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So glad I switched back to a Les Paul


357mag
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Been playing Strats for most of my life. Been using PODs for probably about 8 years now exclusively. When I was using Strats there were some things that I never could use in the POD because they always sounded horrible with my guitar. The Rat pedal sounded really nasty and raspy, the JCM-800 which many have complained about including me sounded bad, and I also could never use the Plexi cuz I simply could not get enough gain out of it.

 

All three of the above mentioned items I can now use. All of them sound really good with my Les Paul. I get a lot more drive now with the Plexi. The Rat pedal sounds a lot less nasty and bitter, and the JCM-800 is no longer unusable.

 

All this simply because I changed my guitar.

 

I'm quite thrilled!

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Been playing Strats for most of my life. Been using PODs for probably about 8 years now exclusively. When I was using Strats there were some things that I never could use in the POD because they always sounded horrible with my guitar. The Rat pedal sounded really nasty and raspy, the JCM-800 which many have complained about including me sounded bad, and I also could never use the Plexi cuz I simply could not get enough gain out of it.

 

All three of the above mentioned items I can now use. All of them sound really good with my Les Paul. I get a lot more drive now with the Plexi. The Rat pedal sounds a lot less nasty and bitter, and the JCM-800 is no longer unusable.

 

All this simply because I changed my guitar.

 

I'm quite thrilled!

Put a humbucker in the Strat, and the gain issue with the Plexi would be solved.

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Put a humbucker in the Strat, and the gain issue with the Plexi would be solved.

Not quite. I was using humbuckers in the bridge of my Strat. Even if a guy does that, it's still not gonna have the power and solidity of a guitar that is made simply more solid...like the Les Paul.

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 of a guitar that is made simply more solid...like the Les Paul.

except, GLP is no longer solid. The young sissies that need their "safe place" can't hold a solid GLP on their backs without crying. Gibson has been taking half of the wood out. The damn things are one hole short of being an acoustic guitar. 

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except, GLP is no longer solid. The young sissies that need their "safe place" can't hold a solid GLP on their backs without crying. Gibson has been taking half of the wood out. The damn things are one hole short of being an acoustic guitar. 

 

What The?!?!?!?!? :o  That's a shame. That must change something in the tone then. Too bad.

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What The?!?!?!?!? :o That's a shame. That must change something in the tone then. Too bad.

They've been using chambered bodies for some time now. When it's done properly, you still end up with a nice resonant instrument with plenty of sustain. I don't want a 13lb guitar anyway...I wanna make music, not moor an aircraft carrier. ;)

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They've been using chambered bodies for some time now. When it's done properly, you still end up with a nice resonant instrument with plenty of sustain. I don't want a 13lb guitar anyway...I wanna make music, not moor an aircraft carrier. ;)

 

That's good to hear but what about me. How am I now going to moor my aircraft carrier? ;)

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except, GLP is no longer solid. The young sissies that need their "safe place" can't hold a solid GLP on their backs without crying. Gibson has been taking half of the wood out. The damn things are one hole short of being an acoustic guitar. 

 

No weight relief on my R9 which tips the scales at a respectable old skool 9.2lb ;)

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The old Jackson Soloist (I can't speak for the modern ones or the imports) were 9-10lbs. And that was light next to a Les Paul. 

 

The Custom Shop R9s don't have any weight relief. No holes, nothing. They are exactly the same as an actual 1959LP - solid throughout (bar the routs for the control cavity, pickups etc). The weight is kept below 9.5lb by careful selection of the timber used for the body. This was true of the originals, most of which weighed between 8.5 - 9.5lb.

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The Custom Shop R9s don't have any weight relief. No holes, nothing. They are exactly the same as an actual 1959LP - solid throughout (bar the routs for the control cavity, pickups etc). The weight is kept below 9.5lb by careful selection of the timber used for the body. This was true of the originals, most of which weighed between 8.5 - 9.5lb.

Oh, who knows what they're actually doing? They could be stuffing them with gerbil carcasses...nobody's peeling them open to check. ;)

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Oh, who knows what they're actually doing? They could be stuffing them with gerbil carcasses...nobody's peeling them open to check. ;)

 

You can get sued big time for lying about product specifications. Gibson knows this.

