How do you play yours?!

[sigibson56]

Hi guys,

 

just throwing this out there but how does everyone play their Les Paul? Now I don't mean chords and scales and the musical technicalities but the physical act of playing the guitar.

 

Do you:

 

1) Set neck/bridge pickup volumes for rhythm and lead and flick between them with the toggle switch with minimal volume adjustment

 

2) Use the volume controls dynamically when needing to move into a solo

 

3) Use pedals to boost the volume/gain

 

4) Combination of all three plus other things!

 

Just an idea

[Guitar slinger]

4)

 

And it gets confusing. Luckily or not, I don't gig, I only play with friends once in a while. And besides the fact I had 3 guitars with 4 knobs, I'm not used to them. I'm much more used to telecasters.

 

I actually think that with 4 knobs you can really reach tons of tones. And sometimes I don't really know how those pots are mixed and I end up selecting a pickup that's almost turned off. Especially when I'm playing it clean (it means most of the time) because I really like to mess with all the knobs when using both pickups together.

 

When I'm playing it dirty, it gets easier, because the volume knobs most likely will be open. And if the tone knob is next to zero, it should not messe my lead tones at all - it could mess th rythm tone, though.

 

 

Man... that gets confusing. And I did not mention the booster pedal - whic actually is the easy part.

 

Thats the rule for when I'm playing alone. When I'm in a band, I get lazy and I use caution when dealing with the knobs - using a tubescreamer to overdrive the amp, and a booster for solos.

[deepblue]

I use the treble setting most of the time with the tone knob set to about eight.

When I do switch to the ryhthm pup I have the tone switch at zero. I do enjoy the woman tone!

The tone pots on the reissues are basically either on or off. Theres not much taper, so you dont have much to

play with. Im used to it now.

[Guitar slinger]

The tone pots on the reissues are basically either on or off. Theres not much taper' date=' so you dont have much to

play with. Im used to it now.[/quote']

 

I hear you. Especially when overdriven.

[ChanMan]

I have a rather low volume setting for my neck pup, and a rather high volume for my bridge. Gives me 3 distinct playing levels using the toggle switch. I have an arsenal of pedals to use, depending on what I am playing...

[RichCI]

I keep all the controls on my guitars wide open and use pedals to boost the signal for the most part but also sometimes use the volume controls (not often though unless I'm using both pickups and want a different balance between them). I use a master volume amp with my band set to the point where it's just on the verge of breaking up and use a clean boost to push the amp over the edge for most stuff and use a treble booster for an extra gain stage for leads and some heavier tones. If I'm already using an overdriven tone and want it less overdrive, I might turn down the volume on the guitar a bit but usually just play lighter and/or with some palm muting.

[saturn]

On my LP, I almost always have the tone knobs set close to 10. Unless I'm going for a woman tone with the neck pickup on. When playing live, I do use my volume knobs quite a bit. We play a variety of classic rock songs, so I am constanly having to go from loud to soft, clean to crunchy etc. so I usually set my amp pretty loud and turn down my volume controls unless I really need to crank. I sometimes think it would be easier to be in a hard rock band, then I could just play balls out the whole time.

[solacematt]

Never really use the neck pickups at all to be honest. Mainly just stay on the bridge pickup, tone at around 7, volume full up. I run it through my pedal board which, lately has been just the pic below as I haven't been using too many of my other pedals in my band at the moment for our current set. I plug into the clean channel of my 800 head since I prefer my distortion from my pedal and use my wah to add color.

[DamienAzrael]

I prefer my distortion from my pedal

 

::Sigh::

 

Haha....Anyways...I plug my Les Paul into a pretty big flight case that holds 2 heads and a six space shock mounted rack....I've also got a pedal board with an Ibanez FL-9 Flanger, Dunlop Slash Signature Wah, MXR Kerry King 10 Band EQ, BOSS DD-3 Delay, BOSS CE-5 Chorus Ensemble, and a Morley ABY Box to switch between the 2 heads...I play most of the time using just the bridge pickup which on most of my Les Pauls is a Seymour Duncan JB....I like to use the neck pickup for leads because it gets a nice warm tone that I think works for melodic solos/melodies...And occasionally I'll turn the tone all the way down on the neck pickup.

[AXE®]

Re: Thread Title.

 

Like I own it....

[:oilpit:]

I have a 1 channel amp, and which means I have to get all my different sounds from my controls.

This is what I do:

Neck, is my clean tone volume 1-3 and tone on 10 depending on how clean I want it

Bridge is my dirty volume at 10 and tone at 6-8

I never really use the middle position

I also use a lot of woman tone though...

[solacematt]

Re: Thread Title.

 

Like I own it....

 

Nice!