On the subject of weight relief
Here's the historical context... Before 1974, Gibson and other manufacturers who built their guitars out of mahogany were using the so-called Honduras mahogany, which is a very light and porous wood. However, as of 1974, Honduras mahogany could no longer be legally exported for commercial purposes, and thus every guitar maker had to look for a different source of mahogany, Gibson included. This newer mahogany came from trees that had stood in soil that was very rich in minerals, and these minerals thus got absorbed into the wood, rendering the wood much heavier than was the case with the Honduras variety.
Initially, guitar manufacturers didn't really concern themselves with the extra weight, which is why some of the Gibson Les Paul Customs from the late 1970s ended up weighing in at over 12 and sometimes even over 13 lbs. But then in the early 1980s, there was a sufficient amount of competition from reasonably priced and predominantly Japanese-made high-quality guitars that had begun entering the market, which cost Gibson (and even Fender) quite a bit of market share. This is when the Gibson management of the time ─ Gibson was then still owned by the Norlin Corporation ─ finally decided to do something about the weight, and specifically, with regard to the Les Paul model.
Initially in 1982, Gibson drilled 9 holes into the backs of the guitars before the top was glued on, and then they filled up those holes again with balsa. However, balsa, even though it is officially classified as a hardwood, is actually a very soft type of wood. In fact, it is so soft that you can easily push a dent in it by just using your fingernail. And as a result of this, the balsa was absorbing the vibrations in the mahogany body of the Les Paul, thereby ruining the sustain and running away with the deep, woody tone of the instrument.
This is why by 1983, Gibson decided to still drill the 9 holes, but to not fill them up with balsa anymore, instead just leaving them open. This is thus known as the
"9-hole weight relief",
"traditional weight relief" or
"Swiss cheese weight relief" ─ all different names for the same thing. The weight reduction yielded by the 9-hole weight relief isn't actually all that big ─ not a lot of wood is being removed from the guitar ─ but what it does do is make the guitar a lot more comfortable to play while seated. Non-weight-relieved Les Pauls are quite tail-heavy, and this was especially the case with the late-1970s Les Paul Customs. Those guitars were virtually impossible to play while sitting down, because they were constantly fighting you, wanting to throw their necks into the air and slide off the outside of your leg, onto the ground. And it is primarily this specific aspect of the guitar's ergonomics that the 9-hole weight relief remedies.
What's important to note here however is that the 9-hole weight relief
does not have any effect on the sound whatsoever. It is literally what the name says ─ weight relief. Those 9 holes are not functionally resonating cavities ─ they are too small, they are perfectly round, they are separated from one another by a sufficiently thick amount of wood, and most of them sit under the thickest part of the top of the guitar, where the top wood is least likely to flex and generate its own secondary vibrations.
All non-historic carved-top single-cutaway Les Pauls from the regular Gibson USA production plant that were made between 1983 and the middle of 2006 have the 9-hole weight relief ─ one exception being the Les Paul Supreme, which has a very special and fully chambered construction. However, by the middle of 2006, Gibson suddenly and without prior announcement decided to start manufacturing all Gibson USA Les Pauls ─ including the Les Paul Standard and Les Paul Classic ─ as
fully chambered guitars, similar to how the Gretsch Jet models are constructed.
This angered a lot of people, because the Gibson Les Paul, and most specifically the Les Paul Standard, had always been Gibson's iconic solid-body guitar ─ the guitar that carried Les Paul's legacy and that had helped write musical history ─ and now this iconic solid-body guitar was not a solid-body anymore. Because unlike with the 9-hole weight relief, chambering really does affect the sound, causing the guitar to sound more akin to a semi-hollow-body guitar ─ it's not the same yet as with a genuine semi-hollow (like e.g. a Gibson ES-335) because a semi-hollow is essentially a box, made of laminated wood that is glued together like on an acoustic guitar, but with a solid block running through the center from the neck joint to the tail end of the body.
Gibson would however not be swayed by the negative reaction from the audience, and in order to appease the die-hard fans, they simply introduced a new model to the line in 2008, called the Les Paul Traditional. The Traditional was essentially a Les Paul Standard as they were made and sold in the 1980s and early 1990s, i.e. with the 9-hole weight relief, chrome-plated hardware and Gibson '57 Classic pickups. But the Les Paul Standard proper remained a chambered guitar, and was fitted with all kinds of new and experimental features, such as the Gibson Robot Tuning system, which later on evolved into the more compact Min-E-Tune system.
Ultimately, by late 2011 ─ for model year 2012 ─ Gibson decided to abandon the full-body chambering on the Les Paul Standard and adopted a new kind of chambering which they called
"Modern Weight Relief", and which has in the meantime evolved into the so-called
"Ultra-Modern Weight Relief".
Unlike what its name suggests, the Ultra-Modern Weight Relief is not just weight relief. It too is a form of chambering, because it also comprises tone chambers that distinctly affect the resonant characteristics of the body. You can hear the difference in sound in the above video of the Les Paul Tribute and Les Paul Studio, and the video of the Les Paul Modern, whereas you'll also be able to hear that the Les Paul Classic ─ which has the 9-hole weight relief ─ sounds identical to the non-weight-relieved Les Paul Standard.
Gibson's erratic management decisions ─ which included both the wildly experimental stuff they were putting out and the fact that they were changing the specifications all the time for each successive model year ─ in combination with some unforeseen circumstances that Gibson itself was not responsible for ─ e.g. damage to their wood supply by Hurricane Katrina ─ ultimately brought the company on the verge of bankruptcy around 2016, and its owners put the company up for sale.
The company was then sold to its new owners in 2017, and efforts were made to centralize and consolidate the production capacity of Gibson's electric guitars in Nashville, whereas earlier, the hollow-body and semi-hollow-body guitars were being produced in Memphis, at a facility that was way too big and too expensive to maintain ─ Gibson's acoustic guitars are all still being produced in Bozeman, Montana. Once all of the legal and financial concerns had been dealt with, the specifications of the guitars were revised with attention for what the customers and fans were demanding, and then ultimately in 2019, this resulted in the current catalog of Gibson guitars.
Mark Agnesi
Mark Agnesi is the head of Marketing at Gibson under the new ownership structure. He's not unknown to the die-hard fans of vintage guitars, because he used to work at Norm's Rare Guitars in California, and there are many videos on YouTube of him demoing various rare and/or vintage guitars at Norm's. And, he's also known for always wearing a black leather jacket.
Not everyone likes him, though, and I have my own opinion about him. Some people consider him arrogant. I don't know about that, but I do think he's a macho with an ostensibly fake attitude, and he's not quite as knowledgeable about Gibson guitars as the head of Gibson's Marketing division should be. But hey, your mileage may vary. ;)
#BringBackTheBlanket
This is a pseudo-campaign, supposedly on Twitter, whereby people would be asking for the return of what Gibson itself used to call "the shroud" ─ a protective folding cloth that was attached to the pink lining of the brown hard-shell guitar cases with three leather straps, and that you would fold over the guitar once the guitar was snugly placed into the form-fitting case.
The hard-shell case of my own Les Paul does indeed have such a shroud ─ or "blanket", as Lee and Pete call it ─ as do the cases of my Firebird VII and my 2002 "Pete Townshend Signature" SG Special, albeit that in the latter case, both the shroud and the lining are black, and the shroud has Pete Townshend's signature on it in silver.
Modern Gibson hard-shell cases no longer come with a shroud. The feature was discontinued around 2005, presumably as a cost-saving measure ─ Gibson hard-shell cases are manufactured by TKL and are themselves not exactly inexpensive either.
