Usually getting bored is a dangerous thing for me. Weird stuff starts to happen, sometimes involving soldering irons, sometimes plain old back strain.
I only take one guitar to band practice because I want to keep things light (physically and figuratively). Normally I take my #1 guitar, the `77 pukeburst (antigua) Strat. It’s my number one for many reasons, chief among them being versatility. I have a Duncan JBjr in the rear, which is a humbucking pickup, plus I wired it so it could also be a stock(ish) single coil with the push of a tone pot. This guitar can produce all sorts of tones and sounds.
Last week I took my G&L Legacy, their Strat-style guitar. It’s a better Strat than a Fender Strat (Leo Fender co-designed it) soundwise but because I don’t have a humbucker in the rear, it’s not as versatile sounding as the pukeburst. I can’t get that `bucker raw tone.
One time I took my Tele. It was a very interesting fit, as the other guitarist plays a Strat. Unfortunately it wasn’t a Strat.
Last night I decided to really shake things up and brought my Les Paul. This particular guitar is a very early `59 Historic plaintop lefty and plays like a dream. Since it rarely leaves the house, I knew it would challenge me.
I guess I have to come out of the closet here and say that I’m a Les Paul fan too, after last night. This series is known for its quality and playability, especially the earlier ones that were handmade and have a longer neck tenon (for increased sustain). The guitar plays extremely well. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, since that’s why I bought it but like I said, it doesn’t get out much (like its owner).
The first thing I noticed was that the entire signal chain needed to be tweaked, as it’s set up for Fenders (with single coil pickups). The guitar has a lot of natural sustain and output, which immediately beat up the compressor I use sometimes. For the same reason it hit the overdrive really hard too, requiring the gain to be turned down. It also distorted the hell out of my Voodoo Vibe (but that might’ve been the amp).
Once the gain issues were ironed out, the guitar played well, pardon the pun, with the setup, especially the practice amp (Fender Pro Jr. – 15w, 1×10″, recently modded). Let’s face it, I missed my Strat and there was no way the Paul was going to ape it. That aside, I did manage some interesting semi-anemic tones by turning down the bridge pickup with the overdrive on. Normally anemic is a bad thing but it was what I was going for at the moment.
The guys wanted to try out Stevie Ray’s “Pride and Joy”, which really rattled me. Not only am I not Stevie Ray Vaughan, I kept seeing him rolling in his grave that I was playing his song with a Les Paul 🙂
I did have to draw the line when someone suggested Hendrix. A man has to have limits.
I kept wondering what the Jimmy Page switching system sounded like; mainly dropping a coil from each pickup to sound more Fender-ish. While I could wire this up, it would be way too much work. Unlike most of my guitars, this one is bone stock. Not even a pickup replacement. I’d have to unsolder the pickup covers before I could do any wiring, which is just plain painful.
Don’t you know that on the night I show up with a Les Paul, the other guitarist borrows the bassist’s dual-bucker guitar. So much for complementary tones….
Another good thing about a different guitar is something else to do when I get bored with what I’m doing. And last night there was quite a bit of boredom for some reason (in between getting 150 text messages from my work network, telling me it was up and down). The guys wanted to try out the Peter Green/Fleetwood Mac version of Black Magic Woman. I don’t know it too well, regardless of version and wasn’t interested.
Because I was bored, I played differently than normal, trying to channel my inner Carlos Santana. I would have tried to channel my inner Peter Green but I don’t know his playing well enough to pull that one off. Finally I channeled Santana if he decided to try playing really fast but not terribly accurately (like me), which really impressed the guys. One wag observed that we’ll always sound our best if we play stuff I don’t know.
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On Strats vs. Les Pauls, Jeff Beck observed that the Pauls were very easy to play and the Strats put up more of a fight, but the results were worth it. Damn if that statement didn’t resonate last night. In fact, it was so easy to play that I’m considering going up a guage or more on strings. Maybe it’ll keep me closer to my playing range instead of always trying to play above it.
It’s good to shake things up every now and then.