epi l/paul info required please

[johnbm2136]

being a newbie to the guitar, only 9 months ( ex drummer ) otherwise known as a roadie, i need some feedback on the best epi for blues, country, soft rock music, ie 60s stuff. i have an epi dot which is good for most stuff ,but i need something with a bit more bite. i have been told a l/p would be great. can one of you guys please give me some feedback. cheers john

[generation zero]

Les Pauls are very versatile, and definately will have a bit more "bite" than a dot. I would reccomend going with either a Standard or a Custom, and replace the pickups with either the Jazz/JB set or the '59 set from Seymour Duncan. Furthermore, if you go with the Jazz/JBs, have them wired with push/pull pots on the tone controls so you can split the pickups individually so either one or both can act as a single coil. That gives you just about any tonal option you would need. (You could do that with '59s too, but you would have to custom order the '59s in a 4 wire format. They come stock with only 2 wire leads, if I remember correctly.)

 

Best of luck!

[TWANG]

I'd say go with a G400.

The dot is already right on the money for quite a few people for the music you describe.

You rarely see a paul on country music.. but you do see a dot now and then, and it's a fave with rock, 60s rock, fusion, and blues for years now.

 

a G 400 will have more highs for the country sounds you want.. but I'd suggest a guitar with p90s.. most country uses

single coils, not humbucks.

 

having a push pulls installed is ok.. if you want to swap out pups, as epis don't have four conductor wiring.. and the push pulls cost about 15.00

each, so with new pups that's a substantial aftermarket investment.

 

I think all you're lacking is a more single coil sound. p90s are also rock and blues pups. they are also responsible for a fair amount of sixties rock,

rockabilly, so called jangle pop of course, and country music does very well with them.

though they are a bit fatter than fender single coils, they have a lot more treble than humbucks. and they aren't as mushy or muddy on the

low end.

 

I play a lot of the same music you are playing. and use p90s in my sheraton, and even have one in the neck position on my lp.

 

You can take a look at the wildkat, the casino, the lt. ed. riv p93, too..

all have p90s... casinos were common beatle guitars.. clean and distorted.

the riv has three of 'em and a bigsby for 500.00 quite a deal..

the wildkat will give you two and a bigsby with a smaller body..

 

again.. those pups are blues, rock, country, for sure.. they've had a big influence in those sounds.

 

A G400 will just give you a tad more thin sound.. it's still two humbucks.. so while it's a tad less warm, or jazzy, than a dot,

I'm not sure it will really fit the bill.

 

since you already own a dot, with two humbucks, that's what I'd look at.

 

If you were going to swap pups and add push pulls.. why even get another guitar, the dot would be fine.

 

But humbucks wired for single coil, or as is more typical lately, series/parallel, aren't really going to sound like

tele country single coils.. for one thing the scale is different, and for another, it's no easy thing to get a single pickup to

sound like the best of both.

 

For me, the p90's do it better.. most tonal variety is simply guitar or amp controls changes away.

TWANG

[johnbm2136]

i really appreciate the feedback from you both ( g zero- twang ) i know now which direction to go in.... thanks again for the time and responces.