This worked. Contact cleaner in the jacks and volume fader.

Fantastiswell.

My friend I metalbass for brought some over before rehearsal and we took care of it. This was useful as we needed to take contact cleaner to a few things at our space, including his AxeFX .

Speaking of which, the guy we share that space with has even more insane gear. He has a '63 tweed Bandmaster there now, among other things.

Went snowmobiling for the first time today. Before we started I had about 3 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours or so, so I was real out of it. About 2 minutes after getting on and driving I crash into a parked car and fucked up the bumper. Hopefully the insurance I bought for the day will cover it, if not I gotta pay that shit out of pocket.

Also managed to flip the fucking thing over going about 30mph. I was able to jump off and tuck and roll away from it landing on me. Lost about half the security deposit doing that. Hopefully got some sweet moves recorded on my buddies Go Pro though.

^^^ sounds like a productive (or destructive) day AND you managed not to kill yourself. *claps*

It was a hell of a lot of fun. Learned a few expensive lessons but I'd go again for sure.

Zoinks.




Okay, beater with 'buckers question: Epi Les Paul Standard Plus, trans amber. Two hundred. I figure even if it sucks, I can flip it and make a couple bucks. I have a humbucker jones, this is cheaper than the going rate on the 'bay and hell, it's cheaper than a new Agile. To the point I'd be a dick trying to haggle over it unless it's broken. What say ye?

I'd love a Paul (along with a zilion other guits ), I say go for it.

Kinda what I was thinking. I've always loved LPs and miss having something in that style for Big Dumb Riffs, and to have something with 'buckers generally, which I don't at the moment- I'm all Fenders save for my acoustic. The price is stupid cheap. And as I said, if there isn't anything wrong with it and I don't like it for whatever reason, I can sell it for a profit. Two bills for an Epi LP Standard Plus is not a bad price- really, I can't find a not-broken one for that- and I might wind up with a pretty damn decent guitar. It's not one of the cheapie ones. If it's the current iteration, it would have coil taps. (Not that I care, having at least one awesome Strat and one awesome Tele that get used for basically 100% of my electric work these days.)

Having a good 'bucker guitar for stupid riffs is indeed ideal. I don't really have one, the only other guitar I really like is that Frankenstang and it is a little bit ghetto. Plays nice-ish, sound really cool and big (though noisy) but has intonation problems. It will work for power chording and stuff for certain parts of the neck but it can get a little too out. The short scale seems way less familiar now that I have spent so much time with the tele now, as well.

I should probably get rid of a couple of the ones I have around here that I don't use. I would really like something with a trem and buckers, that leaves a lot of options. I dunno what I want though, man. The combination of features and aesthetics are unlikely to sync up for what I am looking for though, I am sure. I am looking for something weird/vintage/possiblyoffset.

Also: IIRC, I have played a Standard Plus before. Nice neck profiles if they make them like they used to a few years ago. Real typical bur maybe more thinish 60's style.

That reminds me I really need to fix the trem on my belovéd black Strat- I never did.

Oddly, my silverburst Tele is pretty close in the bridge position to a 'bucker-loaded piece- the output is fairly hot and it's damn thick for a single; I usually use the aforementioned Strat for twangy (surf, country, blues) sorta licks when I want those kind of sounds. That particular Tele is really its own thing and a riff machine, and my main live guitar. But, it's not a Les Paul. (I've considered a Gretsch or a hollowbody of some sort to fill that role, but seeing a potentially decent Lester on CL for cheap...)

I figure anything else I could find for peanuts would be of the superstrat sort, and that's not my thing at all. Don't like the necks or Floyds. And probably of far inferior build quality.

Re: the Frankenstang, who did the setup/intonation on it? Is it just out a bit by the nature of the thing, or is it fixable? I do my own setup work unless something beyond my skill level needs to be done (fretwork, etc.) and IMO it's pretty damn simple to learn if you don't. I am not mechanically inclined at all but I can take care of my stuff and can solder. I would assume given your work you're better with tools than I am, so...

The frets are pretty toast-y..Also the non-original bridge setup might be a bit off. Looks sketch but sounds pretty accurate, man. It plays and sounds, it's just as Chris would say, a bit ghet. I took it into the shop along with Tele to get it intonated and the guy said he wouldn't even mess with it. Some spots on the neck are pretty bad, some aren't. It is from 1974 and clearly has got some serious love/hate so it's not surprising. It will probably always be what it is, a punk guitar. I will use it when it will work for a real gross noisy vibe for loud rock songs.

An LP is def its own sort of beast. Special combo of scale length, bridge type, body mass, and pickup location, not like other guitars.

I personally don't think that superstrats or teles with fullbuckers sound or feel the same at all, they lack the scale length and the particular mass distribution. Some SGs(the good ones) can pretend, but if you A/B them back to back with the LP, the SG comes out sharper and less balls out rock girth style. An LP just sounds wide.

Interestingly, i feel like the maple necked imitations like the Agiles still work for the sound/feel. I use my Agile for exactly that porpoise, rawk riffs just emerge from it any time i plug it in.

