Guitar World Verdict
Belying its stately, muted aesthetic, Morton’s signature Les Paul is surely the most vicious artist series model in the Gibson catalog, a mother-flipping invitation to exploit its super-hot bridge humbucker’s firepower in search of the riff. But look a bit further and you’ll find hidden depths, tones as classic as they are modern.
Pros
- +
Superlative high-gain tones, but also great fun for blues-rock too.
- +
There is a lot to like about the SlimTaper neck.
- +
Good weight.
- +
It has a quilt maple top without looking overdressed.
Cons
- -
Why only 350?
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No left-handed options.
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White binding is a little cold and there's some untidiness on the fingerboard edges.
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What is it?
Some signature guitars seem to come together in no time, as though the artist hands over a sketch on a napkin, specifies what kind of pickups they want, a prototype arrives, they sign-off on color finishes and that’s that. Cue the demo video, the unveiling… We’re off to the races.
The Lamb of God guitarist officially signed up with Gibson in 2022. By 2023, Gibson CEO Cesar Gueikian was demoing what looked awfully like a prototype. The years went on. There were refinements. Morton didn’t want off-the-shelf humbuckers. He was working with master luthier Jim DeCola on a set of pickups that had some of that O.G. Gibson PAF character and the ordnance required to perform the Lamb of God catalog.
They found them in a custom-wind, based around a ceramic magnet. Morton was adhering to the Eddie Van Halen Method, thrashing the prototype(s) live until they had proved their worth.
I would take prototypes, put them in a stage guitar and try them on stage and really get to put them through the paces in an actual work environment
Mark Morton
“I really wanted to know how they were going to react up there when I’m working,” he says. “We went back and forth on these pickups for quite a while, trying different prototypes and different models. And that’s a lot of fun developing that and hearing the really, really subtle nuances in different changes.
“And the great thing about it was I was touring a lot while we were doing that, so I would take prototypes, put them in a stage guitar and try them on stage and really get to put them through the paces in an actual work environment.”
In 2024, Morton posted a pic of what looked like the finished model, by February 2026 it was out. Unlike the prototypes, now we have humbuckers housed in chrome coverings, chrome trim covers on black mounting rings, and the tuners had been updated, too.
We have the AAA quilt maple top, the satin finish, but with black Top Hat knobs with silver reflectors as a nod to the late John Sykes’ Les Paul Custom. The bougie high-end aesthetic of the quilted maple cap somewhat toned down under the Translucent Ebony Burst satin nitro stain. As Morton notes, this Les Paul is about balance.
“I really wanted something that stayed in some sense, very classic to the heritage, the history of the Les Paul,” says Morton. “I didn’t want to do something too radical. But I also wanted something that looked heavy metal, that looked appropriate for the guitar player of Lamb of God’s Les Paul. The quilt top and the trans-black satin finish felt kind of dark, and kind of metal to me, but not over the top.”
Specs
- Launch price: $2,999 | £2,999 | €3,099
- Made: USA
- Type: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric
- Body: Mahogany with Ultra Weight Relief, AAA quilted maple top
- Neck: Mahogany / SlimTaper, glued-in
- Fingerboard/radius: Ebony with mother of pearl trapezoid inlay / compound radius
- Scale length: 24.75"/628.65mm
- Nut/width: Graph Tech / 43.05mm
- Frets: 22, medium jumbo
- Hardware: Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge, aluminum stopbar tailpiece, Grover Rotomatic rear-locking tuners w/ keystone buttons – chrome-plated
- String spacing at bridge: 51.5mm
- Electrics: 2x Mark Morton signature humbuckers, dual volume, dual tone, 3-way pickup selector
- Weight: 8.4lb/3.81kg
- Left-handed options: No
- Finishes: Translucent Ebony Burst Satin
- Cases: Hard-shell guitar case
- Contact: Gibson
Build quality
Build quality rating: ★★★★☆
Morton’s first Gibson signature model will be quite familiar to those au fait with the company's cautiously modernized single-cut. It has the compound radius fingerboard (not specified, very subtle, and measuring around 9.5” at the first fret and flattening out to a regulation Gibson-esque 12”), the coil-taps and out-of-phase switching options, the Modern Contoured Heel, all that weight relief that you could give a Les Paul before we could reasonably call it a semi-hollow.
