Gibson R8 or Harley Benton with Pickup Upgrades?

johnl

True. I thought it sounded great at the end too - goes to show you can easily turn a HB into a great sounding instrument but perhaps not so easy to turn it into a great feeling one.

thegummy

johnl said:

Interestingly enough here's a video that came out yesterday with two people upgrading a HB Singlecut to compete with a Gibson. What's quite interesting (especially from a Thomann video) is how many criticisms of the guitar they have originally.

That's pretty crazy, it's like a specific video answer to this very thread. I liked that Rob Chapman played one of my favourite Dorje riffs.

Hard to imagine anyone watch that and actually say they'd prefer the Harley Benton with complete honesty.

I actually bought the Gibson model they use and put Bare Knuckle pickups and locking tuners on it so got the best of both worlds!

One thing I really love about the Tribute is tha satin finish on the body - can imagine if I was in the position to afford a higher end Gibson I'd be a bit annoyed I couldn't have that option (as far as I'm aware).

roberty

Bear in mind the tribute has vintage wind A2s. Not gonna cut as well with high gain

I thought the glossy neck thing was an unfair criticism

darthed1981

terada said:

johnl said:

Interestingly enough here's a video that came out yesterday with two people upgrading a HB Singlecut to compete with a Gibson. What's quite interesting (especially from a Thomann video) is how many criticisms of the guitar they have originally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxmU2CBlZiE

So either thomann or rob have seen the thread

Quite possibly, TFB hoovers up a lot of views.  Lots of people going "who the fuck does Dart Head think he is!" etc.

skullfunkerry

darthed1981 said:

ICBM said:

thegummy said:

But then on listening to the Sabbath example I realised how my asking you for examples isn't going to work - because you've already told me it's a Strat, I just hear it as being a Strat because I'm expecting it.

Exactly! We listen with our brains as well as our ears .

I certainly don't deny there's a difference in sound between different guitars - even of the same model, often - it's just remarkable how little there is even between totally different ones when you just take the sound in isolation with no reference.

Indeed, in fact to the punters (a lot of popular music is made for the general public, not just guitarists, though not necessarily many of the bands guitarists listen to) all it sounds like is "an electric guitar".

We all overestimate just how much our "tone" makes a difference to anyone who isn't another guitarist, and even many of those are more musicians than gearheads.

^ definitely this, with regard to non-guitar playing people. I've played tracks to people before to show them a guitar part I really like and got a response of 'which bit is the guitar?'...

I've also had conversations very similar to the way this thread is going on another forum a few years ago with people who strongly disagreed with my use of a wireless system for gigs, as it would ruin my sound; I pointed out that 99.9% of people watching me in a pub wouldn't be saying 'wow, he had an amazing tone', but there would almost definitely be people on occasions saying 'wow, he played a guitar bit while he was over by the bar!!!'.

TINMAN82

Taking some of these arguments to the extreme, there will be those who can’t tell the difference between an electric guitar vs a keyboard or mandolin. That doesn’t prove that strats and les Paul’s are generally indistinguishable in the mix or in isolation.

Sometimes a certain type of guitar tone will just add a “feel” that the layperson will subconsciously appreciate without necessarily being able to identify it as a 70s hardtail strat.

Not sure how anyone can listen to the majority of Hendrix’ live recordings and claim he might as well be playing a 335 (tremolo bar aside).

thegummy

skullfunkerry said:

darthed1981 said:

ICBM said:

thegummy said:

But then on listening to the Sabbath example I realised how my asking you for examples isn't going to work - because you've already told me it's a Strat, I just hear it as being a Strat because I'm expecting it.

Exactly! We listen with our brains as well as our ears .

I certainly don't deny there's a difference in sound between different guitars - even of the same model, often - it's just remarkable how little there is even between totally different ones when you just take the sound in isolation with no reference.

Indeed, in fact to the punters (a lot of popular music is made for the general public, not just guitarists, though not necessarily many of the bands guitarists listen to) all it sounds like is "an electric guitar".

We all overestimate just how much our "tone" makes a difference to anyone who isn't another guitarist, and even many of those are more musicians than gearheads.

^ definitely this, with regard to non-guitar playing people. I've played tracks to people before to show them a guitar part I really like and got a response of 'which bit is the guitar?'...

I've also had conversations very similar to the way this thread is going on another forum a few years ago with people who strongly disagreed with my use of a wireless system for gigs, as it would ruin my sound; I pointed out that 99.9% of people watching me in a pub wouldn't be saying 'wow, he had an amazing tone', but there would almost definitely be people on occasions saying 'wow, he played a guitar bit while he was over by the bar!!!'.

There's never going to be good sound quality at a gig, it's for records for people playing them on decent gear that it matters.

