2001 Limited Edition Love Rocks

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I recently purchased a 2000 Korean Love Rock. This is one of the baddest guitars I have ever played and also one of the sweetest looking ones. It does seem that Mike was a bit dishonest about the Japanese/Korean thing. All I can say is buyer beware, educate yourself before making those kind of purchases. I hate to see the Korean models get a bad name because they rock. They put the epiphone models to shame.
 
I was the one who asked the question about the 2001 LE's from Mike's Music originally. The question was not about the quality, it is a good guitar ,decently assembled, decent hardware. It did have gaps where the pickup rings meet the top ( I don't know if anyone else had that problem) , the pickups are relatively week for humbucking pickups. But all in all it is a GOOD guitar . My question originally was where it was MADE since I had been told by Mike it was a Japanese model guitar.

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Richard']
 
I just wanted to write and say that my 2001 Love Rock is one of the best guitars I own. I have 2 real Gibsons, but the feel of the Love Rock just kills!

I don't care where its made as long as it sounds great and kicks ***. My Tokai has massive sustain and stays in tune perfectly, even more so than my $2000 Gibson. I love all my guitars but the Tokai rules.

Keep playin fellas!

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Jan']
 
I just bought another 2001 LE!!! Now I have TWO!
YEEEEEHAAAAA!

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Barry']
 
Come on fellas , who are you kidding... It's an OK guitar... It's a cheap Les Paul copy. The pickups suck. No clarity or presence. Sounds sort of...dull.
Get a real players guitar... Not some wanna be.
 
I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE PICKUPS! I just got a
shipment from Seymour Duncan so that subject
has been rendered moot! Obviously, some of us
immensely enjoy these instruments. Why are you
trying to spoil it for us??

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Barry']
 
Hey Y'all, Just got a Korean ASL53L (left handed) Love Rock Gold Top from Songbird in Toronto, Canada.
You know, even if the Love Rock was the exact same guit as the Epiphone Les Paul, I think it would be a better buy. At least the finishes are better (the lefty Epi only comes in that terrible cherry 'burst finish) and the headstock is the Gibson shape... if you care about that stuff. The solid mahogany is also too cool for the bucks.
I think the Epi's are great. I sold my Epi Les Paul because I made some money on it but that was a bad move (or so I thought, the Tokai more than remedies that - Gold Top!), and I also have a lefty Casino, which I love. The Tokai is cheaper than the Epiphone where I live too. The Korean stuff is getting to be so good these days, Gibson and Fender gotta be sweatin'. The Japanese stuff, as most of us know, has been fantastic for a long time.
I know the Gibson's are superior, everybody does, why does that stuff even come up. All my Japenese and Korean guitars are just great. My American ones are too, ...but I really shelled out for 'em (well most of 'em...some of 'em...well, one of 'em). Where I live, all the cats with the Gibsons get eaten at the Sunday Jam by the folks with the Korean junk. Yes, I would trade my Love Rock for a Les Paul Standard... but not any Les Paul Standard. I also agree with "anonymous" - get a real player's guitar... not some wanna be. All the best, Steve.

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Guitarslim Jr']
 
Don,
The pickups are by Gotoh, as is the rest of the hardware.

And for the Anonymous flamer, why are all the US made guitars hardware measured in metric (millimetres)? I thought all the US was Imperial (feet & inches).

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Skybone']
 
I think they do. Especially when through a driven valve amp :wink:

In comparison to Gibson standards (490/498) they may lack a bit of "punch", but they do have a nice "vintage" feel, as the Gotoh's are supposedly PAF's.

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Skybone']
 
Luis, My Korean lefty Gold Top ALS53 sounds nothing like the Epiphone Les Paul I had Briefly, and by that I mean much better. I have always used single coils... strat type, dano type (in a strat and a re-issue lefty U256) and P90's in a bunch of different parts guitars, and I'm a Supro/Harmony/Dano/Junker nut, so the Epi was my first foray into humbuckers. It was cool but didn't sound like what I was expecting, I got the Love Rock on a whim and am blown away. Same pick-up ring problem as mentioned by Richard on the 28th, and the finish had some really small air bubble spots in a few places but it's lighter than the Epi in weight, much more resonant, and still a better finish over the Epi despite the mentioned problems. The Gold Top finish is also better than the Epi's I've seen too. Machine heads are also better.
The pickup selections are all very usable, (I only ever used the bridge on the Epi, all other combinations I found very not so good sounding) My pal has a lefty '83 Gibson ES335 and the Tokai reminds me a lot of the tone I have gotton from playing that.
Being a lefty my Gibson playing time has been limited, to say the least. It's only the last few years that I've managed to aquire a stable of cool stuff, I have managed to keep between 15 - 20 guitars and have 9 amps. Mostly vintage stuff. So anyway, want I'm trying to say is that even though I'm not the humbucker expert by hands on use, I have aprox. 18 feet of records, 1000 CD's, 78's, cassettes, videos,45's, cilinder rolls, 8-tracks too, I've heard a lot of records ( I work a day job in a record shop for the last 10 years as well as playing blues professionally) I hope I can say I know tone. This is, I guess, how we all know to some degree, what just about anything is supposed to sound like. Let's put it this way, I have A Seymour Duncan humbucker I got in a trade and I don't intend to try it out at all. The Love Rock sounds amazing through these two 15 watt class A amps I have, I thought the were just O.K. with all my other guitars but with the Love Rock they are amazing. I almost sold them too! The Tokai pick-ups in the Korean models sound old time!!
Sorry about being so wordy, I'm just very happy about having all that tone for so cheap. Steve

