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Starting to wonder, if I love the "idea" of a Les Paul, more than the guitar, itself?


charlie brown

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It's probably just a phase CB - most teenagers go through several of them [biggrin] You'll grow out of it. ...

I also have those phases in making music since decades. That's how the guitar thing keeps me young, you see [laugh]

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I have a first run 'Les Paul Studio '50s Tribute Humbuckers' from 2011. It has a pre-seizure rosewood board, a two piece light back and is chambered. I find this guitar more ergonomically comfortable than my SG Special Faded because of its light weight and thin Studio body, whereas the SG seems more like a flat slab, albeit light. The SG does, of course, have the better upper fret access.

 

I really feel I can throw my Studio round (not that I do) because the chambering makes it incredibly light. You also get a snappier sound akin to the top end bite that SGs give you but the LP warmth and fatness is still there. The SG has the faster of the two necks but it does suffer the odd bit of tuning instability with that long neck. I always seem to have to retune it when I get it back out.

 

If you haven't already done so Charlie, do try a chambered LP.

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Good question CB.

 

I have always loved the look of SGs.

I have never liked the look of Les Pauls.

 

I’ve never owned an SG.

 

But I bought a Les Paul 3 years ago. It’s the 2015 Less Plus model. I knew that if I ever went for a Les Paul, it would be this model, and it seemed likely Gibson would never reissue it. The clincher was it was massively discounted (49%) brand new.

 

I last tried an SG a couple of years back. It was a Deluxe. The owner wanted my Fylde acoustic and offered the Deluxe as part exchange together with some money. I spent a few minutes trying to get a usable sound from the SG but failed, and TBH it’s what I expected. To me SGs sound muddy as soon as any gain is introduced. I don’t use much gain at all, but even a modest amount results in a dip in clarity.

 

To be fair, all humbucker pickups need careful adjustment to avoid (or minimise) this, but on the Les Paul or ES 339 I can get the definition I want.

 

My favourite SG players of yesteryear (Mick Abrahams, Frank Zappa) have this muddy sound. So I think it’s likely the guitar design is responsible.

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Interesting M.E.! I'm a Mick Abrahams/Blodwyn Pig fan, too! [thumbup] His SG had P-90's. And, for awhile, because of his particular tone,

I thought he was using a Les Paul! So, when I finally saw a photo/video, there it was, a Les Paul SG Special. There are photos of

him playing a late '50's (or 1960?) Les Paul, as well. I guess, nowadays, he has his made in England "Vintage Icon" brand "SG,"

with P-90's.

 

SG's (to me) have a slightly "nasal" Mid-range bump, in tone, compared to a like pickup (and cap's) Les Paul. I attributed that,

to the thinner slab body, vs the thicker, carved maple capped, body. But, I never really considered the SG tone to be "muddy,"

or any "muddier" than any "humbucker equipped Gibson. The P-90's have more roundness, and "sparkle," to me. But, maybe that's

just Me??? [tongue][biggrin]

 

 

CB

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I'm exactly the same about my SG, 6 years later. It's my first SG, it was a great idea, unfortunately not a great neck for me. It's going out in a couple weeks.

 

rct

I can relate to that. After a guitar swap, getting adjusted to the SG neck is tougher than vice versa and between all other guitar models I use.

 

 

...

 

To be fair, all humbucker pickups need careful adjustment to avoid (or minimise) this, but on the Les Paul or ES 339 I can get the definition I want.

 

My favourite SG players of yesteryear (Mick Abrahams, Frank Zappa) have this muddy sound. So I think it’s likely the guitar design is responsible.

Well, one can make any guitar sound muddy. Reverend Billy Gibbons easily does it even with a Telecaster using the bridge pickup only [biggrin]

 

At least as far as the Frank Zappa "Roxy" SG is concerned, I can't complain at all about muddiness, regardless if humbucking or coil-split. The muddiness of my 1978 S-G Standard came from the stock 100 kOhms tone pots that ate up all the clarity and punch.

 

Your reference to pickup adjustment is 100% correct. When about tone, less pickup height is more. :)

 

 

I saw it mentioned somewhere that the SG is the highest selling Gibson model of all time... that can't be right can it?

To my knowledge there are no exact numbers, but the SG is pretty likely the highest selling Gibson model of all time by number of items. The SG is the only Gibson solid-body guitar that has neither been discontinued nor has had a considerable production hiatus.

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Interesting M.E.! I'm a Mick Abrahams/Blodwyn Pig fan, too! [thumbup] His SG had P-90's. And, for awhile, because of his particular tone,

I thought he was using a Les Paul! So, when I finally saw a photo/video, there it was, a Les Paul SG Special. There are photos of

him playing a late '50's (or 1960?) Les Paul, as well. I guess, nowadays, he has his made in England "Vintage Icon" brand "SG,"

with P-90's.

 

SG's (to me) have a slightly "nasal" Mid-range bump, in tone, compared to a like pickup (and cap's) Les Paul. I attributed that,

to the thinner slab body, vs the thicker, carved maple capped, body. But, I never really considered the SG tone to be "muddy,"

or any "muddier" than any "humbucker equipped Gibson. The P-90's have more roundness, and "sparkle," to me. But, maybe that's

just Me??? [tongue][biggrin]

 

 

CB

 

P90s? I didnt know that about Mick A's guitar.

 

Its probably more likely that its 'just me' (rather than you). That doubt is the reason I tried out the Deluxe at all. I was prepared to be proven wrong. Hopeful even.