Definitely true about the general public though, it's no exaggeration that they might not know what is a guitar and what is a keyboard etc.

darthed1981

skullfunkerry said:

'wow, he played a guitar bit while he was over by the bar!!!'.

When you need a pint, you need a pint.

roberty

thegummy said:

skullfunkerry said:

darthed1981 said:

ICBM said:

thegummy said:

But then on listening to the Sabbath example I realised how my asking you for examples isn't going to work - because you've already told me it's a Strat, I just hear it as being a Strat because I'm expecting it.

Exactly! We listen with our brains as well as our ears .

I certainly don't deny there's a difference in sound between different guitars - even of the same model, often - it's just remarkable how little there is even between totally different ones when you just take the sound in isolation with no reference.

Indeed, in fact to the punters (a lot of popular music is made for the general public, not just guitarists, though not necessarily many of the bands guitarists listen to) all it sounds like is "an electric guitar".

We all overestimate just how much our "tone" makes a difference to anyone who isn't another guitarist, and even many of those are more musicians than gearheads.

^ definitely this, with regard to non-guitar playing people. I've played tracks to people before to show them a guitar part I really like and got a response of 'which bit is the guitar?'...

I've also had conversations very similar to the way this thread is going on another forum a few years ago with people who strongly disagreed with my use of a wireless system for gigs, as it would ruin my sound; I pointed out that 99.9% of people watching me in a pub wouldn't be saying 'wow, he had an amazing tone', but there would almost definitely be people on occasions saying 'wow, he played a guitar bit while he was over by the bar!!!'.

There's never going to be good sound quality at a gig, it's for records for people playing them on decent gear that it matters.

Definitely true about the general public though, it's no exaggeration that they might not know what is a guitar and what is a keyboard etc.

For heavy rock though the sound of the guitars is very important. Like QOTSA is all mids and Metallica is scooped. Whether a punter can describe what they hear or not, one sound is going to be out of place in the other band. AC/DC is all treble, those guitars would sound awful and thin in a stoner rock band. That's mostly to do with EQ and distortion though. In terms of signal chain, the resonance of the wood used to make the guitar is pretty far down the list of things

tony99

ICBM said:

thegummy said:

Can you think of (or even link) any specific examples where someone's getting a typical Strat or LP sound but it's actually the other guitar being played?

Two famous examples -

The solo on Another Brick In The Wall was done with a Les Paul.

Wicked World on Black Sabbath was done with a Strat.

OK, Gilmour's Les Paul has P90s and Iommi is assumed to be playing an SG not a Les Paul... but you wouldn't think you would mix up those guitars either!

Jimmy Page famously used a Tele for most of the early Zeppelin studio recordings, not a Les Paul. Peter Green also sometimes played a Strat in Fleetwood Mac, although I don't know on which songs. Maybe that's the point .

Peter Buck recorded The One I Love with a Les Paul, not the Rickenbacker that's in the video... would you mix those up if you were playing them?

Pete Green playing a strat now on Guitar Heroes

god my saturday nights are so exciting!!

crunchman

roberty said:

AC/DC is all treble, those guitars would sound awful and thin in a stoner rock band. That's mostly to do with EQ and distortion though. In terms of signal chain, the resonance of the wood used to make the guitar is pretty far down the list of things

That is largely down to the guitars though.  Angus uses an SG, which doesn't have the meaty sound of a Les Paul, and I think Malcolm used a Gretsch, which tends to have a lot of top end.

TTBZ

Yet SGs are one of the most common stoner rock guitars. Through all that fuzz and volume the natural guitar sound is long gone

Three-ColourSunburst

johnl said:

Interestingly enough here's a video that came out yesterday with two people upgrading a HB Singlecut to compete with a Gibson. What's quite interesting (especially from a Thomann video) is how many criticisms of the guitar they have originally.

What a stupid video. First off why didn't they pick something like a SC-550 which already has upgraded Wilkinson hardware and so on and costs £240? (I see they even accept this towards the end of the video.) And they could have upgraded the guitar they had for a lot less. For example by using Irongear or Tone Riders pickups instead of a Seymour Duncan and Bare Knuckles. I am only surprised that they didn't send the guitar off to be stripped and refinished in 'nitro' so they could bump the bill up a bit more! 

Also Chapman is hardly an impartial judge, given that he has a vested interest in plugging his own brand as an 'affordable but quality alternative' (which he does shamelessly in this video) and is also best mates and business partner with the biggest Gibson dealer in the UK. It is even in Thomann's interests to maintain the idea that you should spend as much as your bank balance allows to get a 'better' guitar, given the number of Gibsons they sell, not to mention all the high end brands they stock, with the sale of any one of these generating vastly more profit than a Harley Benton.

Their final judgment seems to be mainly based on the differing neck profiles and the brand name. However even quality guitars - and Gibsons - come with different neck profiles, so that proves nothing in the 'affordable vs expensive' debate.