 

Yes, modern stock LPs (including the so-called Traditionals) have weight relief. No, the Custom Shop stuff doesn't because it's accurate to the reissue year spec ('57, '58, '59, '60).

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Mi chibson also has no holes. Sounds awesome with a pair of dimarzio anniversary. I don't believe that wood matters anyway.

 

From Guitar Player: The Nine Things That Guitarists Get Wrong About Guitars:

 

 

4. The wood has nothing to do with the sound of an electric guitar. It’s just a place to put pickups.

If that was true you could take the pickups out of your best sounding guitar and put them in anything and your sound would follow. We have tried. It does not work

 

 

Rob Chapman video demo: Proof Wood Affects Electric Guitar Tone:

 

 

 

As far as the Gibson CS R9s go, I'd say it was the *combination* of Alnico III Custombuckers with carefully selected body timber, the long neck tenon and the absence of a resonance-damping truss rod sleeve that produces a tone like no other I have heard from a LP / dual humbucker guitar. Of course this is just IMO, not presented as a matter of fact.

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From Guitar Player: The Nine Things That Guitarists Get Wrong About Guitars:

 

 

Rob Chapman video demo: Proof Wood Affects Electric Guitar Tone:

 

 

 

As far as the Gibson CS R9s go, I'd say it was the *combination* of Alnico III Custombuckers with carefully selected body timber, the long neck tenon and the absence of a resonance-damping truss rod sleeve that produces a tone like no other I have heard from a LP / dual humbucker guitar. Of course this is just IMO, not presented as a matter of fact.

http://www.guitarsite.com/news/music_news_from_around_the_world/electric-guitar-wood-myth-busted/

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@ Arislaf

 

So, how do we account for the clearly audible difference between the swamp ash and mahogany bodies on the Chapman demo?

 

And in which journal did Angove publish his research results? I cannot find the study. He is quoted as saying that the research would be complete by end 2012. As it is now end 2016 I would guess that his paper did not pass peer review and therefore cannot be cited as evidence in a discussion such as this.

 

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@ Arislaf

 

To avoid any unnecessary disagreement :), I'd like to re-state what I originally wrote for clarity:

 

As far as the Gibson CS R9s go, I'd say it was the *combination* of Alnico III Custombuckers with carefully selected body timber, the long neck tenon and the absence of a resonance-damping truss rod sleeve that produces a tone like no other I have heard from a LP / dual humbucker guitar. Of course this is just IMO, not presented as a matter of fact.

 

The key factors are, I suspect, the pickup, the fat '59 neck profile, the long neck tenon and the absence of a truss rod sleeve. Resonance from the strings can only pass into the body via the nut and the bridge, so I speculate that the *neck* is more important to final tone / sustain than often supposed. Hence the importance of the neck-to-body juncture (the long tenon) and the absence of the truss rod sleeve.

 

This may be why bodiless instruments like the 3DP guitar and Steinbergers don't sound radically different to conventional designs.

 

However, it *does* leave space for the choice of body wood ('tone wood') to affect the character of the instrument (see eg. the Chapman demo above). The truth may be that the choice of tone wood has less impact on the final tone than is commonly supposed, but not that it has none.

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@ Arislaf

 

To avoid any unnecessary disagreement :), I'd like to re-state what I originally wrote for clarity:

 

As far as the Gibson CS R9s go, I'd say it was the *combination* of Alnico III Custombuckers with carefully selected body timber, the long neck tenon and the absence of a resonance-damping truss rod sleeve that produces a tone like no other I have heard from a LP / dual humbucker guitar. Of course this is just IMO, not presented as a matter of fact.

 

The key factors are, I suspect, the pickup, the fat '59 neck profile, the long neck tenon and the absence of a truss rod sleeve. Resonance from the strings can only pass into the body via the nut and the bridge, so I speculate that the *neck* is more important to final tone / sustain than often supposed. Hence the importance of the neck-to-body juncture (the long tenon) and the absence of the truss rod sleeve.

 

This may be why bodiless instruments like the 3DP guitar and Steinbergers don't sound radically different to conventional designs.

