Ok, set me straight

[WahKeen]

Ok, so I'm pondering what my next electric guitar purchase will be, and I've got an idea of what I want. But I need some help.

 

First off, I want a non-chambered, none-weight relieved guitar. Oh, and I want a Gibson. So, that pretty much leaves me with a reissue LP, as far as LPs are concerned.

 

However, I wouldn't rule out an SG or an Explorer or another Gibby that fits the bill. I do have questions about the SG though since, I am also looking for good sustain. I recall being discussed here that the sg lacked somewhat in sustain, perhaps compared to the LP. And I also want tone from non-chambered none-weight relieved wood. So, what is you guys' advice on this?

 

And I also want BB 2 and 3s, which I will swap in, regardless of what I get... And is the Explorer heavy?..... 'Cos I like them heavy.

 

I don't want to swap my custom's 57s for the BB 2-3s, (although that would be the perfect scenario), because I really like the 57s on that heavy guitar.

 

Perhaps a 61 SG reissue? I donno.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[SG FAN]

SGs do have a little less sustain than LPs due to the thinner body, but if you get a good one, they sustain beautifully. May I suggest the SG Standard 60s, they come standard with Burstbuckers.

[GIANTRobOT42O]

[neilpanda]

I gigged a bit with the '61 reissue, yea they do have a little less sustain than a lester

but theyre nice players

[WahKeen]

SG, I do like the r's. Derek Trucks seems to have no problem with his sustain. Plus, I do prefer the slimmer necks.

 

Beast, I likem too...

 

Robot, I'm not into Tull......

[rocketman]

Well you could get an old Gibson Sonex like mine. This is from the manual....

 

[Riffster]

Explorers are great guitars, they play and balance really well.

 

Upper fret access is also great.

 

The difference is that they have a thicker body and are larger than an SG so there is more meat to the sound, they are fairly heavy, at ~ 10 pounds

[WahKeen]

Explorers are great guitars, they play and balance really well.

 

Upper fret access is also great.

 

The difference is that they have a thicker body and are larger than an SG so there is more meat to the sound, they are fairly heavy, at ~ 10 pounds

 

I do like the extra access. Heavy = good. Bonamassa plays one and I'm sure, based on what I've heard him play with it, he wouldn't use one if it vacuumed. Strong contender so far. Gracias, mano tiesa.

[SG FAN]

You know you want an SG IMO, heavier doesn't always equal better tone. It's your money, but I don't know many SG owners that are dissapointed with their choice.

[Riffster]

I do have to point out the disadvantage of Explorers is its huge case, it is hard to get it in a car, heavy to carry around, etc.

 

While Explorers have great balance they are awkwardly long, but eventually you get the hang of it and when you do no other guitar feels as good.

[Lungimsam]

With me, it's an SG, or no other Gibson. And only a 61 RI at that. But I'm an SG kinda guy. But all their guitars are great and I am sure you will easily hone in on what is right for you.

Gibson should change their motto to "Only a Gibson SG is good enough.".

[WahKeen]

I also believe Explorers have the 50s round neck.... I do lean toward the 60s slim ones though. I will say, I picked up an SG at GC bout 6 months ago and fell in love with the playability of the neck. I had a hard time putting it down. I didn't buy it but I was dazzled by its playibility. I may have to revisit that. And if I end up with one it would definitely be a 61 reissue.

 

I just want great tone....

[Tim Plains]

Les Paul or SG. Either way, definitely go historic.

This SG is one of the best sounding guitars I've heard. It's a 2008 Standard VOS. The neck is fairly slim but I'd say it's slightly thicker than a typical R0 neck.

I think the sticker price on a new one is around/over $3,000 now but you should be able to find a used one in good to mint condition for as low as $1,500.

 

[Andy R]

I also believe Explorers have the 50s round neck.... I do lean toward the 60s slim ones though. I will say, I picked up an SG at GC bout 6 months ago and fell in love with the playability of the neck. I had a hard time putting it down. I didn't buy it but I was dazzled by its playibility. I may have to revisit that. And if I end up with one it would definitely be a 61 reissue.

 

I just want great tone....

 

I have an 81 E2 explorer you might like....

[Duende]

Les Paul or SG. Either way, definitely go historic.

 

Tim sorry to add to your post,

 

or, (assuming you want a one of a kind and top notch guitar) and you don't mind it not saying Gibson on the headstock; the best way in my opinion is a guitar made for you by an independent guitar maker.

