Rex_Rocker
Well-known member
Yeah, I was thinking that too. Maybe an EC-1000T would be my best bet. But I've never tried one. Have you? Do those sound more like Les Pauls? Cause the thinner-body ones kinda don't.
Modern-feeling alternatives to a Les Paul?
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Rex_Rocker
Well-known member
Yeah, same. I don't think I can afford custom build prices, to be completely honest, anyway.
Oh, I can't see the images. The specs sound interesting! Do you have a website where I can check out pricing and whatnot?
I ended my business, because I just couldn't handle having it a business anymore to be honest. However...
I will continue to build guitars, at the same level as before or even better, just not as a company: as a luthier, yes, but not as a company. So my prices will be A LOT lower, because I don't need to make money out of it as a living! Let me see if I can add photos here.
Oh, and all I have is Instagram and facebook
guess you'll find my work soon enough when you search for orpheo guitars on insta or facebook! 
I am willing to bet you are if you're considering an LTD or Kiesel
You'll never know until you drop me aline. Mind you: I can make what you want, just not fast.
This sums me up perfectly. I can make (you) a great guitar for at an affordable pricepoint. I am just... not fast.
Those thinner body LP's don't sound like an LP. Even mine don't. That silverburst is 45mm thick black limba (45mm is Fender body thickness) and what does that yield?! A tone more like a tele! The violet/pink HSS LP I posted above has the feel of a strat, because of its thickness, scale, etc, and the other guitar feels also like a strat, or rather a superstrat, because of the thickness of the body, the neck, scale, 24 frets etc.
If you want LP tone, you are kinda stuck to the thick body. Can the weight be negated by using lighter woods? of course!
This guitar is a full thickness LP style guitar (slightly different bodyshape due to various technical reasons but none legal, haha!), with a solid rosewood neck, full thickness maple cap, lightweight korina body, but NO chambering. Yet... it hits 3.3kg with all of its parts, hardware, backplates, etc. 7.4lbs, in case you're wondering. I shaved down the weight by using an aluminium bridge and sperzel tuners, and picking the right woods. Oh, and the neck is full thickness: baseball bat style. Just as an experiment to see if I could make it work.
Tonally, this guitar roars on the bridge, has a spanky tone in the middle positions, and a fluid, singing tone in the neck position. It's truly an LP, but lightweight. I carved the top to have an extremely deep violin carve, compared to a flatter carve Gibson uses. Even PRS doesn't go as deep as what I did here: all in a contorted effort to shave down weight without sacrificing tone.
Why did I start talking about weight again? :34:
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Securb
One of Jerry's Kids
Not trying to contradict you. I know you know your stuff. My experience with the Les Paul Custom Lite has been a true Les Paul tone. Especially after adding the WLH set. I have three other Les Pauls I use live, four total and with the exception of the ES Memphis Les Paul (MHS Hums) which had its own vibe the other three Lite (WLHs), Traditional, (WLHs), and Standard (Burstbuckers) sound very similar with the Lite and Traditional sounding the most similar.
You can do a lot with pickups, but at this point I have made close to 150 Les Pauls with various 'recipes' and thinner can get you into LP territory, tonally, but it won't be really an LP tone. But yeah, pickups can help a LOT.
That's not me saying a thinner LP shaped guitar sounds bad. Lol. That's a stupid statement.
OK, let's rephrase: a thinner LP body will give you more challenges towards getting that true LP tone, than a full thickness body.
Rex_Rocker
Well-known member
orpheo I checked your PM! I'll reply later today. Thanks for offer, man. I might take you up on it.
For me, a couple of things I've found that make Gibson Les Pauls sound like Gibson Les Pauls is the type of Mahogany they use, which is not what usually most Asian factories are using. Maybe that's romanticizing a bit. But visually, it looks quite different. I can't help but think how tight the grain is and how dense the wood looks has an effect on how the guitar resonates.
Second, I've been noticing that bridge pickups on Gibsons tend to be a bit closer to the bridge than many other brands. Jackson, especially, but ESP to an extent as well.
Third, the body thickness. And that's a tricky one, because I've heard some killer-sounding Studios, and Studios are like what? 5mm thinner than Standards and Customs. Still not as thin as non-FT Eclipses, though.
Not sure about the finish. I bet it has some effect as well, because the Nitro they coat Gibsons with is certainly a lot thinner than what they use in LTD's. Don't know if that's romanticizing as well, but you always read about that.
I personally find neck thickness doesn't always translate either. Or at least, I've heard many killer-sounding Les Pauls with the 60's neck. My Epi LPC, for instance, sounded better than my Epi 1959, IMO. But neither were fantasitc, TBH. Not bad, but not high-end either. I also had an Ibanez Prestige RGA121 with the Wizard Prestige neck that sounded fantastic (nothing like a Les Paul, but good nonetheless).
JMO.
