

Of course, multiple pieces of wood puts off guitar lookers who like to look at their guitars as if they were some exotic piece of furniture or whatever.
 
When i saw that orville on the bay...i had a look at it..Nothing special ,just a stripped terada made custom..probadly a K-sticker .I have not seen a lot of stripped custom mij guitars,but what i do know is that a good percentage of custom orville,grecos,burnys are made using multiple bits of lumber.
Now the guitar in question is a real orville..but a k-sticker orville ,now because of this i would never buy it ,I had a k orville that was made like a jigsaw puzzle ,It was my 1 st MADE IN JAPAN LES PAUL i purchased ,At the time i when i first got it , i thought it was a good guitar..But i was never really 100% ,Its action was terrible ,i could never get it right ,But i was kinda happy with it ,after all it was a real ORVILLE it had to be good,why were everybody on these guitar forums raving about orvilles..
About 5 months later the gas hit again ,i went shopping for an OBG ,i brought a OBG reissue which turned out to be a OBG LPS-57C MODEL.

Well let me tell you the moment my hands picked up that OBG i knew what all the fuss was about..I played it for a hour and it rocked my world ,it blew the Sh**y K orville out of the water...

I am not saying that all k-orville are a plie of pooh ,like anything in life ,it is hit and miss ,as japanstrat said it all about the wood and how it sounds when put together..I am in two minds about the guitar in the auction ...Ok its a k-orville ,but it might just be a freaking good sounding example,What i do know is that removing the thick custom finish will have a effect of the sound of the thing in a positive way,I had a stripped top orville fujigen made and the difference to the tone was to open the guitar out a bit,more presence!

I guess will we ever know how good or bad that guitar might be ,we never played it...but we already played it in our minds and came to the conclusion it was crap...a conclusion influenced by the looks and the way the thing was and is constructed ...Yes!!! no!!!

Somebody brought it for ?557 ,a pretty good price for a k-orville.

MOJO HOBO
 
Hi,

I am just wondering why some people are jumping to the conclusion that it was a K serial number Orville. I have never seen a Custom version with a K serial number but maybe that is just my lack of information....

The way that Orvilles have ink are stamped serial numbers, it would be logical that if you're going to strip a guitar of its paint, the serial number will disappear as well. So, again it does not have to be a K serial Orville.

To me, a guitar is as good as the hands that play it. If you hear a pro guitarist play an Orville (with some mods) you'll know exactly what I mean. No doubt, the guy I have in mind would make the guitar in this topic sing like a nighting gale in a huricane!

Let's await the feedback on the auction. I hope that the person will be pleased with his guitar...
 
am just wondering why some people are jumping to the conclusion that it was a K serial number Orville. I have never seen a Custom version with a K serial number but maybe that is just my lack of information....
Joop ,I have one
 
After all, the seller did write, that it was a K serial. It's in the Q&A part of the listing. You don't have to wonder anymore ;)
 
When I compare early K Orvilles (1989-1991) to later K Orvilles (1992-1993), the later K Orvilles look somewhat better and the early burst finish 3 piece tops were basically replaced by 2 piece tops.

I have a hunch that Yamano wasn't really that happy about the early Orvilles and probably told Terada to improve the quality of the K Orvilles around 1991/1992. Yamano was looking elsewhere for another guitar maker to take over the Orvilles and Yamano gave most of the Orville contract to Fujigen around 1993.

Terada were throwing a lot of the early K Orvilles together, especially the solid colours and the 3 piece burst tops out of wood pieces at their factory.
Even the lower priced Terada G serial OBG's often have separate pieces of wood for the neck heel and I havn't seen a lower priced solid colour G serial OBG stripped yet but I would expect multiple pieces of wood as well.
The higher model Terada G serial OBG's don't have a separate neck heel wood piece.
The later K Orville burst tops are mostly 2 piece tops and some K Orvilles are really just demoted G serial OBG's so the K Orvilles are a grab bag of this and that.
The best looking and fewer piece K Orvilles seem to be the later ones from around 1992/1993.