 

Matt

[LarryUK]

Well you could get an old Gibson Sonex like mine. This is from the manual....

 

What's the Sonex made from?

[pippy]

Going back to basics on the original question;

 

Can I ask why, exactly, you don't want a weight-relieved body?

 

If you want an Historic because of the other differences an Historic brings that's one thing. If you want it because it has a solid body that's a slightly different matter

 

Considering no-one noticed any change in tone or sustain for many, many years after the practice of 'Swiss Chees-ing' was introduced - and when it was discovered it had nothing whatsoever to do with the inherent sonic qualities of any guitar; rather someone saw an x-ray showing the holes and a second person heard 'burgs' rattling around in the body - it seems pretty fair to state that weight-relieving makes absolutely no discernable difference to the tone of the finished instrument - at least as far as the human ear is concerned.

 

I have two of each type and can honestly say that, although they all sound different, I couldn't possibly tell on a 'blind test' which two out of the four were weight-relieved. And that's playing 'acoustically'. Plugged-in it matters even less.

 

If you put this matter of weight-relief aside it opens up the possibility of a Les Paul Traditional which, as I'm sure you are aware, is a very highly thought-of model.

 

Just MHO.

 

P.

[stein]

i agree on the swiss cheese issue. it could be a whole different subject, but trying to be breif here i have played examples that the weight relief ones do sound different, but those have been really, really light. for the most part i think most of them you can't tell. weight has a lot to do with tone, and a 7 lb axe IS going to sound different than a 9 lb axe. but i bet you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between 2 9 lb axes if only one was chambered. besides, if you really want heavy you could buy a chambered one and shoot lead in it. serious tho, it is preference. why rule out a whole group that would fit your preference if they suit you exept for the knowledge they are chambered.

now, i noticed you had a link to your music and listened to some (nice by the way) as well as noticed you are a big guy. i must say you handle that little paul with style. also noticed you have 3, THREE les pauls, and while 12 is not too much, going other than paul will not make you lacking in paulness.

so, i thought maybe a thunderbird. if you can find one that doesn't take too much a nose dive, i think you may have the frame for it to be comfortable to you, and may appeal to your gibson sense of style. plenty of upper fret access. they have different pups, and really lots of players used to play these axes mostly because of that. i thought of that because listening to your music, i thought it would sound great with the firbird pups snarl, you would problably get a real sonic greasy mean bite from it the way you play. yea, they bite hard, but sometimes you gotta let the dogs out.

next, perhaps a 335. upper fret access like crazy. big guitar, but you a big guy, might fit you perfect. tonewise, still very suitable for what i heard you doing, but at the same time might open up a whole new range of tones for you. also, could be something that you gat fit those pups you are thinking, or also allow you to put in the 57 classics and refit your other axe like you mentioned. and they can be heavy, too. here, there is more differences between 335 tones guitar to guitar, so play a bunch.

lastly, a goldtop. i'm not really sure if you would like p-90s, but the are extremely fat and snarly, so you might get into them. noisy too. but there is nothing like them and i would not want you to be short the experience of checking them out. another thing is that a gold top will fit mini humbucks just fine without being weird to your gibson sensibilities, and from what i could gather from your music, would be a great choice. they aren't as popular as other pups, but they are truly just as good. they have more midrange and a tighter sound and have a very controllable snarl to them, as well as a very clean tone when played clean. its like clean with no mud, but great dirt that remains smooth yet bright. the other thing is that a gold top eludes a sense of class that i think you could pull off well when you wear your dress shoes for those events when the church calls on you.

well, there it is. i don't really know you, but that is from what i could gather from your misic clips and your profile here.

[Riffster]

I also believe Explorers have the 50s round neck.... I do lean toward the 60s slim ones though.

 

Explorers have a 50's neck style on the first 5 frets and 60's style for the rest of the neck. The most similar neck I have come across was the SG 61 historic VOS.

[Riffster]

double post

[Hall]

SFM, I would only buy a Custom Shop Gibson guitar, now days.

[Tim Plains]

Considering no-one noticed any change in tone or sustain for many, many years after the practice of 'Swiss Chees-ing' was introduced - and when it was discovered it had nothing whatsoever to do with the inherent sonic qualities of any guitar

I disagree. Solid-body LPs sound different to me and have something that weight-relieved/chambered ones don't. Call it more grit. I'm sure people in the early '80s did notice a difference but it wasn't like today where they could then post a thread about it. Gibson also had reissues back then; so, I'm sure people asked what the differences were.

