Gibson USA’s Studio line has proved a popular platform for high-performance Les Pauls with no-nonsense esthetics and player’s-grade features ever since it first hit the scene back in 1983. Now the new Nitrous Les Paul Studio combines some of the hottest looks ever with impressive sonic versatility that is firmly rooted in that fat, rich Les Paul tone. While maintaining the appealing “stripped down” ethos at the heart of the Les Paul Studio, the Nitrous adds a truly stunning new range of muscle car colors to a totally reconfigured weight-relief technique that genuinely enhances resonance and sustain while creating an appealingly light guitar, and tops the package off with versatile push-pull coil-tapping for two of Gibson’s most popular humbucking pickups. Ice the cake with Gibson USA’s legendary craftsmanship and superb playability, and you’ve got one of the most impressive bang-for-the-buck electric guitars available today. The Nitrous Les Paul Studio begins with the tonewood building blocks of a carved maple top and genuine mahogany body, two of the ingredients that have helped to make the Les Paul a legendary tone machine since 1952. To optimize resonance and sustain while producing the most comfortable playing experience possible, Gibson USA routes the mahogany body in a modern “webbed” weight relief pattern, the same used on the 2012 Les Paul Standard, for a lighter guitar that still sings like a vintage Les Paul, while maintaining excellent resistance to feedback. A glued-in mahogany neck is carved to the popular slim, fast early ’60s profile that measures .800” at the 1st fret and .875” at the 12th. Its unbound fingerboard is made from a single piece of rich, brown Granadillo, a prized Central American hardwood that offers the desirable sonic and visual characteristics of rosewood. This gorgeous wood provides a durable and sultry feeling bed for the 22 medium-jumbo frets, while maintaining a traditional look and playing experience. Finally, the Nitrous Les Paul Studio is finished in your choice of four exclusive new eye-popping nitrous colors: Cosmic Cobalt, Electric Lime, Vibrant Red, and Orange Glow, each of which has a visual presence like nothing you have ever experienced. A delicate shade on the perimeter of each color enhances the curves and gives a slight burst to all of the colors. Power, presence, and sonic versatility are ensured by loading the Nitrous Les Paul Studio Nitrous with a pair of Gibson USA's most popular humbucking pickups from the "Modern Classics" series, with four-conductor wiring for independent coil splitting of each via their push-pull volume knobs. The 490R humbucker in the neck position is wound to vintage PAF specs and made with an Alnico II magnet for smooth, rich, creamy tones. The 498T in the bridge is wound hotter and made with an Alnico V magnet for greater punch and presence, giving you everything from meaty crunch tones to wailing leads. Pop up the coil-splitting for either or both pickups to access authentic frequency tuned single-coil tones, which still retain excellent hum rejection in the middle switch position thanks to the reverse-wound/reverse-polarity neck pickup. Add Gibson's legendary Tune-o-matic bridge and Stopbar tailpiece pairing for excellent sustain and precise intonation adjustment, and it's one of the best performance packages available for the money today.