thought id give it a go, as it came on a recent used epiphone 339 i bought, but not having had it the other way id nothing to compare it to. I thought id try it on my old les paul studio raw power. strings been on a couple of hours and im very pleasantly surprised. I wasnt really expecting to notice much difference but there seems to be. I removed the old strings, screwed the tailpiece right down and restrung. stretched and tuned the strings as usual. My first observation, string bending is easier, 4/5 fret bends are easily obtainable (using 10s). more importantly, the string returns to tuned pitch. in fact tuning seams much more stable. the guitar feels more resonant but im not sure how much this is due to new strings or me imagining it. wondered what other peoples experiences have been stringing this way.
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The strings did feel a little more floppy, again using 10s. I would say that if you were using 11s and top wrapping. you could get the same kind of tension as the 10s. There was something weird about the feel of the strings and tone that I didn't like. I was under the impression that the overall tone, when playing chords, wasn't as defined.
Another thing I didn't like is that, on that particular guitar, it damaged the tailpiece as the strings made little indentations on it. This annoyed me when I went back to normal string configuration.
I did consider top wrapping on my current 2018 Les Paul Standard, which I got past November from Guitar Guitar. I would use 11s and also buy another tailpiece so if I wanted to go back to normal configuration I wouldn't have the damage.
The biggest problem for me, is that it looks absolutely hideous.
Looks horrible, wrecks the plating on the tailpiece... nope. Not for me.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
The other, if you look carefully didn't exactly have a 'bus' action... ;-)