[Andy R]

So you know I'm a "Les Paul's should be heavy" guy too. Nothing to do with the sustain factor one way or the other I just like the way they feel. I like heavy guitars period.

 

I have to admit and agree the Swiss Cheese Holes don't really do much. If you have checked out my rebuild post even re-filling them with some pretty dense Mahogany made no substantial weight difference. The reason being the Mahogany body its self is not very dense and doesn't weigh much.

 

I' m not sure how Gibson grades and uses their mahogany bodies. Since Mahogany varies so greatly in weight and density from piece to piece you could feasibly have a weight relieved Mahogany body that still weighs as much or more than a non-weight relieved body.

 

It could be possible that they weigh the blanks and separate a certain weight range for certain models but I'm not sure. As the others said you might at least look at some of the weight relieved "Swiss Cheese" models and see if you happen across one that is still pretty heavy. You have to also consider there are some weight variations in maple as well so Like I said depending on the woods they used you could still end up with a non-weight relieved that weighs less than the Swiss Cheese models...

 

The following is my thoughts on sustain and does not address tone at all....

 

If you think you are gaining sustain by weight I can't say one way or the other. To me measuring sustain and using specific formula for woods, weight, etc,,, is really impossible. I'm not saying you can't rule some things out that will get you within a certain range of sustain but as the graph shows in that comparison were talking 8 seconds difference. To me that is too close to say definitively that the wood or weight made all of the difference. If they built a thousand guitars of each and each guitar remained within a second or two of the range they were in then I might be more of a believer. I would also see what that test looked like a year later, five years later etc... with same guitars.

 

I still maintain that in guitars made of wood, glue, and paint you will never get exactly the same result. Each guitar is going to age and mature differently. You may start with a guitar that doesn't have that much sustain but after time and use the sustain might increases tremendously. How much glue was used in the joints? How thick was the lacquer sprayed? How dense was the wood used? What was the original moisture content? How much joint expansion and shrinking will happen until the guitar finally settles?

 

I was also a believer for long time that heavier more dense wood made for better sustain. Now I'm not so sure about that. I'm sure there are some physics that can be applied that would be able to tell one way or the other at least in principle. My physics experience is 0 so I base my theories on common sense, logic and what I can see happen through time, nature and experience.

 

So here is my purely theoretical and logic based assumptions starting with just acoustical sustain ( not electrified through a pickup ):

 

Sustain is initiated by the vibration of the string and how long that string will continue to vibrate over time. A guitar with good acoustical sustaining properties should create a natural vibration loop between the vibrating string and the body where the vibration of the body feeds back to the string renewing its vibration until there is not enough natural vibration to keep the cycle continuing and the vibration finally dissipates. Obviously everything that is connecting and transferring that string vibration will be important to how long the cycle will repeat and determine the dissipation time.

 

So keeping this in mind there could be two ( or more ) thoughts on what type, density, weight of wood, would be most conducive for keeping this loop going. In my logic a more dense piece of wood needs more initial vibration or energy to start the the vibration cycle through the body than a lighter less dense piece of wood. My Logic... Something heavier takes more physical force to move or set in motion than something light.... ( So lets call this initial resistance) Here comes the part where the logic starts to hurt my brain... So once the cycle is started ( lets say that through compensation we have started both pieces of wood vibrating with initial equal energy) which one will allow the vibration cycle to last longer? ( given all else is equal for strings, bridge, tailpiece, nut etc...) ??? We all know that that something heavier set in motion is harder to stop given the same amount of physical resistance as something light but I'm not sure that applies here... Since we need the string to keep vibrating we need something that will be more sensitive to passing the vibration with minimal leaching to the next vibration contact. So I guess I would theorize a lighter less dense piece of wood, would be less resistant to vibration than a heavier dense piece of wood. So as the energy of the string is vibrating you should "in theory" have less resistance and parasitic vibration loss as the cycle continues and inevitably fades. So again by my own logic if the lighter would creates less resistance and leaches less vibration and takes less initial force to start the vibration then in theory a lighter less dense guitar should provide more sustain.... At least acoustically. Again just my own theory.

