This guitar was total extravagence. I found it used for a real good price. I’d always wanted to replace my Univox Les Paul with a “real” one and I’ve missed my Univox since I lost it (long story). While drooling over Les Paul pics in the catelogs I decided that I liked the idea of a Gary Moore model or the Studio Desert Burst model best. Good combination of appearance and reasonable price. Well, more reasonable than a classic. Let me be clear – no Gibson branded Les Paul is reasonable, at least not a new one. As with Fenders, used Gibsons can be absolutely insanely priced. Anyway, I came across this one and got it for about the same price as my used Strat. Heck, a nice used PRS would’ve cost me what the two of them together cost, right?
This guitar was a beauty in appearance. Desert Burst finish with a nice flame maple top and gold hardware. Sounds great too – like a Les Paul. Pickups are pretty hot, and do the Allman Brothers/Gary moore things quite well. Not as hot as the Carvin though, which is actually probably a good thing.
I ended up selling this guitar. I didn’t have it all that long. I had it set up and everything, but it never got really comfortable for me. Too bad, it was a gorgeous guitar. I did end up getting another, even cheaper Les Paul Studio that I find more comfortable to play.
I bought the Univox used for $135 in the summer of 1976. The guitar resembled a Les Paul in shape only, employing a bolt on neck rather than set neck. The neck profile was narrow and flat compared to a real Les Paul. The body was all maple, with a blonde flame maple top. The interesting thing was that when I removed the pickups I could see a hollow area between the arched top and the maple body. It was almost as if the body was constructed flat like a Les Paul special and then the arched top was glued on top of that. The main part of the body was made of several (5 or 6?) pieces of maple.
After some initial tuning problems I swapped the tuning machines for grovers (which required reaming the headstock holes out a bit), and everything was great after that. To this day the Univox was one of the most stable guitars I’ve owned. It stayed in tune extremely well.
At one point years later I decided I needed a change and swapped out the pickups for Dimarzios – a PAF in the neck position, and a Super Distortion in the bridge. I almost immediately swapped them back out. The Univox pickups were significantly hotter and better sounding I thought. Later I put the Super Distortion back in, but I wasn’t using the guitar much at that point. I held on to the PAF and recently used it in a project guitar where it sounds amazingly sweet.
My Peavey/Univox “rig” stood in against countless Strat/Twin combinations, and although I love the Strat/Twin sound, I was never disappointed in my sound either. I could generate much more gain and overdrive the amp due to the hotter pickups and pre-amp setup, whereas a Twin needs to be at ear-bleed levels before it overdrives.