paddybrown

I play a Blues Junior, and I find the best way to get a good distorted sound from it is not to bother with pedals and just crank it. Volume, bass, mid and treble all the way up, then turn the master volume down to suit where you're playing - about 4 is enough for most small bar gigs. Then use the guitar's volume control to decide how much distortion you want. It does make it a bit too loud to play at home without annoying the neighbours though.

Decided to do a honeyburst. Coming along nicely I think. Needs a little more yellow to smooth out the transition, and maybe a little more amber aaound the edge to darken it slightly, but I'm very pleased with progress.

Latest update - the pickguard I ordered has arrived! Next, I just have to decide on the colour. I've done a few mockups in Photoshop: I'm leaning towards either the pink or the burst. Any preferences?

This is my number one guitar, a much modified 2015 LPM. The finish is heritage cherry. I think the finish has faded a bit since I bought it. I might be imagining it, but I think the red used to be deeper. It has a nice grainy plain top that's only really visible when the light's right, and hardly ever shows up in photos. Here's one where it did: So my question is, does the cherry red dye Gibson uses still fade when exposed to sunlight, and is there any way to accellerate that to make the wood grain more obviously visible?

I quit my job at the helium factory. I won't be spoken to in that tone.

I have the 61s in my favourite Les Paul, and I much prefer them to the Burstbucker Pros in my other Les Paul. The 61s are smoother and brighter, and cut through better in a live setting. According to the spec sheet of my guitar, they have Alnico 5 magnets, and the outer coil with the screws is wound slightly hotter than the inner slug coil - 5000 turns on the slugs, 5261 on the screws. (That's the opposite of the Burstbucker Pros, which are also Alnico 5 but the slug coil has more winds that the screw coil.) The DC resistance is 7.75K ohms, which is a little less than the Burstbucker Pros, but they feel hotter somehow. Unlike most pickup sets, the bridge and the neck have the same number of windings. Gibson don't seem to sell 61s separately, and none of the ones they do sell seem comparable, but a quick search on Ebay finds a number of them for sale. Alternatively, you might want to apprach a local pickup maker and see if they can replicate them for you.

I've come up with another possibility. If I fill the screw holes with mahogany dust and glue, then spray the whole thing with clear sanding sealer, then the colour will take the same way all over because it'll be taking to sanding sealer and won't actually touch the wood. Hopefully that'll work. I have spray cans of clear cellulose sealer, cherry red colour and nitro clear coat on order from Amazon, I know where I can get wet/dry sandpaper locally, and I have some Virtuoso cleaner and polish to get it nice and shiny. All I need now is to rig up some kind of spray stand in the back yard.

For a number of years, Gibson made released a new line of guitars every year, like cars. The "T" suffix was just for 2016 and 2017 if I remember rightly. In 2015 every model, including the Traditional, had the G-Force Tuners and the zero-fret nut. The following two years every model came in two versions, HP ("high performance", with G-Force tuners and zero-fret nut), and T ("traditional", with regular tuners and nut). So you could buy a Les Paul Traditional High Performance, or a Les Paul Traditional Traditional. I guess it must have seemed to make some sort of sense at the time. In 2018 and 2019 they only had one HP model, and all the other models had regular tuners and nuts and dropped the T. And then later in 2019 the new owners took over and revamped the line again into "Original Collection" and "Modern Collection", and the HP model was dropped altogether. They now have a "Legacy Archive" that gives the specs for all their guitars going back to 2015, and you can find others on older versions of the Gibson website via the Wayback Machine. Les Paul Traditional 2013 Les Paul Traditional 2014 Les Paul Traditional 2015 Les Paul Traditional 2016 T Les Paul Traditional 2016 HP Les Paul Traditional 2017 T Les Paul Traditional 2017 HP Les Paul Traditional 2018 Les Paul Traditional 2019

The new diagonal mounts have arrived, and they fit rather well. I think the double-cut deluxe is the way forward. A little more work needed with the wood filler on the top edge of the bridge pickup rout, then final sanding, and then I have to choose a finish.

I've ordered two different styles of pickup mount. The flat chrome ones arrives first. I quite like the look. The standard mini-humbucker mounts with the diagonal screw holes are still on their way.

Very nice.

Yeah, let us see 'em!

Well, I'm committed now. Started rebuilding the pickup cavities with wood filler. I'll see what it looks like when I've built it up and sanded it flat, but it looks like it'll have to be an opaque finish. Or perhaps a kind of reverse burst where it's dark in the middle and lighter on the outside. Or maybe I can make a custom pickguard that'll hide it. We shall see. I've also discovered and ordered some mini-humbucker rings where the screws go in the opposite corners, which will alow me to install the bridge pickup even with the wiring channel being where it is.

