Uploaded November 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago

---

The NORLIN era of GIBSON is not considered to be their finest hour, but my 1979 LES PAUL STANDARD is, IMHO, a rather nice example of a great guitar.

The Gibson Norlin era was from 1969 to 1986, when the Norlin Corporation owned the guitar company. The Norlin era is often considered a dark period for Gibson, due to a decline in the quality of Les Paul guitars. This was caused by changes to the production process. Some of the changes made during this time include:

Body
The mahogany body was replaced with a pancake style construction, which was usually made of two pieces of mahogany or a single thin slice of maple between two slices of mahogany

Top
The traditional two-piece maple cap was replaced with three pieces of maple

Neck
The traditional mahogany neck was replaced with a three-piece maple neck

Headstock
The headstock was made bigger and a volute was added to the back side to strengthen it