Morton’s guitar swaps out the Modern's PCB mounting for the pickup controls in favor of a tidily hand-wired loom with Orange Drop capacitors. That means no push-pull knobs, no coil-taps, no out-of-phase "Greeny" voicing, just an old-school three-way selector, a volume and tone pairing for each pickup. And, as noted above, Gibson swapped out the clear Top Hat tuners (Morton says it was a nod to Sykes but it also brings this up to spec with the closely related Les Paul Supreme).
The pickups are mounted on black plastic surrounds with chrome trims that could be removed if you preferred a more traditional look. Similarly, the truss rod cover etched with Morton’s signature can be switched out for a blank. We have the traditional aluminum Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge and stop bar, but the tuners have been upgraded to rear-locking Rotomatics with metal Keystone buttons.
icking it up, the first thing you might notice is how thin the satin nitro lacquer is
The build is crisp. The factory setup is fairly mainstream. The white binding is a little austere and there are some subtle yet noticeable scuff marks on the edges of the fingerboard. The frets could benefit from a little more polishing. But we can live with that.
Picking it up, the first thing you might notice is how thin the satin nitro lacquer is, revealing not only much of the wood grain but given it an almost open-pore finish. Some might prefer the high-gloss treatment (as you would find on the Les Paul Modern Figured) but aesthetically it works fine, and is nice and tactile.
The satin headstock facing is a nice touch. Elsewhere, you’ve got to say the the mother of pearl trapezoid inlays on a uniformly dark ebony fingerboard look the part.
Playability
Playability rating: ★★★★½
The only noticeable update to Les Paul ergonomics is its generic Modern Contoured heel. It does improves upper-fret access, though stops short of the full Axcess heel
When compared to the Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard we had in for review – a whopping zoo creature giving us double figures on the scales – the Mark Morton Les Paul Modern Quilt feels like a featherweight at just under eight-and-a-half pounds. We would still advise a thick padded guitar strap. Your back will thank you. Nonetheless, minus a kilo, Morton’s LP is a little more user-friendly.
For all the routing going on with the body, Gibson shaving timber out, shedding the pounds, there is little evidence of any power tool adventurism on the back of the instrument, no belly cuts, no trimmed cutaway.
The only noticeable update to Les Paul ergonomics is its generic Modern Contoured heel. It does improve upper-fret access, though stops short of the full Axcess heel, and considerably short of the kind of access you would get from market-leading metal guitar brands such as Jackson or ESP/LTD, who can be more radical and still stay on-brand.
Indeed, we tend to think of metal guitars as high-performance designs, built for speed, but that’s not what we have here. Sure, the SlimTaper neck is an easy C profile, and quick as you like, but the modest compound radius is no shredder’s spec, certainly not when compared to the 12”-16” radius widely found across the catalogs of Jackson, Charvel and EVH Gear. Gibson’s medium jumbo frets are considerably smaller than the jumbo/extra jumbo frets on today’s shred machines.
If we were spec’ing this up to be a contemporary metal player’s instrument, we’d go for thicker wire, maybe even stainless steel frets for a slinkier feel, but we have to park those thoughts. That’s not what Gibson and Morton are trying to do here. This is a Modern, and modern in the Gibson sense of the word.
Have the updates to the shape and form of the guitar changed that much since 1952? Not really. Close your eyes and play a riff in the lower registers and we are not that sure you will notice that great a difference between this and a ‘60s Standard, which is to say that it’s a comfortable instrument, a joy to spend time with, and, yes, to play metal on.
But then you could say the same of a Les Paul Standard, an SG, a Flying V… and so on. What comes out your amp’s speaker, however, well, we are getting to that…
Sounds
Sounds rating: ★★★★½
If Seth Lover is thought of as some kind of Nikola Tesla figure in Gibson lore, on account of his holy grail ‘Patent Applied For’ humbucker that defined the tone of its golden era, then Jim DeCola might well be its Dr Frankenstein. DeCola has created a monster. Morton’s signature humbuckers – well, that bridge humbucker to be clear – are designed for the dark arts. And any talk of the Mark Morton Les Paul Modern Quilt has to begin there.