 

So lets add a pickup and an amp into the equation. Now were adding a physical vibration loop between the body, the pickup and the sound pressure level created by the speaker output which creates another vibration loop. So lets say we are at a volume where the sound pressure being created by the speakers is enough to vibrate the strings pickup and body of your guitar so now we are creating a somewhat artificial sustain because we are using an outside influence to keep the vibration loop going. Depending on the output level of the amp, gain, proximity of the guitar to the amp, the room your in, and what frequencies the room accents or diminishes the sustain loop will vary.... Ideally if you want that infinite sustain you will produce a frequency that will cause a constant vibrational feedback loop where each time the signal is passed through the body of the guitar it keeps the pickup vibrating ( thus the magnetic field is also causing the string to vibrate) which then sends the signal through the amp where it is re-amplified and continues the loop. This is pretty much the principle of how a Sustainer device works. Though it does it by quickly turning on and of the magnetic field to the string and loops back through the bridge pickup. Anyway given this principle almost any guitar should provide infinite sustain as long as there is nothing impeding the string, pickup and body from continuing to vibrate. The caveat is that it takes a certain amount of volume and gain to keep the loop going.

 

So say we are not really into high gain and only want to use moderate volume but would like to have nice naturally sustaining notes and a nice natural decay . Now were relying back more on the inherent and natural acoustic sustain created by the guitar... So again I would say lighter and less dense is better if all other aspects of the guitar are completely equal. In other words this might not be the case if you have a brand new light mahogany body guitar with new glue joints, and a new coat of paint and compare it to an older heavier body guitar that all the paint and glue has had years to cure and acclimate....

 

 

I do believe in the theory of tuning guitars for tone and sustain by either constant playing or using radios or other vibrating devices to keep the guitar resonating as much as possible especially when they are first built.

 

All that said I still like the feel of a heavy guitar especially a Les Paul. I also like my SG and it does have plenty of sustain. What I don't like about it is that the neck is so thin that it is not rigid enough to handle even slight weather or tuning changes so I am constantly having to adjust it. It also does not stay in tune well but I have not really took the time to take some measures to improve that.

 

I apologize for the long post. Just can't help myself when it comes to theory and love hearing other peoples thoughts on the subjects.

 

 

Andy

[neilpanda]

seeing all these SGs makes me want mine back!

THATS IT! my next guitar will be the sg special faded!

[pippy]

I disagree. Solid-body LPs sound different to me and have something that weight-relieved/chambered ones don't. Call it more grit. I'm sure people in the early '80s did notice a difference but it wasn't like today where they could then post a thread about it. Gibson also had reissues back then; so, I'm sure people asked what the differences were.

 

Oh, I'm quite prepared to be wrong on all counts. Don't misunderstand me; I only spoke about my own experiences as far as the subjects go.

 

Regarding the 'discovery' of the weight-relieving; you might, of course, be absolutely correct. I certainly don't know the facts for certain. I was merely recounting the tale as I understood it to be the case from various sources.

The first time I'd heard of anyone asking what was going on dated from about '89 - some 7 years after the introduction of the process. It's certain that there will be a multitude of articles which I have never read on this topic.

 

And as far as weight-relieving / chambering its'self goes in respect of instruments;

 

It's my view that there is a big tonal difference between Chambering and 'Cheesing' but, hand-on heart and as I mentioned in my earlier post, there's no way I could tell that either of my 'Cheesed' models were, in fact, 'Cheesed' just by listening to them unplugged.

 

Even after spending a few years with all 4 I still wouldn't be dogmatic about which were weight-relieved if I didn't already know. They all feel different, they all sound slightly different, but I couldn't put my finger on any one sonic characteristic and say "There! Thats's what Cheesing does to the sound".

There is a difference in mass of less than 4 oz between all four of my instruments. They even all have one piece mahogany bodies ('Cheesing' notwithstanding) so are very similar in construction. As far as I know the differences in tone could be down more to the different necks rather than the weight-relief process but, as I say, I'm just guessing with only circumstantial evidence to back this guesswork up.

I must add, however, that both of my "1960 Classic" Pauls are oustanding examples. I wasn't intending to buy a guitar in either case but, having played them, had no doubts....

 

I'm also fully aware, of course, that you have far more experience in this matter than I have - particularly where the re-issues are concerned - so perhaps it's just a result of my having owned a very small sample-group. I would also be happy to find myself utterly mistaken. So far, however, all I have to draw on is my own relatively limited experience. And that, therefore, is all I can recount.

 

I could, equally, just have ears of cloth...........................................(but I don't think so)................................................................:unsure:

 

LOL!

 

P.