Overview of the Epiphone Les Paul Ultra-III Guitar

Since I purchased my Epiphone Les Paul Ultra-II in 2010, the Les Paul Ultra-III was released. Epiphone guitars are similar to parent company Gibson’s guitars but produced in China and Korea and later inspected in the US. The Ultra-II was produced from 2008-10. The Ultra-III was produced by Epiphone from 2011-12. I found a used model on eBay in mint condition and upgraded my Ultra-II.1

Like its predecessor Ultra models, the Epiphone Les Paul Ultra-III is a hybrid electric+acoustic guitar. It preserves the look of a traditional Les Paul guitar. It possesses a rosewood fingerboard and mahogany neck. The back of the neck has a satin finish. The Ultra-III has a chambered body, which makes it much lighter and gives it more acoustic overtones. Like the Ultra-II, it has Grover tuners and a Tune-o-matic bridge with a stopbar tailpiece. The Midnight Ebony version of the Epiphone Ultra-III has nickel hardware, which I prefer over the gold hardware on the Ultra-II.

New Pickup Systems

The Ultra-III has two pickup systems: a pair of ProBucker humbucking pickups that capture the traditional, crisp Les Paul sound. These are new for the Ultra-III and are patterned after Gibson’s PAF-style BurstBuckers. The Probuckers are constructed with 18 percent nickel silver base and covers (the same as Gibson), Elektrisola magnet wire (also the same as Gibson), bobbins manufactured to Gibson specifications, and sand casted Alnico-II magnets.2  The Nanomag pickup, designed by Shadow Germany, captures a shimmering, electro-acoustic sound. The Nanomag, embedded at the end of the fingerboard, consists of three samarium cobalt magnets and active circuitry.

This Epiphone video below provides a brief demo of the guitar.

With two phone jacks, it’s possible to combine the output of the ProBucker humbuckers with the NanoMag or to separate the two for a different mix of sounds. There are four top-mounted knobs, which control neck pickup volume, bridge pickup volume, master tone, and NanoMAG volume. Unlike the Ultra-II, the Epiphone Les Paul Ultra-III has an A/B switch to quickly toggle between the ProBucker pickups, the Nanomag pickups, or a mix of both. On the back of the Ultra-III are the Nanomag controls including treble, bass and gain settings.

Chromatic Tuner

The Ultra-III includes a chromatic tuner on the bridge humbucker pickup ring. Pressing the right button activates the tuning mode and mutes the guitar output. On the right hand side, seven blue LEDs correspond to A-G notes. An additional LED  indicates if the note is sharp (#). In the middle are three LEDs that display if the guitar is in tune, too high, or too low. An additional advantage of the tuner’s mute function is that you can avoid the popping sound when plugging/unplugging your guitar from your amplifier. On the left are two LEDs, “A” and “B” that show which pickups are in use: A (red) = NanoMag only, A+B (red+blue) = NanoMag and humbuckers, and B (blue) = humbuckers.

USB Connectivity to a DAW

In addition to the Nanomag and magnetic 1/4″ phone outputs, there is a third output for a USB cable. Where my Ultra-II had a plastic surround for the phone jacks, the Ultra-III has a rigid metal surround that won’t crack with age or stress.

The USB port permits you to plug the Ultra-III directly into your computer–without needing a separate interface box–to use the guitar

This Epiphone video walks you through how to use the guitar with Apple’s GarageBand for Mac via USB. GarageBand is the leading digital audio workstation (DAW) for amateurs and prosumers. Professional musicians will likely prefer Logic Pro.

I wrote a separate article here about using the Ultra-III with GarageBand for the iPhone and iPad.

More Tones: Guitar Rig v Line 6 Amplifi

If I want a larger or different library of tones than GarageBand, I could use the software included with the Ultra-III, Native Instruments Guitar Rig 4 LE. This has been superseded by Guitar Rig 5 Pro.

However, I upgraded my amplifier to a Line 6 Amplifi 150, which has over 200 different tones and a USB interface for my Mac. Given the Amplifi’s capabilities and ease of control using both a foot pedal and mobile app, I prefer to use the Amplifi’s tones rather than the included Guitar Rig software application. If you have an Amplifi too, you need to upgrade to > v2.10 of their amplifier firmware. There are more details about recording with the Amplifi here.

Updated on April 28th, 2017