Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

PS good guitars don't need fretjobs every year - more like every couple decades, tops. Some of the better old frets, you'll rub a thumb groove ditch through the back of the neck before you'll ever grind them down to below 50%.

Also, Epi's really don't deserve dropping in a couple hundred bucks of pups (maybe a used USA set if you can score one for $50 or less total, but definitely not a new Pearly), especially after blowing money on a fretjob too. It's just wasting your money for you. Money that, sum total, could have ALREADY turned into at least a used Gibson SG Standard, and probably something far more entertaining like an ESP Eclipse or better. And that's only if you're holding out for the big names... If you're willing to spend time to research and hunt down MIJ unknown "nonames", 200 bucks gets you in the door to indestructible frets for life, or at least compared to that Epi stuff. And the noname pups in them will scream a lot better than any USA ones will in an epiphone, because back then not only could they afford to make guitars out of real materials, like wood and not just wood but the right tonewood for the bodies and necks and tops, but they actually TRIED and WANTED TO. And it showed even down to the little things like good wiring real steel screws brass when it's saddles steel when it's tremolos expensive alloys in frets, and not zinc and cardboard across the board. THAT is where you wanna plug in a $200 pickup set. And there you'll get results.

There's a darn good reason no one famous every plays epi [edit: modern Gibson Epiphone china/korea, not talking about their own pretty sweet vintage hollowbodies before they went bust, or some of the 100x less common MIJs like the "Elitists"], but strap on a Greco or a Destroyer or a JEM, and you can rock a decent sized stadium of demanding fans with confidence, as many rockers before you have done, and many will again.
 
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Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

^ obviously an Epi hater with extremely limited experience. I've got no respect for brand bashing.

I admit that there is no better quality guitar than a 50's or 60's Gibson (or Epi, for that matter). But either you haven't played a recent Gibson, or you have only had experience with one Epi and just happen to be so unlucky as to get a lemon. Lemons exist in every brand.

I've owned over a dozen Gibsons from the early 60's to 2012 and I currently own 4, and can see that modern Gibson quality is a myth. If they sold for 30% of their street price I'd probably own a few more. But I currently own twice as many Epi's and every one of them is better, in every respect (except electonics...it's no secret that up until this year, Epi pups were only good for the exercise to remove them.), than any of the 9 or 10 Gibsons I've purchased in the past 5 or 6 years.

I have a '68 Sheraton that I'll gladly compare to any brand, any year, any country of origin semi that you care to produce. I also have an Epi LP that I'm glad to make a similar comparison.

Bottom line......the "brand" is insignificant. The individual guitar is all that counts. Brand bashing is only a display of ignorance (meaning lack of knowledge), since there are good and bad quality guitars in every brand.

Oh, and by the way,....there are a lot more famous players who have used Epi's than any of the other brands you mentioned (Johnny Winters, John Lennon, Paul McCartney to name a few). And..."there's a darn good reason" for it.

PS...frets are made of many different alloys. Soft nickel frets have a great warm vintage tone that appeals to many famous musicians, but they wear much quicker than other materials and need to be replaced more often. These frets are found on some of the most expensive guitars you can buy. Stainless steel frets are probably the hardest and most resistent to wear and have an appeal because of their smooth feel, but are also very bright and cold, even lifeless sounding. All frets wear in proportion to the amount of use and abuse that they receive. And so, "good guitars" that are used alot may require frequent fret jobs.
 
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Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

ndeed. I have bought alot of Epis in my day..dozen maybe 13 or 14.. And while not always the benchmark for quality, in recent years its pretty hard to find much fault with their build quality in the general sense. The last 3 I have owned..a plus top I bought in 09, a p90 LP special I bought in 2011, and my recent 335, were/are put together very well. Much better than your average sub 1k Gibson faded/studio/tribute. Switches are still wonky, but even the new pickups are pretty good and fretwork/nuts have been done well straight outta the box. Infinitely better than some Epis I purchased in the early to mid 2000s.
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Hey Jeff,

Have you noticed that the guitar head in your avatar is backwards?
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Uhm....actually no its not. I can post the whole pic if you like? It is my own tele , and I took the pic.


Or did sumthin just go way over my head?:boggled:
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

^ obviously an Epi hater with extremely limited experience. I've got no respect for brand bashing.