For me, a couple of things I've found that make Gibson Les Pauls sound like Gibson Les Pauls is the type of Mahogany they use, which is not what usually most Asian factories are using. Maybe that's romanticizing a bit. But visually, it looks quite different. I can't help but think how tight the grain is and how dense the wood looks has an effect on how the guitar resonates.
Second, I've been noticing that bridge pickups on Gibsons tend to be a bit closer to the bridge than many other brands. Jackson, especially, but ESP to an extent as well.
Third, the body thickness. And that's a tricky one, because I've heard some killer-sounding Studios, and Studios are like what? 5mm thinner than Standards and Customs. Still not as thin as non-FT Eclipses, though.
Not sure about the finish. I bet it has some effect as well, because the Nitro they coat Gibsons with is certainly a lot thinner than what they use in LTD's. Don't know if that's romanticizing as well, but you always read about that.
I personally find neck thickness doesn't always translate either. Or at least, I've heard many killer-sounding Les Pauls with the 60's neck. My Epi LPC, for instance, sounded better than my Epi 1959, IMO. But neither were fantasitc, TBH. Not bad, but not high-end either. I also had an Ibanez Prestige RGA121 with the Wizard Prestige neck that sounded fantastic (nothing like a Les Paul, but good nonetheless).
JMO.
I wrote you extensively about the bodywoods
The tightness of grain and density surely make a difference but in different ways than you might think at first. A superstiff, extremely lightweight bodyback (spanish cedar, spruce) will give you a very 'snappy' response, but very stiff and heavier wood, like ash, will also give you a snappy response: the EQ between both will just be different. The former will have a more 'airy' tone, less compressed, where the hard ash will have a much tighter, more aggression.
Thickness: I wrote about that before as well. It matters, in so far that it is a parameter you can think about in terms of chance. If you want to have a great LP, what is that recipe? What makes an LP an LP? And thickness is surely a defining feature in that recipe. Will a thinner guitar sound bad? No, of course not. The Blackmachine guitars are just 35, sometimes even just 30 millimeters thick and they sound HUGE. But, not like an LP. As I said before as well, it's not just thickness that matters, it's the mix of a softer lighter weighing bodyback and a top hard as a rock maple, plus the neck which steers the tone a certain direction. The material of the body seems to matter less and less the thinner you go: that HSS LP I posted earlier sounds amazing and huge (I might make a video about it this weekend), and that HSH LP also sounds great, but because of wood choices, scale, pickups, trem, they feel and sound very alike. ONe is maple+ash, the other just ash. Perhaps that's why manufacturers are less discriminating when it comes to their bodybacks for their thinner LP style guitars?
The thickness of the neck makes a huge difference too: a thinner body but a neck as chunky as Spanish Chorizo will give you a meatier tone (lol) versus a pencil thin neck. I have seen guitars have their tone change completely, when I shaved a neck thinner for a customer. Did it sound worse? No. But it did sound different.
Finish material makes zero difference. Finish thickness makes more of a difference. That is imho not even open for debate. I have made a guitar once and completed it without finish. Tested it. Then added the finish, and tested it again: the guitar indeed lost some of its open character, all other things condidered equal. It's marginal, but ALL OF THIS is marginal! But add all those margins up and boom, you get either a horrible, or a great guitar.
It's not just a matter of one spec or another: it's a matter of having, finding, a recipe, that will give you a somewhat predictable result. And can something predictable be made on a budget? I doubt it. On a budget, the guitar has to play well, stay in tune, and fit physical parameters, instead of tonal parameters.
As far as your assesment about the bridge pickup: I agree. Most LP's have their bridge pickup fairly close to the bridge because that how Gibson made it, but that can yield a shrill, bright, brittle tone (which Gibson often tries to mediate by using a 300k pot). Shift the bridge pickup up to 12mm towards the neck and you get a way fatter tone, without making it mushy or flubby per se.
The tightness of grain and density surely make a difference but in different ways than you might think at first. A superstiff, extremely lightweight bodyback (spanish cedar, spruce) will give you a very 'snappy' response, but very stiff and heavier wood, like ash, will also give you a snappy response: the EQ between both will just be different. The former will have a more 'airy' tone, less compressed, where the hard ash will have a much tighter, more aggression.
Thickness: I wrote about that before as well. It matters, in so far that it is a parameter you can think about in terms of chance. If you want to have a great LP, what is that recipe? What makes an LP an LP? And thickness is surely a defining feature in that recipe. Will a thinner guitar sound bad? No, of course not. The Blackmachine guitars are just 35, sometimes even just 30 millimeters thick and they sound HUGE. But, not like an LP. As I said before as well, it's not just thickness that matters, it's the mix of a softer lighter weighing bodyback and a top hard as a rock maple, plus the neck which steers the tone a certain direction. The material of the body seems to matter less and less the thinner you go: that HSS LP I posted earlier sounds amazing and huge (I might make a video about it this weekend), and that HSH LP also sounds great, but because of wood choices, scale, pickups, trem, they feel and sound very alike. ONe is maple+ash, the other just ash. Perhaps that's why manufacturers are less discriminating when it comes to their bodybacks for their thinner LP style guitars?
