Gibson L6-S '73-'74 All Maple Electric Guitar - Pre-Loved

This is a pre-loved guitar in good condition for its age. There is a lot of classic maple fingerboard marking, but as a whole the guitar sounds and plays brilliantly.

Comes with its original hardcase.

The Gibson L6-S is a solid body electric guitar. It was the descendant of the L5S jazz solid-body electric guitar. It was the same shape, very much like a wide Gibson Les Paul, but with a 24-fret neck, the first Gibson guitar to have this.

The L6-S was the first cooperation between Bill Lawrence and Gibson. It was designed in 1972 and first released in 1973. The idea was to make a "multi-sound system" under a very tight budget. It has a six way rotary selector switch, complete with "chicken head" pointer knob. Starting with switch position #1, in the most counter-clockwise position, the available pickup switching options are as follows:

1. Both pickups, in series
2. Neck pickup, alone
3. Both pickups, in parallel
4. Both pickups, parallel out of phase, with the neck pickup's bass response restricted through a series capacitor.
5. Bridge pickup, alone
6. Both pickups, series out of phase.

The capacitor in the #4 position gives a fuller tone than the otherwise very nasal out of phase tone. The capacitor serves to limit the low end response of the neck pickup, and also phase delays the signal from that pickup, resulting in a fuller tone, not too unlike the #2 and #4 switch positions on a Fender Stratocaster guitar.

The L6-S had some high-profile endorsements from the likes of Carlos Santana, John McLaughlin, Keith Richards, Paul Stanley, Mike Oldfield, Angus Young and Prince