Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

[Red_Label]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

I was a Strat guy for many years (and still am somewhat). But I've been playing LPs and LP-style guitars for about the past 15 years and when I want to rock, NO OTHER guitar will do for me. Superstrats can rock. But they don't have that big, fat, chunky, crunchy tone like an LP does. I just gotta have a big, fat slap of mahogany when I want to rock!

 

[garryspicer]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

I just wonder if it makes more of a difference if you play up on the neck, like Les did... it's a much more resonant sound on any guitar if you strum up there, and maybe the wood contact matters more?

I am talking more feel than actual amplified sound here...

The design goes to some trouble to top-mount the pickup switch. But how convenient that would be if you strum up there, vs. down on the bridge like most players. No wonder Les didn't like the SG style...

Funny to think that the idiosyncrasies of one player's style affected generations of players in the form of a guitar design; but ironically, most of those players didn't play the instrument the way he did. I wonder if he always picked up on the neck like that, and if other players of that era did the same?

This is quite interesting - he was a man of many talents.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/les-paul/chasing-sound/100/

 

[Robbiedbee]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

Frank Falbo was saying that single pickup guitars (subjectively) sound better because there isn't as much wood removed in the area where the neck meets the body. I wonder if a Les Pauls (and even Teles, to a lesser extent) share tonal qualities with single pickup guitars by having more contact between the neck and body, compensating for decreased mass due to the neck pickup cavity.

I read also that it's because there's one (or two) less magnets pulling on the strings, which allows them to ring out louder and longer.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

I read also that it's because there's one (or two) less magnets pulling on the strings, which allows them to ring out louder and longer.

That would be easy enough to test for the supporters of this theory.

 

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

Short scales are horrible up the neck, IMO.

Not for every one . . . i love the el'cheapo Jagmaster with a 24'' scale.

Also, BLOODY GREAT for tuning down to C-Std.

 

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

I love my LPs both for the rich tone and the heft. I do admit the upper fret access bothers me because I have hands on the smaller side. This is why I'm building this:

Words are cheap, let your fingers do the talking

. . . ^ ^ ^ looks like a beautiful creation - can not wait to see the final product !



Upper fret access does not get much better than these

 

[Oinkus]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

Those Washburns are neat , there's a site about them here http://www.vintagewashburn.com/Electrics/ECelectric.html found that after I watched a video somewhere guy played one.

 

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

I swore by LP's for a loooong time, but over the years just got fed up with a few things
1. The headstock angle from the neck
2. the angle the strings leave the nut to go to the tuning posts
3. The current lack of quality control @ gibson

......1 and 2 are recipes for tuning problems. But other than that they are still one of my all time favorite electric guitar (to look at and play)

 

[garryspicer]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

Not for every one . . . i love the el'cheapo Jagmaster with a 24'' scale.

Also, BLOODY GREAT for tuning down to C-Std.

+1 Nice.

My first Gibson was the SG200 with P90 pickups. Great little guitar.

As a leftie it was perfect for me (in those days you could not get left handed guitars easily) as I just flipped it.
Wish I would have kept it.

 

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

My first Gibson was the SG200 with P90 pickups. Great little guitar.View attachment 55663

As a leftie it was perfect for me (in those days you could not get left handed guitars easily) as I just flipped it.
Wish I would have kept it.

I nearly bought one very similar to this at a guitar store in Ft. Lauderdale a few years ago.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

I swore by LP's for a loooong time, but over the years just got fed up with a few things
1. The headstock angle from the neck
2. the angle the strings leave the nut to go to the tuning posts

The angled headstock and neck are necessary for string tension because of the short scale. I much prefer that, than everything being in a flat plane and and having to use string trees. As a guy with big hands, I think six-in-a-row tuners are too congested.

 

[9unslin9er]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

Upper fret access does not get much better than these

Pfft

I beg to differ sir

 

[9unslin9er]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

The angled headstock and neck are necessary for string tension because of the short scale.

