What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

I have tried one pre-war Martin once....religious experince...Lew is dead right on that one...as well

 

[choppermn]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

"There is mojo in wood,"
If you goto a famous guitar makers site you will see that the wood those overpriced LP's are made of Korina, also the flying V's and explorers are made of Korina. Some luthier please confirm this.
I'm sure too that all these guitars where built by the same group of people, who took pride in thier work, and might have even played as opposed to an executive who cares about a profit margin.:smokin:

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

I'll add that I now have four LPs, and just bought a new '58 plaintop Historic Standard this weekend. Other than needing some minor nut work, it is an incredible guitar. I notice that it has more resonance than my two LP 1960 Classic Premium Plus guitars from 1996 and 1997.

The most authentic sounding new Les Paul I've ever played is my buddy Rondo's '58 Historic Standard Plaintop with a Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard. As soon as I plugged it in it took me right back to the tone I used to hear from my own '58 that owned in the late 60's and early 70's.

IMO, the Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard is a must.



As for newer Martins, my OM-28HD is one of the two best acoustics I've ever owned, and it's less than 10 years old. It's worth every penny I spent for it. It's easily on a par with the Santa Cruz OM models and better actually. Only guitars I've played that slightly surpassed it cost $1000 to 2000 more and were Collings and Goodalls.

Some Collings guitars are the absolute equal of the finest Martins from any era, IMO. James Goodalls guitars are too.

But Martin really is making some wonderful guitars again these days. I love mine and it really is a guitar I'll keep forever and never sell.

Lew

 

[jdm61]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

Good wood that is completely dried out, thin finish, the best combination of construction and parts.......

And last but not least, because some blues lawyer on the LP Forum who's been playing for 3 years, yet owns 6 Historics loaded with RS Wiring kits, Lollars, Holmes, and Rolphs, said so. LOL

Hey......I'm an EX lawyer and mine are loaded with Wagners and Duncans.....get you facts straight:chairfall

Combination of wood, craftsmanship and maybe most importantly, design. They kept improving the Les Pauls and seemed to hit on the perfect formula by 1959.

 

[jdm61]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

Yep, kiln dried before manufacturing. Or blow on it really really hard....till you turn blue. LOL

Nope......Antonio Stradivari used "recycled" wood for his violins that had been cut and drying for up to 100 years. The wood continues to change after it is dead. kiln drying merely a shortcut......it would be the equivelant of trying to speed the process of aging with whiskey or brandy by shaking the barrel for a month or two instead of letting it set for years. Yeah, the liquor turns brown, but it ain't the same. The thing about an old school finish like nitro or French polish (shellac) is that the wood can continue to dry after the finish is put on. Not so with urethane.

 

[shredaholic]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

Wasn't that wood supposed to have been stored underwater somewhere in Venice before he used it, and this was partly responsible for their characteristic sound?

 

[jdm61]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

not sure......the impression that i got was that he kinda did a Brian May special......using "salvage" wood. The other secret was supposed to be the varnish he used. They are still trying to figure out the formula. Nothing so gruesome as the one used in "The Red Violin" but they keep finding odd ingredients.

 

[Mephis]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

Hard to explain...words aren't the same as hearing for yourself. Sort of like trying to describe what an orange tastes like compared to a tangerine to someone who has tasted neither!:laugh2:

Brazilian has more mids and more complexity and texture to those mids compared to Indian which sounds great but sounds slightly less "woody", less multidimensional, less "chewy" and less "plucky".

Lew

Or in a simple man's words... It has more character?

 

[Bludave]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

Putting aside QC issues, player associations, pickups, scarcity, and the ageing process of the wood (these guitars were highly regarded from the late 60's), what makes a '58-'60 burst Les Paul so highly regarded by players as the source of all that is good in the realm of LP tone, and stops a modern Gibson sounding as good?

Is it to do with the type of wood used (ie Brazillian rosewood, density)? Is it the composition of metal in the hardware?

...or is it all hype? :eek13:

It amounts to a little of everything you stated. 50 year old wood is a contributing factor. I have played a lot of guitars from that era and I can honestly say the real PAF pups have something really unique about the way they sound. Nobody seems to know what it is because I don't think any pup of a moder era compares to the real deal. The other factor is these guitars have been played hard for 50 years so all the above have something to do with it.

 

[jdm61]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

I've heard of '59s going for like $350k. Talk about rediculous.

I agree with Gearjoneser's assessment to a T.

Somebody posted a listing on here a few days ago. Guy had 2 59's and wanted $375K EACH!!!!!!!!!! And these guitars had no artist provenance. I heard an urban myth that some Japanese collector offered Billy G. $500K for Pearly a little while back. With Blackie going for $1m, can you imagine what a star '59 would go for?