 

As it stands, I am either right, or a victim of my own self fulfilling prophecy. It took me 46 years to get around to getting a Gibson at all. Humbuckerphobia is certainly a major factor.

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...

 

As it stands, I am either right, or a victim of my own self fulfilling prophecy. It took me 46 years to get around to getting a Gibson at all. Humbuckerphobia is certainly a major factor.

For me it was just the other way round: I didn't own any Fender before they came up with noiseless pickups.

 

For many years I intensely used guitars with single-coil pickups, my Ibanez RG430, basically a Strat-inspired guitar with Ibanez Edge Floyd Rose system, and a Weimann Blues Bird ES guitar with a pair of Seymour Duncan P90 pickups stock. The Ibanez has reverse wound/reverse polarity middle pickup making the pickups combinations humbucking, but the P90 hum is just poor. Since 32 years I would want to replace them with noiseless ones, but it would call for deeper routings, and I'm quite reluctant to have this done.

 

Anyway, perhaps I would buy a Gibson with the now long extinct noiseless P100 pickups, but I'm done with P90s.

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P90s? I didnt know that about Mick A's guitar.

 

Its probably more likely that its 'just me' (rather than you). That doubt is the reason I tried out the Deluxe at all. I was prepared to be proven wrong. Hopeful even.

 

As it stands, I am either right, or a victim of my own self fulfilling prophecy. It took me 46 years to get around to getting a Gibson at all. Humbuckerphobia is certainly a major factor.

 

 

Yeah, there are old Youtube (Live) videos, of him with Blodwyn Pig, and playing his SG, but for some (odd) reason, he's often

obscured, behind the drummer or the drummer's cymbals, and it's hard to see. But, on some frames, it's there.

 

Here's one, of the "Mick Abrahams Band" doing "Greyhound Bus!"

 

https://search.aol.com/aol/video?q=Mick+Abrahams&s_it=video-ans&sfVid=true&videoId=CE49D1E2ACDECAF8F0CECE49D1E2ACDECAF8F0CE&s_chn=prt_bon&v_t=comsearch

 

 

CB

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I ended up with three Danelectros - all with broken strings! The strings were extremely thin and were irreplaceable.

 

huh??????

 

so... was he smokin too much crack or. --- you couldn't restring a danelectro bass?????

 

It's been a long time since I read that story but I think at the time in England those type of strings were impossible to find. The shop he bought the bass at didn't stock the strings required for the Danelectro bass so Every time he broke a string he'd have to just buy a whole new bass.

 

I'm sure that story requires a lot of grains of salt anyway.

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Well I am not done with my Les Paul or P90s.....tsk!

 

CB - I humbly, respectfully suggest you send me yours (all of them, or at least the nice gold one please) and then see how much you prefer the idea to the guitar itself...[laugh] [laugh]

 

Really gentlemen!

 

lpfeb13.jpg

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Well I am not done with my Les Paul or P90s.....tsk!

 

CB - I humbly, respectfully suggest you send me yours (all of them, or at least the nice gold one please) and then see how much you prefer the idea to the guitar itself...[laugh] [laugh]

 

Really gentlemen!

 

lpfeb13.jpg

 

 

[lol] LOL...Nice Try, jdgm!! =D> But, I'll be keeping my Les Paul's! [razz][biggrin]

 

BUT, If the beautiful one you posted, was mine...the first thing I would do, is put a "Staple" Alnico V P-90 in the neck position! [biggrin]

 

 

CB

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I'm not so sure Mr Young Jr would say his SG is muddy.....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErXbMB9R5-0

 

I would agree Alan, Mr. Young does not sound "muddy" at all. And when I played one for a year or so I didn't have a hard time getting a bright clean sound. But in fairness I seem to recall seeing SG Angus models that had either some special pickups or wiring or something that was different from a stock SG and that might contribute a lot to how his SG sounds different than the one you can buy at Guitar Center for $1200 or so. [confused]

 

But overall to my ear I had a harder time getting the mid-range heavy tone that I can easily get from a LP out of an SG whereas bright high frequency was pretty easy.

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A lot of the time in my life, back when I could actually afford things like, say, food, I found my "beater" guitars were the ones that I went to, and my "good" guitars spent most of their lives in their respective cases.

 

I guess what I'm saying, in a roundabout way, is play whatever feels best. I'm fairly certain a 50s Les Paul would be an overall better guitar than my Epi Plustop with the 60s slimmer neck, but I'm equally certain I'd sound worse on the Gibson, because Pinch abhors a baseball bat neck.

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I love my 1992 Les Paul Standard but only for the first 20 minutes or so I am playing it standing, then my back says get that 10 pounder off me...

It has plenty of sustain and bite even more with its new Pinnacle machined steel bridge.

I got a 2005 SG standard that could have replace it for longer standing playing time, but the rounded '50s neck was not as great as my LP slim '60s, I never could bind with it.

It was almost as good sounding as my LP sharing the same 498/490 pups but with maybe a bit less sustain and more mid focussed.

I finally sold the SG to finance a Warmoth telecaster project involving full mahogany body and bound tilt back standard thin neck. It has everything I love about my LP including the 490R plus what I wish it had like a 25.5 scale and 2 pounds less...

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Got out my Gold Top Classic Custom, and played on it, exclusively, for several days now. Yep...I still Love it! [thumbup][biggrin]

 

However, my SG's still tend to be my "go to" guitars, when playing "out/live," even so. I guess it's

the combination of weight, looks, and their total Bada$$ tone. The LP has all that, too...except for

the weight factor. Oh, I don't know...I love them both (ALL)! LOL [rolleyes][biggrin]

 

 

CB

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