The thickness of the neck makes a huge difference too: a thinner body but a neck as chunky as Spanish Chorizo will give you a meatier tone (lol) versus a pencil thin neck. I have seen guitars have their tone change completely, when I shaved a neck thinner for a customer. Did it sound worse? No. But it did sound different.
Finish material makes zero difference. Finish thickness makes more of a difference. That is imho not even open for debate. I have made a guitar once and completed it without finish. Tested it. Then added the finish, and tested it again: the guitar indeed lost some of its open character, all other things condidered equal. It's marginal, but ALL OF THIS is marginal! But add all those margins up and boom, you get either a horrible, or a great guitar.
It's not just a matter of one spec or another: it's a matter of having, finding, a recipe, that will give you a somewhat predictable result. And can something predictable be made on a budget? I doubt it. On a budget, the guitar has to play well, stay in tune, and fit physical parameters, instead of tonal parameters.
As far as your assesment about the bridge pickup: I agree. Most LP's have their bridge pickup fairly close to the bridge because that how Gibson made it, but that can yield a shrill, bright, brittle tone (which Gibson often tries to mediate by using a 300k pot). Shift the bridge pickup up to 12mm towards the neck and you get a way fatter tone, without making it mushy or flubby per se.
larryguitar
New member
I did a similar experiment in reverse; I had an Ibanez SZ320 (25" scale, TOM bridge, maple cap over mahogany back) and sanded every single centimeter of finish off without changing any profiles more than a hair. Recorded before and after, it was objectively louder, had a 'broader' or more 'open' voice and sustained objectively longer. It was something I didn't expect at all (I stripped it for a different reason, and had never believed finish made much difference in tone) and was startled by how dramatic it was.
That said, that finish was a super-thick poly, but still, the difference was absolutely amazing.
Larry
EmiAba
Active member
More than five years ago I was searching some les paulish guitar (not too expensive) for rehearsals. I found out a good guitar in a shop nearby home. A vgs eruption pro. All mahogany with maple cap, mahogany neck in three pieces and a fretboard made by some polymeric material (like the Gibson richlite). This gives the guitar fretboard the consistency of ebony and a response in frequency similar to ebony. After a couple of improvements and a pickup swap (the guitar has the zakk wylde combo installed) I need to admit it sounds pretty good. It's heavy (around 4 kg) with a confortable c shape neck just like the early 90 les paul. I suggest trying to find out one of those second hand, because I think it's discontinued
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weepingminotaur
Well-known member
Late to this party, but the Chapman ML2 Pro is a guitar I would love to own (though I can't afford it currently). Definitely a modern single-cut. https://www.chapmanguitars.com/product/ml2-pro/
Very interesting! We did in a sense the same test, but in two ways, with both the same result. :banana:
eclecticsynergy
Well-known member
Dean Zelinsky offers a model that's Les Paul-ish, with his laser-engraved low-friction neck back.
Fairly thick body and a fairly fast feel, I think. In the $700 range last time I checked.
Fairly thick body and a fairly fast feel, I think. In the $700 range last time I checked.
Rex_Rocker
Well-known member
Not feeling those, TBH.
Not huge on those more Fender-like hardtails. Or the thinner body. Or the 25.5" scale lenght. By those specs, it would seem to me like it'd sound more like a nice Supestrat than an actual Les Paul.
Otherwise, yeah, visually, they look nice.
Honestly, the only thing I'd really like to modernize in a Les Paul is the clunky-feeling 50's neck with the tiny frets, LOL. And maybe the headstock's break angle on the D and G string. Maybe.
weepingminotaur
Well-known member
See, those are all positives for me. It's kinda neat to see a Fender-scale-length single-cut with a thinner body.
Rex_Rocker
Well-known member
And I would totally agree if I was going purely on feel. At least on the scale lenght. I like the feel of a 25.5" scale lenght way better for fast palm-muting.
But I do prefer the feel of a Tune-O. I like the fact that they're raised slightly off the body. However, I'm not one of those guys who can't adapt to a low-profile bridge. I mean, after all, I also have an Esquire. But to be completely honest, I like the simplicity of having just two points to adjust the action on a Tune-O.
I do like a thinner neck and bigger frets, but I do think big part of the tone of a Les Paul is in the thick clunky body and the scale lenght. I find the more you lenghten the scale, the more Fendery almost twangy rather than Gibson growly guitars start sounding.
Don't get me wrong. I do like a good Super Strat. I wouldn't mind adding one to my collection. I used to have a Rob Scallon Chapman. Great guitar! But not very Les Paul-sounding.
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eclecticsynergy
Well-known member
In reality, it's extremely thin.
I knew some of his are super thin, even his ES35-shaped one.
But I also think he makes three or four different singlecuts, with opera-style names.
Not sure they're all that thin. Of course all of them might be.