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Guitarslim Jr']
 
I'm amazed by what you said about the Tokai being lighter than the Epi. Is this cause its a Korean model?

My LoveRock is about the same weight as my Gibson LP, and that aint light! I had an Epi LP (Birdseye Classic) which was nice, but nowhere near the weight of a standard LP (not an LP Standard), and it pales into insignificance against my Tokai.

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Skybone']
 
It appears that someone is selling Mike's 2001 LE Love Rocks on E-bay right now. And it AIN'T Mike!!
Complete with tags! To quote Jerry Seinfeld: : "WHAT is UP with THAT??"

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Barry']
 
It appears ???

How much you want to bet it is Mike selling under a different identity? He should be kicked off ebay !

[Anonymously Posted by: 'anna']
 
I WOULD HIRE MIKE TO WORK FOR MY STORE ANY DAY!
MIKE IF YOU READ THIS, LETS TALK!

[Anonymously Posted by: 'TRAVIS']
 
hello to all of you out there!

i recently bought a love rock that was built in 2000, a korean model, but i think it is the same as the 2001 le model (2 piece mahogany body, tokai paf pu's). i definetely love this axe, although i have to admit i am only playing now for about a year, and thus do not have much comparison or expertise. i can only tell the HUGE difference between this and the epi lp studio i had before - wow, what a piece of crap this was, it didn't stay in tune for half an hour, the frets were extremely thick, the soud was pretty dull etc etc. (anyone want to buy it from me? :smile:
after i got the guitar, i installed a gibson 57 classic (neck) and a classic plus (bridge), and that did it even more!! the sound before, with the tokai pafs, was very high and almost brittle (i guess, due to the 1,5 cm maple top), and with gibsons it changed to a much warmer tone, producing exactly this warm, round and full sound i was after when switched to the neck pu and driven through my marsh jtm 60 on the boost channel with gain set to 9 o'clock. simply great.
craftmanshipwise, i don't know what much could be done any better; there was 1 little, little bubble on the cutaway, the action was too low, but who cares? and now finally i am coming to my

main question:

when the pu switch is set to middle position and i turn off one pu, the other doesn't give any sound any more. only when i turn the muted pu back up a little, the other pu comes back fully. thats really strange. because, even though i changed the pu's, i copied the original wiring pattern completely, and already then i noticed that it was different from what gibosn does in their lp's.

does any of you out there in the wide world have experienced anything similar? and, if so, what did you do about it?

greetings from oliver, bremen, germany

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Oliver G.']
 
Hallo Oliver,

das ist die Originalverschaltung der PU's bei allen Les Pauls, also auch bei den Tokai Love Rocks. Hast du deine kürzlich bei ebay ersteigert? Die Love Rocks werden wohl in Kürze ziemlich rar, weil sie - wie ich gehört habe - auch nach Deutschland nicht mehr importiert werden dürfen. Ich habe soeben auch eine japanische LS-70F in Cherryburst erstanden und bin auch hochzufrieden mit dem Teil, werde aber auch wohl die PU's austauschen. Wenn die Classics bloß nicht so teuer wären.

Gruß, Stephan

[Anonymously Posted by: 'Stephan']
 
hi stefan,

i did not buy it via ebay, but via the person that sells tokais on ebay germany. that the wiring i described is the original from the gibsons, i did not know, and, to be honest, it doesn't give much sense to me, either. any enlightenment here?

i keep to english because maybe others can gain something from our discussion. but thanks for answering anyway!!

ps:i bought my pu's via the internet for 200 DM each, half a year ago. i forgot, where, though.

greetings,

-oliver

[Anonymously Posted by: 'oliver g.']
 

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