A while back I found this thing in a local second hand guitar shop. It started life as a 2005 Les Paul Double Cut Faded - essentially a Les Paul Special with a tuno-o-matic and stopbar rather than a wrapover bridge. A previous owner had repainted it white, replaced the P90s with EMGs, wired a master volume and a master tone control, leaving two knobs that did nothing, and chopped up the pickguard. I decided to have a go at restoring it. I started by stripping off the finish. I tried to take off the white paint and leave the original cherry finish, but that didn't work, so I sanded it down to the wood. Then I forgot about it for a while. Recently I acquired a pair of mini-humbuckers and thought they'd suit this guitar - after all, mini-humbuckers fit in the same routs as P90s. Unfortunately, the previous owner chiselled the routs a bit wider to install full-size humbuckers, so the cavities are uneven, and the screw holes for the humbucker mounts are visible. Also, one the screws on the bridge pickup is above the channel for the pickup wires, so won't go in without cutting the channel wider and gluing in a bit of wood. So I've ordered some mini-humbucker rings that I hope will allow me to fit them and hide the unevenness of the cavities. We'll see how they look when they arrive. Next question is how to finish it. I like transparent finishes that show off the wood, but there are visible screw holes, and some visibly filled screw holes. Anybody who's done this, if I fill the holes with mahogany sanding dust and glue, will they still be visible under a transparent finish? After that, the electronics. What value of pots are best for mini-humbuckers? I'm also considering a treble bleed, and wiring the tone pots as bass roll-off. I'll try and keep the forum posted. Any advice would be appreciated.

When I was in Mr Potter's P6 class (Northern Irish primary schools in my day went from P1 at 4-5 to P7 at 10-11. I was in P6 in 1978-79) I got it into my head that I wanted to learn the guitar. My dad bought me a small nylon-string guitar - I remember breaking a string by overtightening in the car on the way home from buying it - and enrolled me in classes in the evenings in the back room of a local music shop. We learned from The Complete Guitar Player, strumming along to songs by John Denver and Ralph McTell that I didn't know. I didn't stick at it. No idea what happened to the guitar. Fast forward ten years. I'm 17, during my misspent youth as an evangelical Christian. My school's Scripture Union runs what they call a "house party", where the eleven-year-olds are taken away to a house in the country under the supervision of the 17-year-olds and a couple of teachers, to do outdoor pursuits during the daytime and be terrified with the prospect of going to hell in the evening. There is, as is customary at such events, singing, accompanied by a couple of the 17-year-olds on the guitar. One of them shows me some chords and teaches me to play some of the songs. At some point after that, I get hold of a cheap acoustic and start accompanying the singing at church youth groups and Scripture Union meetings. The songs were terrible - I cringe at some of the stuff I played back then - but they were a very good way of learning the basics, so even though I've long since run off to join the cult of Dawkins, that period in my life did teach me some useful skills. My first electric guitar was a really cheap black plywood strat copy I bought off a kid at school. I dismantled it, repainted it, and never got round to putting it back together. Then, when I was at university, I bought myself the first guitar I can actually identify: a red Westone Thunder I T. Not actually this one, but it looked just like it. I also borrowed enough money to buy a Marshall JCM 800 amp - figuring a cheap guitar through a decent amp would be better than a decent guitar through a cheap amp, but it was too loud to play at home so I didn't get much practice. I made my first tentative attempt at forming a band, but I didn't really have the confidence or organisational skills to make it happen beyond a couple of rehearsals. Eventually sold the guitar, but still have the amp. The first acoustic I owned that I can identify was a Takamine G-series EG10, which I got in my mid 20s. It did me proud for a good 20 years until I upgraded to a Taylor a few years ago, and I still have it. I've just dug it out, cleaned it up and restrung it. It may be covered in dings and scratches, but it plays pretty good. I think I'll look for someone to pass it on to.

First gig: Howard Jones, the 80s synth-pop guy. Not much rock and roll cred, but it was good. I still have his first album, and still listen to it from time to time. Weirdest: Nothing particularly weird comes to mind. Nearly every gig I've ever been to there's always someone right behind me who's apparently never been to a gig before and spends the whole support slot complaining loudly that they paid to see the main act, and they've never heard of this lot, and when are they going to stop so the main act can come on? First song nailed: Really can't remember. In my long years as a cowboy chord acoustic player, my main party piece was Van Morrison's Crazy Love. Including solo, that would probably be Need Your Love So Bad.

Anybody know of any bridge posts for a Les Paul that you can lock in place? I find that when the strings are off, it's very easy to accidentally turn the posts and alter the bridge height, for example just by cleaning the guitar with a cloth. You then have to go to the bother of adjusting the bridge to the correct height again when you string it back up. Post you could lock at the height you want would be ideal.

