Tag: Gibson

Les Paul Lessons

This week’s That Pedal Show is all about Fender Strats. I tried to love my Strat but I just couldn’t connect with it. It’s a killer guitar and I got some great sounds out of it. It just doesn’t feel like home though. I watched the episode but it took a few sittings to get through it. As soon as it was done I went back to the Les Paul vs ES-335 episode from last December because I needed to feel at home again.

I took out my new Les Paul and noodled along. I am pretty sure I am going to have to start talking to a therapist soon. Until then, playing guitar will have to do.

Les Paul Standard 50’s into a Ryra The Klone into a Vox AC15. In case you were curious. Recorded with the iPhone mic, which means you likely won’t be curious.

My New Best Friend

I just sat in front of the TV, noodling without an amp. Just connecting with the new kid in town.

I love the nickel hardware and I love the trapezoid inlays.

I love the grain on the maple cap. It’s not really enough to call it a flame, I don’t think, but it is freakin’ groovy.

None of my other Gibsons have the little knob position pointer thingies. I can’t remember if my poor, stolen Les Paul Deluxe had them or not.

The back is a different color than my ‘78 Custom. I like the lighter shade this has.

I adore the 50’s style tuning pegs. I think my much missed Deluxe had those. My Custom didn’t (I changed the tuners on the Custom in 2006, I think, and I have no clue if the ones we took off were original or not.

I’m happy to see the poker chip. My SG came with one but it wasn’t installed. I haven’t put it on because it’s a royal pain in the ass to do.

You can’t see it in the picture (I tried and failed) but it’s definitely a two piece cap. My eyes could clearly see where they join.

Like I said, I have a new best friend. What a killer birthday present, right?

Guitar Specs

This is going to be a guitar nerd post. You’ve been warned.

Here are the specs for my new guitar. Most of this is obvious just by looking at it. I’m mostly concerned with saving the pick ups, the frets, the nut, the wood in the body and the fretboard, and the tuners.

Gibson Les Paul Standard 50s

Body
Body Shape – Les Paul
Body Material – Mahogany
Top – Maple
Weight Relief – None
Finish – Gloss Nitrocellulose Lacquer

Neck
Material – Mahogany
Profile – Vintage 50s
Scale Length – 24.75″ / 628.65mm
Fingerboard Material – Rosewood
Fingerboard Radius – 12″
Number Of Frets – 22
Frets – Medium Jumbo
Nut Material – Graph Tech
Nut Width – 1.69″ / 43.05mm
End of Board Width – 2.26″ / 57.4mm
Inlays – Acrylic Trapezoids

Hardware
Finish – Nickel
Bridge – ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic
Tailpiece – Aluminum Stop Bar
Tuning Machines – Vintage Deluxe w/ Keystone Buttons
Pickguard – Cream
Control Knobs – Gold Top Hats w/ Pointers
Switch Tip – Amber
Switchwasher – Cream
Jack Plate Cover – Cream

Electronics
Neck Pickup – Burstbucker 1
Bridge Pickup – Burstbucker 2
Controls – 2 Volumes, 2 Tones & Toggle Switch (Hand-wired with Orange Drop Capacitors)

While I’m at it, let’s save off the specs from my SG too. They are still available on the Gibson website under legacy models.

2018 Gibson SG Standard

Body
Wood Species – Mahogany
Finish – Gloss Nitrocellulose Lacquer

Neck
Material – Mahogany
Neck Profile – Slim Taper
Scale Length – 24.75″
Fingerboard Material – Rosewood
Fingerboard Radius – 12″
Number of Frets – 22

Hardware
Finish – Chrome
Bridge – Aluminum Tune-O-Matic
Tailpiece – Aluminum Stop Bar
Tuning Machines – Locking Kidneys
Pick Guard – Black 4-ply
Control Knobs – Black Top Hats
Switch Tip – Black
Switch Washer – Black (not mounted)

Electronics
Neck Pickup – 61R
Bridge Pickup – 61T
Controls – 2 volumes, 2 tones, 1 toggle switch

No Top Wrap

I put strings on the SG today. As part of my jonzing for a Les Paul Junior I was thinking about top wrapping. That’s where you put the string through the tail piece backward and then wrap the string over the top of it. For Les Paul Juniors (and standards from 1953-1955, I think) the tail piece is also the bridge so top wrapping is required.