Oh, and by the way,....there are a lot more famous players who have used Epi's than any of the other brands you mentioned (Johnny Winters, John Lennon, Paul McCartney to name a few). And..."there's a darn good reason" for it.

REAL epis. AMERICAN HOLLOWBODIES. Not post-buyout Chinese Gibson clones. No relation between the two. And brand may be insignificant enough, but FACTORY is all-important.

And, btw? TOTALLY not a Gibson fan (exception: Explorer standards can be pretty sweet), maybe I'm just too young, but the good ones were in $60k display cases for as long as I remember. And the ones being sold either competed with each other for lemony "goodness", or had price points 2-4x higher than the better PRSes on the wall next to them.


...ANYWAYS, the OP's epiphone has a typical epiphone problem: it ain't sounding like the sum of the parts it's supposed to contain. That's something I've run into every single time I've spontaneously decided to check if Gibby fell far enough to lose to their knockoffs yet (soundwise, no, unfortunately).

As $1k tributes and other baked maple horrors, why not buy a used Explorer, or even SG Standard? You'll have enough of your faded thousand left for a small tube amp or a cabload of veeeery premium speakers left over, too!
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Funny... Billy Gibbons has been seen playing Chinese Epis on stage in recent years. Not quite as famous but the guys from My Chemical Romance both play Epis.

I'm sure if I wasn't at work and had a moment to think I could come up with more.
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Hmm... well, Msrs. Hetfield and Hammett have been caught red-handed endorsing "LTDs" hand-built by ESP Japan Custom Shop, with custom-ordered replica headstocks, and Gibson's saviour's Slash's LP's weren't even Gibbies to begin with, and some still aren't. Maybe these guys are just following tradition.

I don't think ScreaEmos really count, one way or the other. Especially the younger kids gone endorsement-crazy... what I'm saying is that Ibanez didn't pay EVH to pick up that Destroyer, plenty of examples like that. But with Epi, it's guys that are Gibson/Epiphone endorsers - they're essentially company employees, pulling in massive dough in a day and age when music sales are in the gutter, and concert revenue is limited by the recession, with the target audience being largely unemployed youths, often with unemployed parents, and knee-deep in debt. What would YOU do if Rondo or Samick or somebody else so-so came to you with a suitcase of cash tomorrow, just asking you to get seen with their guitar in exchange???
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Well this thread went from dumb to dumber in a big hurry.
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Hmm... well, Msrs. Hetfield and Hammett have been caught red-handed endorsing "LTDs" hand-built by ESP Japan Custom Shop, with custom-ordered replica headstocks, and Gibson's saviour's Slash's LP's weren't even Gibbies to begin with, and some still aren't. Maybe these guys are just following tradition.

I don't think ScreaEmos really count, one way or the other. Especially the younger kids gone endorsement-crazy... what I'm saying is that Ibanez didn't pay EVH to pick up that Destroyer, plenty of examples like that. But with Epi, it's guys that are Gibson/Epiphone endorsers - they're essentially company employees, pulling in massive dough in a day and age when music sales are in the gutter, and concert revenue is limited by the recession, with the target audience being largely unemployed youths, often with unemployed parents, and knee-deep in debt. What would YOU do if Rondo or Samick or somebody else so-so came to you with a suitcase of cash tomorrow, just asking you to get seen with their guitar in exchange???
Suddenly I feel like I'm on one of the more cork sniffing forums. LOL

Sorry, we're here to play our guitars, not bash other brands and bands.


I get this feeling that the only experience you have with the things you don't like are what other people posted one the internet. I can't speak for everybody but I like to keep an open mind. A good guitar is a good guitar. Also, a good band is a good band.


Labels matter not, young padawan.
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Uhm....actually no its not. I can post the whole pic if you like? It is my own tele , and I took the pic.


Or did sumthin just go way over my head?:boggled:

No, after taking a second look, I think I was looking at it wrong.
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

The decal is in the Fifties position.
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Uhh, guys, he was asking WHY IT SOUNDS WRONG... possible reasons include: 1) soldered wrong, 2) set up wrong, 3) LEMON, 4) built and spec'd to be a lemon by default... really, there's only so many reasons why a Pearly Gates ain't giving you sweet tone. And when the guy's adding that his frets are pooping out on him so fast that fretjobs are a regular event for him, who wouldn't be thinking in the lemon direction??

