Epiphone has a habit of starting revolutions. In 2005, when most people said it couldn’t be done, the world’s favorite luthier said that, yes, it could, and invented the first Les Paul to feature a chambered body, giving smaller guitarists the chance to enjoy killer LP tone and sustain. That model was the Les Paul Ultra, and it went down a storm at the 2005 Winter NAMM show.Now Epiphone is doing it all over again, as the original Les Paul Ultra is joined by its younger brother, the new Ultra-II. You might not be surprised at the name. But when you check out this ground-breaking hybrid model, you won’t believe what Epiphone has done. Some things haven’t changed. Like the original Ultra, the Ultra-II features a chambered mahogany body topped with a quilted maple cap, meaning that it weighs far less than a Les Paul Standard while offering the same timeless tone and endless sustain. As is Les Paul tradition, the new Ultra-II also features a set mahogany Slim-Taper neck and 22-fret rosewood fretboard for maximum playability, combining this with die-cast Grover tuners and the bulletproof pairing of a LockTone tune-o-matic bridge and stop tailpiece. All great features – but they’re not the reason why the new Ultra-II is set to steal the show. The real revolution comes from the Ultra-II’s pairing of twin Alnico Classic humbuckers (which supply the beefy electric tone that has always been the Les Paul’s calling card) and a fingerboard-mounted Nanomag pickup (with dedicated tone controls and output jack) that lets guitarists unlock shimmering acoustic tones on the stage and in the studio. Whether you’re playing clean fingerpicked passages or digging in with the pick, this revolutionary hybrid model has it covered.