 

[jdm61]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

Christian. I'll back up what Lew says about the Martins. I have an HD28V and it is maaaaaaahvelous:laugh2: The old school small frets tak a little getting used to, but the v-neck does not and it projects like a mutha. My buddy likes it as well as his Johnny Cash and his D45 and they were both cherry picked examples. You can get the HD28V for $2k MOL if you look long enough. New they discount out at a hair under $3k.......little bit more for the one with the pickup installed. The standard OM21 is a pretty sweet little guitar in its own right and can be had for as llittle as $1200 used and is the cheapest REAL Martin available with a rosewood body. If you hit the Lotto and are so inclined, Martin, unlike most other "custom shops", will still build you pretty much any guitar that your little heart desires, including $100k models made out of old growth Brazilian and Adirondack and with more bling that the first 3 rows at the Source awards....lol

 

[jdm61]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

Brazillian Rosewood is an endangered species no longer xut, therefore exported out of Brazil.

Warmoth does have a lot of hype, IMHO

I have some legal old growth Brazilian rosewood.......real stuff, not recycled stump wood. Problem is that the guy who has it has been saving it up for 25 years and it was probably cut 40 years ago, but it is all in 1.5 x1.5 x14-18 inch pieces. The seller is one of the premier custom pool cue supply dealers. He also sells unbleached LEGAL African elephant ivory. i asked him if he had any bigger slabs of Brazilian, but he doesn't. He had this stuff cut to the size he uses back in the day. Most of the stuff you see on Ebay is going to be either recycle or stump wood and doesn't have the color that this stuff does. i use it to make knife handles and it is some pretty stuff with no cracks, checking or flaws. i wish i could get a bigger piece.:eek13:

 

[jdm61]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

It amounts to a little of everything you stated. 50 year old wood is a contributing factor. I have played a lot of guitars from that era and I can honestly say the real PAF pups have something really unique about the way they sound. Nobody seems to know what it is because I don't think any pup of a moder era compares to the real deal. The other factor is these guitars have been played hard for 50 years so all the above have something to do with it.

Some of that wood may have been almost that old when the guitars were originally built.:27:

 

[Bludave]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

I know you're a big fan of Taylor acoustics but have you even spent any time with a Prewar Martin or for that matter a recent Vintage Style Martin???

I have. I have the previledge of working with Cris Mirabella on a regular basis. I AM NO lUTHIER AND WILL NEVER BE ONE but Cris is a master builder and also does a lot of restoration work on many fine guitars. In my previous post I had mentioned that I have played many vintage guitars and most of them have been thru his shop. Probably the most amazing flatop acoustic I have ever played was a 1920 OM45(I think that was the model). I played it for about 2 hours and the first chord I played on it was like a choir of angels singing. It was without question the finest sounding fingerstyle flattop I have ever played. A very close second was a 1936 Gibson Advanced Jumbo which belongs to a friend of mine. Both of these guitars have been well played which contributes to there awesome sound. 2 other guitars I have a lot of time with worth mentioning was a D'Aquisto Archtop that is known as Pepe. Pepe is a New Yorker but it was built in 1984 and is an absolute beauty cosmeticlly and has the most amazing sound I have heard from an acoustic Archtop. The other was/is Tony Matolas 1936 L5. Tony Matola was the guitar player in the CBS Orchestra for about 25 years, so that guitar was played by a master guitar player for 5 or 6 hours a day 5 days a week for 20 something years. That is why it sounded so amazing.

In Cris's shop there are always a few very high end instruments in the shop for very basic things..... usually a setup and seeing that Cris does not really play much anymore when he is done working on it he hands it to me and says "play this for a while and let me know how you think it feels and sounds" How cool is that :dance: not only do I get to play some amazing vintage guitars, but I also get to play every guitar he makes......... Remember his name. He will be considered to be the premier archtop builder on the planet in the future. www.mirabellaguitars.com

IMHO as far as new acoustic guitars are concerned the best made today are Santa Cruz, Collings, and Goodall guitars. There are significant differences between these builders, but all make very consistaant high end guitars. The real difference between these builders and Martin is with Martin you have to play a few of them until you find a real good one. Every Santa Cruz I have played was a killer guitar. Amazing build quality and fabulous tone. Some of the new Martins I have played left a lot to be desired.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: What Makes Vintage Les Pauls Sound So Good?

IMHO as far as new acoustic guitars are concerned the best made today are Santa Cruz, Collings, and Goodall guitars. There are significant differences between these builders, but all make very consistaant high end guitars. The real difference between these builders and Martin is with Martin you have to play a few of them until you find a real good one. Every Santa Cruz I have played was a killer guitar. Amazing build quality and fabulous tone. Some of the new Martins I have played left a lot to be desired.

I agree. Although I'd include some of the Martin vintage reissues (like my OM-28HD) too. And of the four, I think Goodall and Collings are the nicest. But we're talking the nicest of the nicest, which means they're all four really, really good! Lew