 

However, it *does* leave space for the choice of body wood ('tone wood') to affect the character of the instrument (see eg. the Chapman demo above). The truth may be that the choice of tone wood has less impact on the final tone than is commonly supposed, but not that it has none.

I believe in the sustain that brings a body or / and the neck, nothing more or less. That is also IMO, until i see and hear in front of me the swap of the same electronics from a mahogany to an alder, that makes a tonal difference. Chapman is a salesman after all, he would say what the company wants him to say. 

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I believe in the sustain that brings a body or / and the neck, nothing more or less. That is also IMO, until i see and hear in front of me the swap of the same electronics from a mahogany to an alder, that makes a tonal difference. Chapman is a salesman after all, he would say what the company wants him to say.

 

You are entitled to your beliefs, but you are not entitled to impose them on others, especially as the only means available for you to do so is to deny the evidence and accuse Chapman of being a liar. At most, all you can say is "I believe X but I have no evidence to support that belief".

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The problem with using wood as a tone comparison is the fact that wood comes from trees - which are living creatures.

 

You can get two guitars of the same wood that do not sound the same. You can get two guitars made from the same TREE that don't sound the same. The guitar I have is made of wood. But it is a specific part of the tree. No one can ever have this same exact guitar because there is no way to make this guitar from the same part of the same tree. Wood is "once and done".

 

Think of it like us. Humans. Vitruvian Man. We all have the same basic - two legs, two arms, two eyes. Our arm width is the same as our height. We don't have an eye on the top of our head and one on our knee. We are all generally the same. But it is the specifics that make us different. 

After an accident, I can't take a slice of your arm and put it on your head to fill in where your skull got crushed. Why would wood be any different. The 3 year old growth will sound different than the 10 year old growth. Center wood is different than outer wood. The way the wood grains run and where they are hit by the strings make a difference. 

Even twins/clones. They may start out the same. But every day they grow to be different. 

 

 

So, while I believe that wood has less of an affect in electric guitars that are being run through processors than it does acoustic guitars, I also believe that it is not just "the wood", but the combination of specifics. 

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You are entitled to your beliefs, but you are not entitled to impose them on others, especially as the only means available for you to do so is to deny the evidence and accuse Chapman of being a liar. At most, all you can say is "I believe X but I have no evidence to support that belief".

I started my main line  with an I BELIEVE. in case you didn't see that. But you are trying to push me to your believes after all and now lecturing me on how to speak. you can find many videos that oppose your believes as well as many articles and even this

 

But i don't care for this discussion anymore. I have my believes, sorry if my beliefs insulted the holly wood myth, or that the FACT (and yes I say FACT in case that you will not see it again) that chapman is a salesman, and that 2 different guitarists, with another touch and angle can produce the same sound on the exactly same guitar...

 

Edit: Started actually with i don't believe

Edited by arislaf
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"I started my main line  with an I BELIEVE. in case you didn't see that."

 

Actually, Arislaf, you started with a blank link claiming (but failing) to show that the tonewood *myth* is 'busted' (10:43am today 08/12). I can't work out how to link to previous comments using this software.

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Hey fellas, its all good because in the end we try the guitar out for feel and sound which goes to personal preference regardless of the materials.

 

If you could put a Floyd on a turd and it sounded good we would find someone playing it saying it is #1. :)

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I used to always take my guitars and talk in to the pickups and make it come out of the amps after being changed by the effects. 

 

Of course, that was also back in the days when a truck driver's CB communications would be over heard through the amps as they drove by. 

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"I started my main line  with an I BELIEVE. in case you didn't see that."

 

Actually, Arislaf, you started with a blank link claiming (but failing) to show that the tonewood *myth* is 'busted' (10:43am today 08/12). I can't work out how to link to previous comments using this software.

work out by checking the first comment I did on topic. The one exactly before YOUR video? The one you quote me? Remember? 

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It's *clever* but ugly. I do not refer to the Old Glory paint job or the US-centric design concept but to the riddled, model aeroplane aesthetic of the body. Just not for me. Again, personal opinion.

 

I'm sorry, I wasn't referring to the specific guitar but to the possibilities.

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