Comparing K Orville SG's with G serial OBG SG's, they are basically the same regarding the number of pieces of wood so looks like Terada were mostly doing more pieces of wood on early solid colour K Orville LP's and especially the solid colour LP tops.

The number of pieces of wood is basically a price thing.
Using leftover odd shaped pieces of wood means that they can order less new wood and therefore save money.
As I said above, whether the number of pieces of wood is a big deal to the final tone is debatable.
 
Yes JAPSTRAT..I think your correct and concur that the early K-orville might have been below par and corners cut in there production,mine was (if i remember right) was a 91 k-orville.
3-piece top
4 piece back
Neck with heel
Inlays loose and beguining to pop up...
Sometimes i wonder how many K-ORVILLES were made in that timeframe of 1989-1991,the actual production terada was churning out.



MOJO HOBO
 
Just goes to show though....my by Gibson terada G series is an 89 with a three piece back and neck heel and it's bloody amazing. On the lighter side and very resonant.
 
Well for an example that a lot of people know, just take Eddie Van Halen.

On the first Van Halen Album there is a cover of the Kinks "You Really Got Me" which was released as a single and was a hit.

Eddie is playing a Ibanez Destroyer on "You Really Got Me" and the Ibanez Destroyer is made from multiple pieces of wood in the body and the neck. The Greco Destroyer is the same Fujigen made guitar as the Ibanez Destroyer just with different Greco U-2000 pickups instead of the Ibanez Super 70 pickups.

http://www.guitarattack.com/destroyer/destroyer.htm

The multiple pieces of wood didn't worry Eddie as he just painted the whole guitar white (he did other things to it later on as well).

The sound Eddie got on "You Really Got Me" with the Ibanez Destroyer is a sound that a lot of guitarists have tried to copy and it's coming from a guitar body and neck made from multiple pieces of wood.

Getting hung up on how many pieces of wood a guitar is really only for looks and not how the whole guitar sounds and the final sound also depends on the pickups and even the hardware like the Strat springs contributing to the final tone or different bridges etc, amps, speakers, effects and PLAYING TECHNIQUE.

Poor playing technique or style will make any guitar sound bad.

Des8.jpg
 
Hi Guys,

I just read the feedback the seller got from the sale of this guitar and the buyer is very pleased with his purchase.

Glad that despite all the confusion and opinions some one has joined the long list of MIJ lovers.

Next topic please.... :eek:)

Sunny greetings from Portugal!
 
japanstrat said:
Well for an example that a lot of people know, just take Eddie Van Halen.

On the first Van Halen Album there is a cover of the Kinks "You Really Got Me" which was released as a single and was a hit.

Eddie is playing a Ibanez Destroyer on "You Really Got Me" and the Ibanez Destroyer is made from multiple pieces of wood in the body and the neck. The Greco Destroyer is the same Fujigen made guitar as the Ibanez Destroyer just with different Greco U-2000 pickups instead of the Ibanez Super 70 pickups.

http://www.guitarattack.com/destroyer/destroyer.htm

The multiple pieces of wood didn't worry Eddie as he just painted the whole guitar white (he did other things to it later on as well).

The sound Eddie got on "You Really Got Me" with the Ibanez Destroyer is a sound that a lot of guitarists have tried to copy and it's coming from a guitar body and neck made from multiple pieces of wood.

Getting hung up on how many pieces of wood a guitar is really only for looks and not how the whole guitar sounds and the final sound also depends on the pickups and even the hardware like the Strat springs contributing to the final tone or different bridges etc, amps, speakers, effects and PLAYING TECHNIQUE.

Poor playing technique or style will make any guitar sound bad.

Des8.jpg

Couldn't agree with you more... Good guitarist can make ANY thing sound good, bad players will sound awful no matter what they've got in their hands...
 
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