Based around a ceramic magnet, with the bridge bucker running super-hot, and its counterpart at the neck a more traditionally voiced (read: P.A.F. style) proposition, this is a pairing that the Gibson Pickup Shop is going to see requests for.
Played through a Blackstar HT Series tube combo with the gain and volume dimed, its full metal jacket all the way at the bridge. Now, this all sounds great at standard pitch.
Tune down a whole step; that’s where the sweet spot is, where the articulation and detailed treble come into their own
With a little EQ’ing, taking some of the gain off the amp, you can get that juicy Friday night metal tone, saturation in the early ‘80s sense of the word, harmonics popping off the fretboard. A little squeeze from the JHS Pulp N’ Peel compressor pedal and it’s got that tight pro LA sheen to it.
But tune down a whole step; that’s where the sweet spot is, where the articulation and detailed treble come into their own. Power chord or hand grenade? You decide.
Moving to the neck position, things seem tamer. I would be tempted just to roll the tone back on the bridge humbucker if taking a solo. But when you’ve got Mr Hyde going bananas at the bridge position, the bedside manner of Dr Jekyll at the neck is welcome respite. Also, it’s no slouch, exceptional for grungy, woolly Sabbath riffs with a fuzz pedal.
The fast attack, the clarity, the wolverine appetite for gain… That’s all here as you would expect but don’t think that it is just all afterburner and pyro
This is quite a different guitar to Morton’s Jackson Dominion, and yet there are some parallels. It too was rigged to blow with a pair of signature DiMarzio humbuckers with a ceramic magnet design, 16.50K at the bridge, 8.39K at the neck (an uncannily similar to the 16.38K/7.49K reading of the new Morton ‘buckers as measured by The Trogly’s Guitar Show).
The fast attack, the clarity, the wolverine appetite for gain… That’s all here as you would expect but don’t think that it is just all afterburner and pyro.
The bridge has a tight crunch with a sleazy Super Distortion character when you roll some of the volume or gain off. Set your amp to break-up and the mix position will supersize open chords. The neck pickup has the more convincing clean voicing, not least because it isn’t pushing the amp's front end so hard. Add chorus and a short delay for all your spooky metal intro needs. Run the cleans slightly hot and you’ve got chewy blues-rock.
The coil-taps of the regular Modern were not missed. The Pure-Bypass feature would have been cool, though… That bridge pickup would have went full Godzilla.
Verdict
It was a long time coming and in the end we got an upscale Les Paul Modern – easy on the modern – and they are only making 350 of them. Still, any time spent cooking up a firestorm of a bridge pickup like that, or designing the pro-quality good cop/bad cop hard-rock and metal pairing, is time well spent.
As hot as these pickups run, this is a Les Paul, the singlecut we know and love. Our biggest question is why only 350 of them?
Some guitars try too hard to be metal. This is not that. Those looking for the super-premium shred feel should look elsewhere. Morton’s Les Paul is for players operating at the frontiers, high-gain drifters with a taste for the classics.
As hot as these pickups run, this is a Les Paul, the singlecut we know and love. Our biggest question is why only 350 of them? Morton’s LP will no doubt sell out. Y'know, it probably already has...
Guitar World verdict: Belying its stately, muted aesthetic, Morton’s signature Les Paul is surely the most vicious artist series model in the Gibson catalog, a mother-flipping invitation to exploit its super-hot bridge humbucker’s firepower in search of the riff. But look a bit further and you’ll find hidden depths, tones as classic as they are modern.
Test | Results | Score |
|---|---|---|
Build quality | Well put together, practical specs with quality hardware. A few blemishes on the fingerboard binding. | ★★★★☆ |
Playability | Improved if not perfect upper-fret access will please many – but it's the weight and the enduring appeal of the SlimTaper neck that convinces. | ★★★★½ |
Sounds | Bridge humbucker takes no prisoners at full steam but there are enough classic Les Paul sounds to please the regulars. | ★★★★½ |
Overall | An evolutionary take on the Les Paul Modern that strips down the electrics for a more conventional ride, and saves the fireworks for the bridge's high-gain tone. | ★★★★½ |
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