For guitars that have a separate bridge, like all three of my Gibsons, it’s not necessary but I thought what the hell. I did it for one string and then stopped. I would have needed to lower the tail piece for it to work and I didn’t want to do that today. I keep the tail low on the other two Gibsons. Maybe I’ll try it on one of those.

Also, is there anything more useless than these locking tuners? They really don’t do anything at all.

Eric’s Birthday

Eric Clapton celebrated his 76th birthday today and I’m guessing he didn’t wear a mask.

I can overlook a lot of shit from my musical heroes, I’m looking at you drunken racist immigration rants back in the… whenever that was, but the anti mask shit you pulled recently… just fuck you, bro.

I still want to hear him play live again. Just one more time. That’s despite the anti mask shit. I mean really… fuck you, bro.

So instead of birthday wishes here’s a pic from 1966 with the legendary Marshall combo amp behind him, and the even more legendary, dare I say almost mythical, 1960 Les Paul Standard in front of him.

Assuming the Instagram link works, of course…

(The guy next to him is John McVie who about two years later became the Mac in Fleetwood Mac)

Les Paul Mods: A Fantasy

If I were to mod my 1978 Les Paul Custom to make it act more like a late ’50’s Les Paul Standard, this is probably what I would do.

Brandonwould 1959 clones. The question would be do I get nickel pickup covers, which would be correct for a Les Paul Standard, or gold pickup covers, which would be correct for a Les Paul Custom. Gold is more appropriate for my guitar, but they are also super expensive.

For changing out the pots and the switches and the wiring (my ES-335 needs this more than my Les Paul does, but I’m fantasizing here so leave me alone) I would get a wiring harness. The question then becomes, do I get a 50’s wiring harness or do I get a 50’s wiring harness that includes the Peter Green out-of-phase mod? I think I’d do the Peter Green thing. If so, I’d probably go with Gunstreet Wiring Shop- Les Paul Standard – 50S Out Of Phase – Wiring Harness.

Obviously I am way too much of a wuss to even daydream about installing any of this stuff myself. If I do it, I’m getting an experienced tech to do it. That goes without saying.

On a similar topic, when I bought my Les Paul in 1990 it was 12 years old and it was seriously modded already. Both of the original pickups were gone, and it had a Bigsby vibrato. The pickups bothered me. The neck was a DiMarzio which sounded nice. The bridge was a Jackson that was crap, although it had a seriously high output that I liked. I removed the Bigsby within about 10 minutes of bringing the guitar home, but it was years before I did anything about the pickups. I had always thought about trying to bring the guitar back to stock, or at least as close as I could get them. In 2006 (I think) I had Larry replace both pickups with Gibson Classic ’57s. Again, the Neck was nice but the bridge wasn’t. A few years ago I had Guitar Center swap the bridge for a Gibson Dirty Fingers reissue. Again, a really high output.

Now, after doing some research I know that the correct pickups I would need to get back to 1978 stock would be TTops. I can get clones of those too, even with the gold covers. I think I might have a good chance of getting actual 70’s TTops on ebay rather than clones, but if I am going to do this I am going for some really sweet PAF clones. Screw period correct, I want 50’s everything. I wonder how much it would cost to get the body refinished and painted gold like a 1957 Goldtop Standard. I bet that would cost a small fortune. Then again, if I wanted to be Les Paul Custom accurate I would have to paint it black, not gold. Prior to 1958 standards were gold and customs were black. Black Les Pauls look awesome, but nothing beats the old Goldtops.