Convenient, yes. Necessary, no.




My 24.75" superstrat and the 24" Fender Mustang both have straight headstocks. The string tree issue really only applies to 6-inline tuner format. You could easily do a 3 to a side or 4+2 and eliminate the need for trees.

Ibanez was using a tension bar on their 25.5" scale RG550 head stocks despite being pitched due to the Floyd locking nut set straight instead of an angle.

All-in-all, The straight neck/headstock is a far SUPERIOR design to the angled headstock.

One may have a preference for one or the other, but from a pure physics standpoint, an angled design is just dumb. It's bottle-necking traffic.

The guitar has 2 main anchor points for string tension. The nut and the bridge, and you choose to put half that load on an already weakened area. How many horror stories have we heard about Les Pauls falling off their stands and breaking their necks? How many Telecasters have this same issue?

Not to mention the string binding and tuning issues...

Eddie Van Halen used wind his strings up to do his divebomb tricks, to minimize string binding. And he had a straight headstock! You could probably get away with not having a locking nut with a Floyd Rose bridge on a Fender neck. Keeping your guitar in tune on a angled headstock is IMPOSSIBLE without a locking nut.


#The dumbest idea ever

 

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

The angled headstock and neck are necessary for string tension because of the short scale. I much prefer that, than everything being in a flat plane and and having to use string trees. As a guy with big hands, I think six-in-a-row tuners are too congested.

I mean, if they reduced the angle by a hair and redesigned the headstock so there was still 3/side, but with a straight string pull, it would make a world of difference.

 

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

Gibson doesn't change because all the cork sniffer traditionalists would throw a fit. Even though their history is plagued with broken headstocks and tuning issues galore

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

I mean, if they reduced the angle by a hair and redesigned the headstock so there was still 3/side, but with a straight string pull, it would make a world of difference.

So you mean a PRS?

 

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

So you mean a PRS?

yes, them and heritage =)

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

And give them the fines they are due.

Outside of gibson who has ever been fined? Never mind that the govt gave the wood back to gibson too...

 

[uOpt]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

I mean, if they reduced the angle by a hair and redesigned the headstock so there was still 3/side, but with a straight string pull, it would make a world of difference.

Some models have less headstock angle, very early 1970s.

Doesn't do anything to the sound or to the fact that you need a properly maintained nut, but it is very annoying that I can't put my 1970 LP into a modern LP case.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Why can't I dig on Les Pauls?

Gibson is specifically who I am talking about.

I'm sure quite a bit of timber was destroyed or confiscated. There is no way they got back everything even after paying the $300k fine. And no amount of "Government series" Explorers are going to hide the fact they got greedy.

Point is they were punished for reckless trafficking. Had Taylor guitars not campaigned for environmental "sensibility" they probably would have been fined too. Careful cover I say.

These forests are gone for good. Bring on the next to be extinct "tonewood."

Riddle me this batman... If Gibson was so guilty why would the govt give ANY of the wood back at all?

What evidence do you have that ANY timber was destroyed? ALL confiscated wood was claimed to be returned, Gibson never complained that the Govt kept any of it. So where do you get so sure that Gibson lost a large portion of the lumber?

Either way your pointing your finger in the wrong direction for failure to explore sustainable wood species and never mind that many tonewoods (Like Alder and Maple are very sustainable) You need to be blaming guitar players for being skeptical of any guitar that isnt made of the traditional woods as the source of the problem. If players called out for guitars made of fiberglass the mfg's would jump on it.

Further thoughts on this... Gibson tried in the 70's to move away from the traditional LP by reducing the angle of the headstock and making the volute and using a Maple neck... Consumers demanded the return of the original specs... Its the players keeping guitar companies stuck in a rut not the companies themselves.

Oh and the guitar industry is just a small piece of the demand for wood. Only a small percentage of people play guitar... how many do you think buy furniture? Far more rosewood is used for chairs and bedroom furnishings than for guitars.