“Loog and Gibson have done another great job creating a guitar for young children without patronising them”: Gibson x Loog Les Paul Special review

What is it?

A university academic project that grew into wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns, Loog’s origin story is somewhat different to most guitar companies. It produces a range of three-string guitars that, rather than being a scaled-down six-string, are designed to fit a younger, smaller player. The idea is guitars for children to make the first steps of learning and playing more accessible and welcoming.

From its original build-your-own kit, launched in the first Kickstarter campaign, Loog has grown to collaborating with guitar royalty, so you can now pick up Gibson and Fender variations. This latest partnership with Gibson has seen the release of the Les Paul Special in three different finishes, plus an SG. Each boasting a mini take on the 'dogear' P-90-style single-coil pickup.

Loog also includes an array of stickers and a drawstring pouch here, containing a comprehensive pack of two-sided chord cards with the instruments. The cards feature a standard chord diagram on one side with a cartoon monster version on the other, and there's also a set of picks, a string winder and an activity book that goes into Gibson’s history as well as crossword, colouring, and spot the difference pages.

All this should prove useful in engaging my eight-year-old daughter, who is totally new to guitar. That's the plan, anyway…

Specs

• Price: $229 | £212 | €239
• Made: China
• Type: Three-string short-scale electric guitar
• Body: Poplar
• Neck: Canadian maple
• Fingerboard: Rosewood
• Scale length: 20.6” / 524mm
• Nut/width: Bone / 29mm
• Frets: 19
• Hardware: Custom Gibson x Loog lightning bar wraparound bridge
• Electrics: Custom Gibson x Loog single-coil dogear pickup, volume control w/ black stop hat knob
• Strings: 1st E (.11), 2nd B (.15), 3rd G(.19)
• Weight: 3.3lb / 1.5kg
• Finishes: Shell Pink (as reviewed), TV Yellow, Frost Blue polyurethane. SG option also available in Cardinal Red.
• Case: None
• Contact: Loog

Build, playability and sounds

The Gibson x Loog Les Paul Special's one-pickup spec is more akin to a Les Paul Junior mini model, with the added twist here of a very un-Gibson-like Shell Pink finish. The poplar body and general build feels reassuringly solid to me, particularly given the inevitable drops, spills, falls and general child-associated knocks it’ll be exposed to. Where Paul Simonon led, our children will surely follow.

The PU-painted finish is smooth and seems to be fairly resistant to post-snack fingerprints, with a four-bolt neck joint for the satin smooth maple neck. There's a rosewood fingerboard here, which is an unexpected, more premium touch these days – I was expecting laurel.

There are no sharp edges to the fretwork, but the action out of the box is higher than expected, which I'll need to address to make things easier on my daughter's hands. And doing that is different from most other electric guitars.

Adjusting the string action is done by tightening the bridge screws with an included hex key, and while this in itself isn’t a deal breaker, it goes to show a little guitar still may need a little guitar knowledge in setting up.

The fact that the guitar feels this well-made but still comes in at a respectable 1.5kg / 3.3lb is a testament to Loog’s designers. The shape of the maple neck, combined with the three-string setup with the unwound strings on a shortened scale, allows our daughter to comfortably fret and strum without any complaint (something most of us will have endured after tentatively handing over our own six-string options).

The lighter three strings (tuned E/B/G) allow for one, two and three-finger chord shapes to be formed, building up to barring with one finger across the frets. This helps children to learn in an accessible and gently paced way, while the higher strings can also be used for them to play melodies, with the lower tension making things more comfortable on the fingers.

In addition to the included learning materials to guide them through this, Loog also has a free phone and tablet app with optional paid (called the Backstage Pass) features for learning. The guitar tuner is a free element of the app and, surprisingly, this is one of the activities our daughter really enjoys and insists on checking each time she plays. Certainly not a bad habit to get into!

Loog has appropriately kept things simple with a single 'dogear' P-90-style pickup and a volume control. It should be noted that the control knob stops reassuringly with a solid clunk at each end, even under inquisitive testing to see if we can go past 10. We get a nice clear, clean sound when played through our mini five-watt practice amp, useful for honing technique. The next step will be an overdrive pedal!

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

There’s a general rule in parenting; if there are no complaints, then you’re doing something right. Or they’re doing something wrong, but let’s ignore that in this instance.

From the moment the box was opened our daughter was excited by the branded activity book, stickers, pick and chord cards. These may sound superficial, but it all added to her enthusiasm and that was before she plucked her first string - which, when she finally played, was immediately followed by a massive grin.

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Despite her questioning why it didn’t have six strings, she was quickly comfortable with the three-string arrangement, which works fantastically, giving all the feel and feedback of a full-size guitar and encouraging her to try new and more complicated chord shapes as she becomes more confident.

Guitar World verdict: Loog and Gibson have done another great job creating a guitar that is entirely appropriate for young children without patronising them by dressing up a toy as an instrument. The addition of the Gibson collaboration adds an extra legitimacy to what was already an impressive product.

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