Bloody Les Pauls

menamestom · July 2019

One thing I like about my Tele compared to any Les Paul I've had, is that if I drop the Tele at a gig, the first thing I check is that I haven't damaged the floor. Then the only other thing I checked is whether it is in tune or not.
A tele can be shoved in any stage space that it can stand up and can be left, Gobson's need to be on sturdy stands or put back in their cases. That becomes a pain on small stages, 3 set gigs, 2 or 3 gigs in a weekend. For ease I just always end up grabbing an F type guitar,

Philly_Q · July 2019

@Three-ColourSunburst whenever I read your "here comes the science bit" posts I wonder what guitars you actually own.

An original Steinberger? An old Bond Electraglide? A piece of railway track with strings and a pickup attached?

impmann · July 2019

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Revolting1 said:

Been trying to buy a good Gibson LP or SG at less than daft money for 6 months-
most of them have had dead notes -ones that decay really fast unless applying WTHM amounts of gain.
Its not due to fret buzz or strings so I'm assuming some awfull grade timber?

     Its driving me up the pole
.
Though it has lead to me getting a Gretsch with lovely tone and none of the issues above.

That would be the reality of 'resonance' - something that many guitarists mistakenly think of as being the mark of a good instrument. I talked about this on another thread...

Any energy that makes the body vibrate is coming from the strings and so is just reducing the instruments sustain. In reality the whole design of an electric guitar is based around minimising such energy transference, hence the rigid, solid body, the heavy metal bridge and so on. (In contrast, with an acoustic instrument, such a violin, where the transfer of energy from the string to the body is central to how it makes a sound, the body will be hollow and the top as thin as possible, with a bridge weighing just a couple of grams so as to minimise its impedance.)

Also, for the most part an electric guitar body and neck undergoes forced vibration, not resonance, and - just as with classic instruments where resonance is generally a bad thing, creating 'wolf' notes, uneven response and so on - resonance in an electric guitar is generally a bad thing, typically resulting in 'dead spots' where the note just dies away. Such resonant frequencies in the electric guitar almost always relate to how the neck behaves, which is a thin, rather flexible stick compared to the slab of the body. (This is also why guitar shaped synth controllers - such as the Roland G707 - often have an extension of the body running to the head stock, as dead spots will adversely affect the triggering of certain notes.)

I do accept that there is a psychological factor at play, as many players like the feel of the body being forced to vibrate, and this is probably linked in the player's head to the fact that in acoustic instruments it is the forced vibration of the body that produces the sound one hears. However, if you have an electric guitar that truly does 'resonate' at certain frequencies, then it is likely that it will behave much like the one in the video below. This Gibson Custom 59 reissue clearly has a neck resonance right around 247 Hz, affecting the 'B3' note at the 4th fret. As a result the fundamental just won't sustain, and as the player keeps on adding energy to the string via vibrato, the first harmonic becomes dominant.

"Mistakenly think of as being the mark of a good instrument"

" the whole design of an electric guitar is based around minimising such energy transference"

Really??

So you now are a skilled luthier that designs electric guitars, are you? Lots of first hand experience at the sharp end of the music industry, eh?

Or are we now back to cod-science from 3TS? Lots of opinion backed up by "scientific study" by folks with tin foil hats...

thegummy · July 2019

impmann said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Revolting1 said:

Been trying to buy a good Gibson LP or SG at less than daft money for 6 months-
most of them have had dead notes -ones that decay really fast unless applying WTHM amounts of gain.
Its not due to fret buzz or strings so I'm assuming some awfull grade timber?

     Its driving me up the pole
.
Though it has lead to me getting a Gretsch with lovely tone and none of the issues above.

That would be the reality of 'resonance' - something that many guitarists mistakenly think of as being the mark of a good instrument. I talked about this on another thread...

Any energy that makes the body vibrate is coming from the strings and so is just reducing the instruments sustain. In reality the whole design of an electric guitar is based around minimising such energy transference, hence the rigid, solid body, the heavy metal bridge and so on. (In contrast, with an acoustic instrument, such a violin, where the transfer of energy from the string to the body is central to how it makes a sound, the body will be hollow and the top as thin as possible, with a bridge weighing just a couple of grams so as to minimise its impedance.)

Also, for the most part an electric guitar body and neck undergoes forced vibration, not resonance, and - just as with classic instruments where resonance is generally a bad thing, creating 'wolf' notes, uneven response and so on - resonance in an electric guitar is generally a bad thing, typically resulting in 'dead spots' where the note just dies away. Such resonant frequencies in the electric guitar almost always relate to how the neck behaves, which is a thin, rather flexible stick compared to the slab of the body. (This is also why guitar shaped synth controllers - such as the Roland G707 - often have an extension of the body running to the head stock, as dead spots will adversely affect the triggering of certain notes.)