I've seen plenty of 40-yr-old guitars, with the kinda scars you can only get from being played hard for decades, with no trace of a fretjob, without a single gouge on any frets, even fretwear, and >50% left on the frets. These frets somehow often have a silvery-oxidized-brass-greenish tint, showing some complex alloys used, and they are also somehow NEVER extra jumbo to begin with. And the massacred frets 5yos almost never have even fretwear, loads of gouges, and a yellowish or cheep steel tint to their crappy XJs. Also, the same 40yo good frets never have anything poking out where it shouldn't, while the weak XJs always have a few edges all around. Just one too many hints that some fretwork is good'n'honest, and some was done fast sloppy and cheap to begin with.

...as to CORK SNIFFING, that it ain't, if somebody's telling you to try to look for a good $200 deal, instead of dropping 5 bills on a guitar designed and spec'd out to be a teenager's disposable Christmas present.
 
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Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Uhh, guys, he was asking WHY IT SOUNDS WRONG... possible reasons include: 1) soldered wrong, 2) set up wrong, 3) LEMON, 4) built and spec'd to be a lemon by default... really, there's only so many reasons why a Pearly Gates ain't giving you sweet tone. And when the guy's adding that his frets are pooping out on him so fast that fretjobs are a regular event for him, who wouldn't be thinking in the lemon direction??

I've seen plenty of 40-yr-old guitars, with the kinda scars you can only get from being played hard for decades, with no trace of a fretjob, without a single gouge on any frets, even fretwear, and >50% left on the frets. These frets somehow often have a silvery-oxidized-brass-greenish tint, showing some complex alloys used, and they are also somehow NEVER extra jumbo to begin with. And the massacred frets 5yos almost never have even fretwear, loads of gouges, and a yellowish or cheep steel tint to their crappy XJs. Also, the same 40yo good frets never have anything poking out where it shouldn't, while the weak XJs always have a few edges all around. Just one too many hints that some fretwork is good'n'honest, and some was done fast sloppy and cheap to begin with.

...as to CORK SNIFFING, that it ain't, if somebody's telling you to try to look for a good $200 deal, instead of dropping 5 bills on a guitar designed and spec'd out to be a teenager's disposable Christmas present.

I would tell you to quit while your ahead but you passed being ahead about 4 posts ago, now your just shoveling it with both hands. Your not saying anything new and not bringing anything to help the OP this is all just a side argument. We get it you dont like Epi's and you have a hard on for 40 year old frets. Go you!
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Eh? Miss the point where I said "solder the pearly straight to the input jack, pull the other pickup physically, and see if it helps = if it does, start over from there"? That'd both isolate magnetism problems from the other pup and scrap all possible bad solder joints etc., leaving only one pup to adjust and 2/3 solder joints to look at (ungrounded to bridge/grounded to bridge). It'll also, once and for all, prove or disprove the blame the guitar idea

PS somehow, I faintly recall getting a Thanks/Like for the lemon suggestion, so I'm not exactly feeling lonely here :)
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

A lemon GUITAR...not a lemon BRAND.

Like I said before, lemons happen with every, repeat, every brand. I think it's just coincidence that it's an Epi, not the cause.

So I say "adieu" to Adieu.
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Eh? Miss the point where I said "solder the pearly straight to the input jack, pull the other pickup physically, and see if it helps = if it does, start over from there"? That'd both isolate magnetism problems from the other pup and scrap all possible bad solder joints etc., leaving only one pup to adjust and 2/3 solder joints to look at (ungrounded to bridge/grounded to bridge). It'll also, once and for all, prove or disprove the blame the guitar idea

PS somehow, I faintly recall getting a Thanks/Like for the lemon suggestion, so I'm not exactly feeling lonely here :)

You also told him to get a 130 watt soldering device, which is when I stopped listening, to be truthful.
 
Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

Overpriced and unreliable, since some people are obviously tone deaf. Care to argue against "overpriced and unreliable" with some weightier arguements than 'snob', 'cork-sniffer', or personal attacks?