Suffice to say, if I ever hit the lottery for hundreds of millions of dollars, the first thing I’m buying is a 1957 Les Paul standard. The second thing I’m buying is a 1959 sunburst Les Paul Standard. A ’57 would be insanely expensive. A ’59 would cost me pretty much all of my lottery winnings. Totally worth it though.

ADDENDUM: I tried to write about the Peter Green “out of phase mod” and typo’d it to “out of phrase mod”. I am clearly mentally defective. I fixed it though.

Guitar Maintenance Day

My Les Paul had a maintenance day. I cleaned it up a smidge and put on new strings. I also plugged in the headphone amp I got for Christmas. It really does sound like a Vox AC30. It’s such a groovy little gadget.

Every time I look at either of my 40+ year old guitars I start to think of the work they need to do and I get scared. This guitar needs fret work, and I think one of the inlays might be coming out. Yikes!

I’m also thinking of maybe changing the pick ups again. Maybe get a couple of boutique PAF clones and a 50’s style wiring harness and try to make my 70’s Les Paul feel a little more like a 50’s Les Paul. Maybe that could be my 50th birthday present to myself? Assuming we are post-Covid, of course.

Just a little fantasy.

What did This Teach Me

Now that I have done a little experimenting with using an extension speaker cabinet in place of the built in speakers on my Bassbreaker 18/30, what did I learn?

I don’t know.

First, as expected there wasn’t a ton of difference in volume. The 18 watt channel, with the volume as low as it could go and actually produce sound, through the two built in speakers was peaking at around 103 decibels. Surprisingly, the 30 watt channel, under the same circumstances, was peaking at about 101 decibels. Through the 1×12 extension cab the 18 watt channel was peaking at about 98 decibels and the 30 watt channel at about 97. So quieter, but not enough to make a difference.

Both channels sounded really nice while plugging in direct and going through the extension speaker. Maybe not quite as nice as through the two 12 inch speakers, but it was good.

When I started pushing with pedals everything changed. The Ryra Klon clone into both channels sounded pretty good, though super trebly through the 30 watt side. I have made that complaint about this amp before. The 30 watt channel is SUPER toppy. With the Ryra it was noteworthy but I tend to keep the treble high on that pedal anyway. I turned it down some and it was a smidge better.

The Ryra was set with the overdrive very low so it was mostly a clean signal. When I kicked on the Malaise Forever Black Lives Matter on the 18 watt I had a pretty rockin’ distortion level but it wasn’t all that great. When I switched back to the 30 watt channel it sounded like garbage. It was fizzy and thin and it sounded like I had all of the bass and mids off and the treble cranked. I didn’t. I had the treble set to about 1, the mids set to about 7, and the bass at about 9. I turned the Ryra off so it was just the Malaise Forever and it was a little better, but not much. I ended up turning the treble on the amp to 0 and diming the bass and mid, and then turning the tone on both overdrive pedals to about 9:00. I switched back to the 18 watt channel and fudged with the tone pots on the pedals and found something decent, but the whole idea of using this amp was to have the 30 watts worth of headroom.

I then switched out the Malaise Forever for the Wampler Plexi Drive Mini and it still made the high pitched hum that it had when it was going through the two 15 watt amps, but that is due to the shitty power supply I’m using. Playing it with the Ryra and through the 18 watt channel was much better than it had been through the 15 watt amps. That little increase in headroom helped a lot. If I played power chords down low on the neck I still had some of that over compressed mushiness I was bitching about during RPM, but for the most part it was better. I switched to the 30 watt channel and all of that compression was gone. Granted, it still sounded like toppy dog shit. Ugh.

So what did I learn. I learned that if I want to record with the 1×12 extension cab bypassing the built in 2×12 then I will probably have to rely on the 18 watt channel. Once the little speaker soak attenuator arrives I will hopefully be able to crank up the 30 watt channel a ton and maybe get a less shitty tone without blowing the roof off of the house. I know I sounded very trebly when I was using this amp with Lizardfish, but it wasn’t this bad, was it?

I think the final lesson may be that I just miss my Deluxe Reverb even more than I already knew. Oh for the end of the ‘rona.