I do accept that there is a psychological factor at play, as many players like the feel of the body being forced to vibrate, and this is probably linked in the player's head to the fact that in acoustic instruments it is the forced vibration of the body that produces the sound one hears. However, if you have an electric guitar that truly does 'resonate' at certain frequencies, then it is likely that it will behave much like the one in the video below. This Gibson Custom 59 reissue clearly has a neck resonance right around 247 Hz, affecting the 'B3' note at the 4th fret. As a result the fundamental just won't sustain, and as the player keeps on adding energy to the string via vibrato, the first harmonic becomes dominant.

"Mistakenly think of as being the mark of a good instrument"

" the whole design of an electric guitar is based around minimising such energy transference"

Really??

So you now are a skilled luthier that designs electric guitars, are you? Lots of first hand experience at the sharp end of the music industry, eh?

Or are we now back to cod-science from 3TS? Lots of opinion backed up by "scientific study" by folks with tin foil hats...

Quite a personal attack on him.

Do you have better evidence to be so sure he's wrong?

underdog · July 2019

I could say the same about strats, I love hearing people play them, then I try it and I hate the lack of neck angle, the pointless middle pickup that gets in the way, the thin plinky sound etc

I love a Les Paul, have 3 Gibson's, even when I venture away from one I have an explorer and SG. I do own a strat only because it has sentimental value.

CHRISB50 · July 2019

I love Les Pauls, but I'll add another element of weirdness.

I'm left handed, and I generally hate the look of left handed guitars anyway, but Les Paul's are the worst. I've had a few but can't get around the fact they just look wrong back to front. Even worse when being played.

Revolting1 · July 2019

thegummy said:

impmann said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Revolting1 said:

Been trying to buy a good Gibson LP or SG at less than daft money for 6 months-
most of them have had dead notes -ones that decay really fast unless applying WTHM amounts of gain.
Its not due to fret buzz or strings so I'm assuming some awfull grade timber?

     Its driving me up the pole
.
Though it has lead to me getting a Gretsch with lovely tone and none of the issues above.

That would be the reality of 'resonance' - something that many guitarists mistakenly think of as being the mark of a good instrument. I talked about this on another thread...

Any energy that makes the body vibrate is coming from the strings and so is just reducing the instruments sustain. In reality the whole design of an electric guitar is based around minimising such energy transference, hence the rigid, solid body, the heavy metal bridge and so on. (In contrast, with an acoustic instrument, such a violin, where the transfer of energy from the string to the body is central to how it makes a sound, the body will be hollow and the top as thin as possible, with a bridge weighing just a couple of grams so as to minimise its impedance.)

Also, for the most part an electric guitar body and neck undergoes forced vibration, not resonance, and - just as with classic instruments where resonance is generally a bad thing, creating 'wolf' notes, uneven response and so on - resonance in an electric guitar is generally a bad thing, typically resulting in 'dead spots' where the note just dies away. Such resonant frequencies in the electric guitar almost always relate to how the neck behaves, which is a thin, rather flexible stick compared to the slab of the body. (This is also why guitar shaped synth controllers - such as the Roland G707 - often have an extension of the body running to the head stock, as dead spots will adversely affect the triggering of certain notes.)

I do accept that there is a psychological factor at play, as many players like the feel of the body being forced to vibrate, and this is probably linked in the player's head to the fact that in acoustic instruments it is the forced vibration of the body that produces the sound one hears. However, if you have an electric guitar that truly does 'resonate' at certain frequencies, then it is likely that it will behave much like the one in the video below. This Gibson Custom 59 reissue clearly has a neck resonance right around 247 Hz, affecting the 'B3' note at the 4th fret. As a result the fundamental just won't sustain, and as the player keeps on adding energy to the string via vibrato, the first harmonic becomes dominant.

"Mistakenly think of as being the mark of a good instrument"

" the whole design of an electric guitar is based around minimising such energy transference"

Really??

So you now are a skilled luthier that designs electric guitars, are you? Lots of first hand experience at the sharp end of the music industry, eh?

Or are we now back to cod-science from 3TS? Lots of opinion backed up by "scientific study" by folks with tin foil hats...

Quite a personal attack on him.

Do you have better evidence to be so sure he's wrong?

Cant comment on wether he's wrong or not-

Because that wasn't the specific issue that the ones I tried had.