You can definitely get some gems if you shop down the range. Flame maple tops and binding add to the price but don't actually have any effect on the sound or playability. I have two Les Pauls, a 2015 LPM and a 2016 Standard. The LPM is the guitar I gig with, because it's less precious - I don't worry as much about it getting bashed about, and I feel free to modify it, so it does more of the things I want. Also, it just feels more like my guitar. Guitars aren't consistent, some of them feel right in your hands more than others do, and the ones with the fancy decorate accoutrements aren't necessarily any better put together than the plainer ones. If a Studio Faded is the one that comes alive in your hands, then that's your guitar. But the next Studio Faded you come across might not click the same way for you. Also, bigger necks are underrated. The LPM has a pretty fat neck, and I find my thumb gets less tired playing it than guitars with skinnier necks.

I looked up the Gibson website from 2012 via the Wayback Machine. I think the model this is most likely to be is the Les Paul Studio 50s Tribute Humbucker in satin honeyburst. It has the unbound plain top, the unbound fretboard, the uncovered double-black pickups, the gold reflector knobs with pointers, and the green keystone tuners, and you can see the screw hole where the pickguard has been removed. I've looked through the other models and I can't find one with the same combination of features. It has a chambered mahogany body, mahogany neck with a rounded 50s profile with a baked maple fretboard, and 490R and 498T pickups. The previous owner has removed the poker chip. From the three screw holes behind the tailpiece, it looks like it's had some kind of vibrato system fitted, but not a Bigbsy, because that leaves two holes on the top, further apart and one of them further forward than the other. I don't know what would leave holes in that pattern. The Reverb price guide for that model and finish suggests it's worth £553-714 (about €625-807, US$674-870 at today's exchange rates).

There's a guy on Reverb calling himself Scrinia Engineering, and he makes a variety of replacement PCBs for Les Pauls. I have this one in mine and it's brilliant. It has coil taps, a phase switch, a series-parallel switch - and most importantly, a treble bleed. I wouldn't go back. I now think all guitars should have treble bleeds. They are brilliant, especially if you like to crank your amp and control the overdrive with your volume control, which I do. It also makes coil taps usable in a live setting. If you play with enough gain to make a humbucker sing, and then tap the coil, the distortion overwhelms it, and if you turn down the volume to clean it up, it muffles it. This bard lets me keep the highs with the volume rolled off, so I can switch between a full fat Gary Moore Les Paul neck pickup solo sound and a tolerable Telecastery sound, live, as I'm playing (the Les Paul's independent volume controls are indispensable for that as well). I love out of phase Les Paul pickups, so the phase switch is indispensible for me for Peter Green tones. But out of phase and in series, I can sound pretty close to Brian May or Hubert Sumlin - a hotter out-of-phase tone that gives a really nasty honk and screech. And it costs only slightly more than I recently paid a tech to upgrade the pots and caps and fit a phase switch in my Epiphone dot. He's not paying me to write this, either. I bought it, loved it, and bought another one for another of my guitars. Highly recommended by me. Here it is in action with my band.

(Performed by the me ensemble)

What's Whitney Houston's favourite kind of coordination? Hand-eye... How do you know there's a singer at your door? They can't find the key and they don't know when to come in. How do you make a duck sing? Put it in the oven and bake it til its bill withers.

Check out this video on single pickup guitars and how surprisingly versatile they can be, starting with a Les Paul Junior. I also remember how much fun Mark Agnesi always seemed to have when he demo'd a Les Paul Junior on Guitar of the Day. Original Juniors obviously cost a fortune. You can get relatively recent ones for a relatively decent price, but the new Junior Tributes look very good value. I've been jonesing for a single pickup guitar myself, and I've ordered a used Reverend Sensei Junior off the internet. Supposed to be arriving tomorrow.

Go for what excites you. About ten or fifteen years ago, when I'd been an acoustic player for ages and wanted to get an electric guitar, I asked some guitar playing friends for advice, and based on what I could afford and the kinds of music I liked, they were pretty unanimous: get a Squier Stratocaster. So I did. It was a fine guitar, but I didn't really bond with it. It didn't draw me to it, I didn't play it enough, I didn't make much progress, and I ended up selling it. Then I ran into an Epiphone Dot in a local music shop, and something drew me to it. I played it for a while, and decided to buy it. That guitar drew me to it, I played it lots, and I got much better. I started my band with it. I've since upgraded to a Gibson Les Paul, but I still have that Epiphone and I'm still fond of it. So I would suggest you go with your gut. Pick the kind of guitar that you want, and buy the best guitar of that kind you can afford. If what you really want is a Les Paul, the Epiphone would be a good buy. If what you really want is a Telecaster, go for a Telecaster. If what you want is a pointy eighties neon heavy metal monstrosity, go for one of them. Whatever. But don't let well-meaning people persuade you to buy something sensible that you don't really want.

I've always had reservations about Klusons - mainly because I think the thin shafts the buttons are attached to look a bit flimsy. I'm a bit clumsy, and sure I could bend one of those and make the tuner unusable. These have solved that problem. If I was going to, I'd get the locking versions - the Duesenberg Les Trem tailpiece is open at the top, so the strings aren't really securely held until they're pulled tight, and locking tuners make string changing so much easier.