Gibson has recently released the 2011 Gibson Firebird Studio Non-Reverse guitar, which is modeled after the non-reverse Firebird models of the late 1960s. This new model features a mahogany body, three coil-tapped P-90s, five-way pickup switching, and a thin neck profile.
The idea of coil-tapped P-90s is interesting to me. It sounds like tapping the coils takes the pickups from the growl of a P-90s to the spank of a thinner single-coil pickup. It could make for an interesting tonal mix when matched with the mahogany body.
I’ve always been a fan of the Firebird body shapes (both reverse and non-reverse), so I like the idea of a non-reverse Firebird Studio model. It looks like the street price on these are $1389, which isn’t bad for a USA-made Gibson these days.