They did'nt produce an audible harmonic at the 'dead notes'

They were considerably 'quieter' across 3 semitones 'usually' with the note in the middle being the worst(almost inaudible) and no sustain in that area.

Some of the guitars did this across three separate 'freqencies'.

Its driving me up the pole because I have in the past played some stunningly superb gibbo les pauls and SGs.

I'm livid with Gibson managment for trashing their own brand/ heritage by letting such pathetic sounding quarter arsed contraptions onto the market with their name on headstock.

These were not Chibsons..........

Rant over ( I hope )

crunchman · July 2019

I know PRS started putting a bigger heel on their guitars because they were getting dead spots on some of the early ones with a small heel. That would suggest it's at least partly down to construction rather than the wood.

It is possible to make Les Pauls without dead spots. I don't know what causes them on some guitars and not others.

Danielsguitars · July 2019

If i made any guitar that didn't do what it's supposed to do I'd take it apart and it wouldn't get out the workshop, i can't say I've actually come across the dead note thing and I've been making les paul style guitars for a quite a while, i even took one apart because i thought it wasn't as good as it should be, i changed a few things inc fretboard, frets, neck angle, i got it back together and it was really good after that

p90fool · July 2019

crunchman said:

It is possible to make Les Pauls without dead spots. I don't know what causes them on some guitars and not others.

Possible? It's a doddle, just make them 10lbs and put a chunky neck on them.

crunchman · July 2019

p90fool said:

crunchman said:

It is possible to make Les Pauls without dead spots. I don't know what causes them on some guitars and not others.

Possible? It's a doddle, just make them 10lbs and put a chunky neck on them.

I've not noticed dead spots on any of the 3 I've owned, and they have all been well under 10lbs. The first one might be the lightest properly solid Les Paul I've ever come across - although it wasn't the best sounding.

Kittyfrisk · July 2019

crunchman said:

I know PRS started putting a bigger heel on their guitars because they were getting dead spots on some of the early ones with a small heel. That would suggest it's at least partly down to construction rather than the wood.

It is possible to make Les Pauls without dead spots. I don't know what causes them on some guitars and not others.

I hadn't come across 'dead spots' before reading this thread.
So, I searched 'guitar dead spots' and the first few returns said that guitars affected were a tele, a strat, a PRS and of course an SG.
So it seems to be a thing, but is pretty certain to be an issue with the guitar setup in some way, rather than related to a brand or basic construction issue.

impmann · July 2019

Kittyfrisk said:

crunchman said:

I know PRS started putting a bigger heel on their guitars because they were getting dead spots on some of the early ones with a small heel. That would suggest it's at least partly down to construction rather than the wood.

It is possible to make Les Pauls without dead spots. I don't know what causes them on some guitars and not others.

I hadn't come across 'dead spots' before reading this thread.
So, I searched 'guitar dead spots' and the first few returns said that guitars affected were a tele, a strat, a PRS and of course an SG.
So it seems to be a thing, but is pretty certain to be an issue with the guitar setup in some way, rather than related to a brand or basic construction issue.

This.

All of my guitars are light because of my back injury. All of my guitars are resonant. All of my guitars sound great. And no, none have 'dead spots'. Try playing a Parker Fly - light as a feather, very resonant and sustain for days.

ICBM · July 2019

Kittyfrisk said:

I hadn't come across 'dead spots' before reading this thread.
So, I searched 'guitar dead spots' and the first few returns said that guitars affected were a tele, a strat, a PRS and of course an SG.
So it seems to be a thing, but is pretty certain to be an issue with the guitar setup in some way, rather than related to a brand or basic construction issue.

It is a real thing and it's related to resonances in the neck, or neck/body combination - not a set-up issue.

My borrowed Fender Mustang Bass has a bad one at the 6th fret Eb on the A string - the note just sounds weak and dies in about half the time of any other (even other Ebs) on the bass. I changed the string gauge, raised the action, and it still did it.

DeeTee · July 2019

What's the best way to check for dead spots? I haven't noticed any before (except on an old Gould, but that had a ton of issues).

I'm wondering if it's the kind of thing I would have just failed to notice.

merciful-evans · July 2019

p90fool said:

TTBZ said:

darthed1981 said:

thegummy said:

darthed1981 said:

merciful-evans said:

This one ticks some of those want boxes. This one isn't mine. Mine is has HBs.

Christ, that headstock angle, it's like it's screaming "break me"...

That's a normal angle for a LP isn't it?

Indeed it is, it's only with photos like this it's so obvious, and such an obvious design flaw though!