...and there's still not a body in here, for all the bashing, to suggest anything more productive than my "solder the pup straight to the input jack & test that" move. And, if you haven't tried it, YES THAT WILL WORK. Pots and switches just add options, a guitar will work fine (and with perhaps 10-15% more bite) without any of em.

Strange how a guy calling himself "GuitarDoc" ain't coming up with useful advice like that, only sneers at the source thereof due to difference of *PERSONAL* preference, but yours truly the 4-decades-younger amateur dabbler is, despite only getting flak & more flak for suggesting that big-money pickup upgrades will fare better in good-deal-used guitars that only cost as much as a fretjob & never need one than black holes that vacuum out your wallet, for whatever reason... and are several hundred bucks overpriced due to being licensed copies by a big name brand & having a massive advertising campaign that's been going strong for more years than many owners have been *alive*. I hope THAT at least is no secret and no point that you Epi Fanbois wish to contest?

You also told him to get a 130 watt soldering device, which is when I stopped listening, to be truthful.

Lol, we have a bigger amateur than I. Struggled with a 30-watter pencil for years before I learned this lil secret. Forget poking around for minutes, push the burst button and stuff melts clean and silvery. And NO, YOUR POTS WON'T BURN OUT - unless your hands are a dozen times clumsier and technically disinclined than even mine (don't push burst right on top of a cap and then come crying though, cuz even a good poke in the middle with a 30w pencil can kill those things). Did 4 guitars with em recently (like within last week recently), ZERO NOISE, ZERO DEFECTS TO ELECTRONICS, MINUTES TO COMPLETION *AND* NOT A SINGLE IMPERFECT SOLDER CONNECTION THE FIRST TIME AROUND. Also, one Korean LTD w/EMGs suddenly got like a good 30% cleaner and edgier and lost all noise - as compared to how it was done by the factory, that is. Also, unlike the painful, confused, frustrated process with the pencils, this was a breeze and the satisfaction of a job done right & yet another guitar that sounded way better than it ever did before - this from a guy who's soldered 8 or so guitars in all his entire life, and previously spent many hours to days agonizing over each, and redoing every contact several times over trying to find what went wrong.

If you wanna spend hours (instead of 5-10 minutes) per full control cavity rewire, be unable to aim properly, burn fingers or wood on a regular basis, take 15 minutes to heat up to working temp and poop out if you leave it on for an hour or two, poke around with a multimeter and "ring out" every contact looking for your cold solder joint or bad connection, or worse yet have a halfway bad cold joint giving you stray noise or sapping signal with you none the wiser - be my guest. BUT THE FACTORY - EVERY FACTORY - USES POWERFUL "GUN HANDLE" SOLDERING DEVICES, AS DO ALL TECHS. Cuz it gets the job done, unlike a 30watt pencil that can't even melt through a decent puddle on your common ground spot. Like, duh.

WHAT'S NEXT, YOU'RE GONNA GIVE ME THE WEIRD LOOK FOR USING A SURGICAL HEMOSTAT MORE THAN ANY OTHER TOOL IN SOLDERING, W/ SURGICAL THUMB FORCEPS COMING IN SECOND? Most useful stuff ever. Free tip: Try jacking that (preferably ones used on you or a family member, not that hep alphabet soup and HIV positive person in the next room) on your way out next time you're in an emergency room. It ain't stealing cause it's trash, your trash to be exact. The moment they open the sterile pack they're tossing em anyway, these things are disposable and classed "BioHazard Waste" by rich country hospitals the instant even one of the set touches a patient. Nobody bothers boiling these things in antiseptic and reusing them, off to the wastebin they go. Just $10 of the reason why American medicine is so dang expensive, and probably a buck or two more per set of disposal fees for the biohazard thing.

NEXT EPISODE - Lesson 3: USING BLOODY THIN STRANDED (YES STRANDED!) WIRE.
 
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Re: Pearly Gates in Les Paul won't get lasting harmonics?? What is up here???

One thing I've never liked about the PG is that my pinch harmonics die out too soon. They don't sustain. They ping, and weee, and squeal for like a second, and then it's just string noise rubbing against the fretboard.

For me, there's something telling in this. It sounds for all the world like we've got a less than stellar fret job going on, with the strings sitting down too low over it, which then kills the string vibrations. I'm thinking that just raising the string height at the bridge should tell you all you need to know about whether it's the pickup or the guitar.
 
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