I don't know really anything about the Epis though, other than they have the same EZ Break headstocks as the real Gibsons. With so many of those guitars coming out of the same asian factories, it seems likely that it is as least a solid guitar as the Agile, and conceivably could be expected to be a little better. Will certainly hold a better resale.

I personally feel like anyone who can afford to carry more than one guitar, should have something to do the LP thing.

Agreed with Chris on Nothing Else Sounding Like That. My old Eclipse was sorta split-the-difference between a Les Paul and an SG, tone and feel-wise. Closer to a Les Paul, but Not Quite. Loved the neck, though. I have never heard that sort of low end come out of anything else guitar-wise, re: LPs. Hollowbodies are their own thing, and even big fixed-bridge slabs don't quite get there. My friend I bass for has a couple Gibby Explorers, including a custom shop one, and those... Aren't the same, despite being large mahogany things with the same scale length and plenty of mass. There are SGs and LPs in that room to A/B them against, too, that belong to the d00d we share the space with. He's totally cool (and our old bassist from years ago) and we've jammed on everything there together to compare just 'cause we can. I think the Explorers are probably the closest thing, more so than the SGs, which are brighter. I never really get to compare them in standard E though, and I'm in standard most of the time.

Go figure, I play in drop D more in Garda than I ever did in any metal band. (There, I'd just tune down to standard whatever, usually C# or B. C# is where my occasional metal thing rolls.) My solo stuff, the guitars are all in standard but the bass is likely as not to be in D or B, mostly 'cause I only have the one 4-string bass at the moment.

I figger fer the price, I'm not losing out, because as mentioned before I could flip it for profit if it sucked. I assume the Standard Plus to be nicer than the super-cheap ones (Epi LP Junior/Special/LP100) and having played a number of the Standards/Classics/Customs in the past, they're at least decent.

If I was in the market for an LP I'd build one a precisionguitarkits.com kit. They look stunning. Fretless on GAB made a real nice stripped back LP that would be great for just getting your mosh on.



If the shipping to the UK wasn't ridiculous (it might not be, I haven't asked) and they offered 25.5" scale I'd totally build a wrap around bridge LP with P90s in.

Your idea: I like it.

Unfortunately, their cheapest unfinished body is still twice the price of the Epi LP Standard Plus I found on CL. Those look like they could be badass guitars though, at least if you have any sort of woodworking/luthier skills at all. (Which I do not.) I the no-inlay necks; I find the visual very elegant. And your idea for a 25.5 scale wraparound bridge LP... P90s or not, the longer scale length for teh downtunings would be intriguing. I've gone as far as A standard on 24.75, and the longer scale piques my curiosity. I know 27" baritone scale LPs exist and if I played guitar vs. bass in that flavour of band that would be up on my list of things to acquire. As it is I'd still love a baritone Gretsch or 7-string Tele for the noises I make as a guitarist.

Seeing the above picture, it makes me think a Les Paul with no inlays and only a single bridge pickup- strip it down to only a volume knob, no tone- that is as close to a weapon in guitar form as one can get. It's nearly threatening. That is a riff machine, through and through. It does one thing, and with that sort of body and wood is as fat and thick sounding as can be. It is a thing that cannot be defeated. I like it, just as a concept.

That Les Paul is sechs Needs to be stained darker though but I would love one like that.

Well I will weigh in on such a topic since I am the resident LPer with 5 of them. (Deluxe, Standard, Axcess, Jr, Special) Obviously my go to axe. Concur that nothing else sounds like it. Mahogany body that's thick and juicy. I also agree with Chris I don;t find the neck wood makes that much of a difference. My Deluxe is a 77 with maple neck and it's the mahogany body thickness that make the LP growl.

I would definitely go for it, as you say you can flip if you hate it. I don't think you will flip it after all. I recently did some work on a friends epi (new pups) and it played very well.

I'm okay with the '60s-type profile. My Eclipse was along those lines. I do like my baseball bats, true, but I prefer Fender necks to the '50s Gibson profile, which feels weird to me, almost like a classical guitar. Too flat across the top for the size. Feels almost concave. The '60s Gibson thing has front-to-back depth, which is really what I'm on about when it comes to necks and how comfortable I feel with them. Side-to-side width isn't really an issue. I find the big Fender profiles and round radii comfortable, and the flat/wide superstrat things very uncomfortable. I have big piano player hands and long fingers. I like heavy strings and pick very hard.

I've actually been thinking about doing some sort of custom gauge string set lately with the heaviest unwound G I can get and the whole thing being 11 or 12-56 for standard E. I Am Not Whaling On 11-52 Enough.

I'm betting the neck don' mean a damn, y'know? My observations over the years being that thing is defined by the enormous thickass mahogany slab that is the body. The closest things I've heard are the above-mentioned Explorers which aren't as thick, but have roughly the right weight to them. The concentrated weight/density/mass of the things is what makes That Sound.

I doubt I would flip it unless I needed the money or the piece was a total dog in a way that could not be remedied by a simple hardware swap. I figure locking tuners, graphite saddles, new electronics to my taste and the like as part of the cost of doing business. More or less a given for anything I use regularly.