As the thread is about problems with LPs I find it ironic that this example is thinner to address the weight and seems to have a reshaped join for better upper fret access, but still keeps the daft neck angle.

The bizarre thing is that they've fixed the headstock angle for Epiphone Les Pauls, so they acknowledge it's an issue. I suppose customers would kick off if their Gibson wasn't vintage correct, but for models like the Modern where they've sorted out the neck heel, why not fix the headstock whilst you're at it..

Gibson did make the headstock angle shallower in the 70s but the purists complained so they had to change it back.

Epiphone didn't "fix" it, they just made it that way because it's cheaper to manufacture and for bulk storage, and they don't have to worry about purists when it comes to LPs and SGs.

Since posting this pic, I 'll answer some of the comments. Yes it is a 2015 Less+. The body reduction doesn't affect the sound . Well, certainly not to my ears anyway, and I've been using it since Sept 2015, it just sounds like another LP with Classic 57s; as opposed to a LP with BBs -which really sounds different !

Headstock: I agree this should be improved, and that the Gibson faithful wont permit it. Of course the 2015s were reviled. Being a guitar tart (no brand loyalty), I liked most of the changes, though eventually replaced the G-Force this year.

Gibson are hamstrung by their users. To them, perfection was 1959, yes even with all those flaws. But these fellers are mostly old guys who will disappear in 20 years time. I think maybe Henry's 2015 changes were trying to appeal to newer users and establish a next generation connection.

It at least survived in some form with the later HPs and Modernes. Better to have a choice there anyway.

richardhomer · July 2019

Kittyfrisk said:
I hadn't come across 'dead spots' before reading this thread.
So, I searched 'guitar dead spots' and the first few returns said that guitars affected were a tele, a strat, a PRS and of course an SG.
So it seems to be a thing, but is pretty certain to be an issue with the guitar setup in some way, rather than related to a brand or basic construction issue.

Definitely ‘not’ a set-up issue. My ‘92 PRS Custom had one centred around the octave on the third string and the eighth fret on the second string. This was an early ‘short heel’ guitar and every one I’ve played exhibited the issue to a greater or lesser degree.

Long, ‘whippy’ necks seem most prone - but as the Les Paul clip proves, not exclusively.

Blueingreen · July 2019

I'm in an anti-Gibson phase, not just Les Pauls.

The main thing I'm sick of is tuning issues. I've owned 8 guitars in the past several years. 3 Gibsons, 5 other brands. I've had tuning issues with 3 guitars while 5 have had zero issues. Guess which 3 had the tuning issues? Yep.

They go through long periods when they are fine. Tuning maybe not quite as stable as I'd ideally want, but well within parameters I can live with. Then they go through another phase where any soloing that involves bending puts the B string, or G, or both, noticeably out of tune. I can't get through a song without the tuning going off.

I know the fan boys will say "user error". Bit of graphite. Bit of lube. But they don't always do the trick. And if they don't it's a visit to a tech, who in my experience can't always immediately identify or fix the problem. So it's time and money and maybe more than one attempt to get a solution. And there's always the risk that someone fiddling with or changing the nut fixes your tuning issue but gives you back a guitar that doesn't play quite as well.

Currently 2 of my 3 Gibsons are giving me problems. I know it's probably the nut, I know it'll get fixed eventually. But I shouldn't have to jump through these hoops to get two instruments that, at current new prices would cost over 8 grand to replace to stay in tune. (Not that I paid anything like that for them btw) . Basically it's a design fault with the headstock that didn't matter in the days before players routinely bent strings but does now.

I love the feel of the instruments, the playability, the sound, the iconography. I just want an instrument that stays in tune.

Revolting1 · July 2019

DeeTee said:

What's the best way to check for dead spots? I haven't noticed any before (except on an old Gould, but that had a ton of issues).

I'm wondering if it's the kind of thing I would have just failed to notice.

Play each note one at a time, if you find one (or more) that sounds substantialy quieter and decays much faster and its not related to fret buzz/choking a dodgy string or pickup you've found a dead spot.

Reasonably expectable on a Sattelite or a Kay

Not on a 'Authentic' Gibbo

Pay attention Agnesi

Kittyfrisk · July 2019

Typically as everything to do with guitars seems to go, there are two 'schools of thought'.
When I said " it seems to be a thing, but is pretty certain to be an issue with the guitar setup in some way"
That was based on a rough, non scientific count of opinions on the web stating it to be so in one form or another.

As I said, I hadn't come across it before (happily) so I'll keep reading & learning

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Bloody Les Pauls

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