It seems that they almost set out to 'prove' that spending loads on a guitar doesn't necessarily get you a better instrument, and as they mention, the law of diminishing returns applies. They then fail to apply the same logic to the Gibson, plugging the idea that you should spend over a grand on a 'Tribute' Les Paul - which itself would benefit from better pickups and maybe rewiring. (Or have Gibson now scrapped those crappy circuit boards?).  Even then the Gibson would be obviously 'built to a price' with its lack of binding, dot markers and so on.

Had they compared an unmodded 550 Harley Benton to the Tribute I feel that the conclusion would have been overwhelmingly in favour of the Harley - but it is clear this is not the conclusion they wanted to reach.

Three-ColourSunburst

thegummy said:

I actually bought the Gibson model they use and put Bare Knuckle pickups and locking tuners on it so got the best of both worlds!

For that sort of outlay you could have got a top-of-the-range, made in Japan FGN Neo Classic LS30 fitted with Seymour Duncan 'Whole Lotta Humbuckers', top-notch build quality, Gotoh hardware, a solid flame maple top, long-neck tenon, a thin acrylic finish indistinguishable from 'nitro' but vastly more durable (as used by Feline) etc. etc. Even the nerdy guy in the Chapman video rates them. (7:40 in this video.)

TTBZ

FGN guitars are really good, we have the semi hollow 335-alike at work and it feels and sounds great! 

thegummy

Three-ColourSunburst said:

thegummy said:

I actually bought the Gibson model they use and put Bare Knuckle pickups and locking tuners on it so got the best of both worlds!

For that sort of outlay you could have got a top-of-the-range, made in Japan FGN Neo Classic LS30 fitted with Seymour Duncan 'Whole Lotta Humbuckers', top-notch build quality, Gotoh hardware, a solid flame maple top, long-neck tenon, a thin acrylic finish indistinguishable from 'nitro' but vastly more durable (as used by Feline) etc. etc. Even the nerdy guy in the Chapman video rates them. (7:40 in this video.)

Well not quite but there are a lot of things in the world I could have bought instead.

Funnily enough I wanted a Les Paul Tribute and Bare Knuckle pickups so bought those.

Three-ColourSunburst

thegummy said:

Well not quite but there are a lot of things in the world I could have bought instead.

Funnily enough I wanted a Les Paul Tribute and Bare Knuckle pickups so bought those.

Fair enough. I was just questioning the notion that, when it comes to getting the most for your money / the best value, anything that Gibson sells makes the shortlist.

ICBM

Three-ColourSunburst said:

I was just questioning the notion that, when it comes to getting the most for your money / the best value, anything that Gibson sells makes the shortlist. 

The Les Paul Tributes are pretty good. You’re paying US wage rates admittedly, but the quality of the basic guitar is excellent from the ones I’ve seen, you just don’t get the cosmetics that you would on a more expensive Gibson. That really shows where the most money is wasted, in fact...

But it’s still true that you could get exactly the same quality of guitar for half the price if it was made in the far east.

thegummy

Three-ColourSunburst said:

thegummy said:

Well not quite but there are a lot of things in the world I could have bought instead.

Funnily enough I wanted a Les Paul Tribute and Bare Knuckle pickups so bought those.

Fair enough. I was just questioning the notion that, when it comes to getting the most for your money / the best value, anything that Gibson sells makes the shortlist.

Well when you mention build quality, the only imperfection on mine was a scratch mark that I did have to pay someone to remove so let's just say that makes up for the price difference (although it doesn't fully):

If I went for your choice I'd have pickups I didn't want instead of the specific ones I did out of any available, would have the non-locking version of the tuners I do have and would have a flame maple top rather than the plain maple satin one I prefer.

When you say about the finish being more durable, is that even an issue on Les Pauls? When I see LPs from 60 years ago they don't really seem worn the way Fenders from decades ago do.

If I wouldn't swap that guitar for mine, one for one, even though it's more expensive, then surely the Gibson with the upgrades was good value for money compared to the one you suggested?

Three-ColourSunburst

ICBM said:

The Les Paul Tributes are pretty good. You’re paying US wage rates admittedly, but the quality of the basic guitar is excellent from the ones I’ve seen, you just don’t get the cosmetics that you would on a more expensive Gibson. That really shows where the most money is wasted, in fact...

But it’s still true that you could get exactly the same quality of guitar for half the price if it was made in the far east.

I'm not convinced that US wage rates justify the selling price of a stripped-to-the-bone Les Paul Tribute. For example, I almost bought one of the cheaper FGJ Les Paul style guitars, this was made in Japan, which likely has higher wage and employee costs than the US. It had all the cosmetic extras such as binding, Gotoh hardware and proper electrics, rather than those cost-cutting solderless circuit boards that Gibson use. The one I was considering was also £100 less than a Tribute.