Pick the Les Paul - A Friday Fun Game!

nick · 2012-05-11T08:30:57+00:00

Two guitars: Gibson Les Paul R9 and a Gibson Les Paul Studio, both played through a TC Electronics Hall of Fame reverb in to a Marshall Class 5. Settings for the reverb and amp were exactly the same, volume on the guitars was set to exactly the same. For the dirty track my modded TS9 was used, pedal settings remained the same for both takes. Guitars were recorded with a Shure SM57 using Reaper, no post processing bar level adjustment. Reinhard played the riffs, I recorded them. Guitar 1 - Clean Guitar 2 - Clean Guitar 3 - Dirty Guitar 4 - Dirty See if you can guess which is which on the clean and overdriven tracks. ?

shaunf

As an owner of both a Studio and an R9, I have to say that I don't love either one more than the other and I enjoy playing them equally.

Most of the tonal differences between them would come down to pickups I'd say. The original 490R and 496T Gibson pickups made my Studio sound worlds apart from the R9, but an upgrade to some Seymour Duncan Alnico II Slash pickups brought them very much into the same ballpark, although the Alnico's are hotter than the Burstbuckers in the R9. Playing through my different amps, I have a clear preference for a particular guitar on each of my amps.

The biggest difference between the 2 guitars for me comes down to feel rather than tone. Sure, my Studio is darker sounding, probably due to the heavier weight and ebony fretboard, and sure my R9 resonates like anything and sustains forever, but you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart on a recording. I can't comment on either Nick's Studio or Reinhards R9, but playing my Studio and R9 back to back, you realise just how different they are, and how the culmination of subtle differences leads to a totally different feeling instrument. I'm talking about the neck dimensions, the neck angle differences, the different bridges, etc etc.

As far as the clips were concerned, I could tell immediately with the clean clips that Clip 2 was the Studio. I'm assuming those were recorded on the neck pickup? The Studio has a much boomier tone than the R9 in this position. Mine did the same until the pickup change and now it sounds awesome on the neck pickup.

On the dirty clips, the differences were a lot more subtle, and I went with the slightly grittier of the 2 clips as being the Studio, since mine sounds grittier than my R9.

Edited to add: Nick correct me if I am wrong but your guitar is one of the Faded ones that is just a mahogany body, with no maple cap ? If that's the case, the results are even more interesting.

nick

shaunf wrote Edited to add: Nick correct me if I am wrong but your guitar is one of the Faded ones that is just a mahogany body, with no maple cap ? If that's the case, the results are even more interesting.

Correct 8)

kayDUB

The Class 5 is not letting all the tonal nuances through - unfair test! ? ?

ZarK

Very insightful test... Thanks for taking the time to compare and share! Proves yet again that Gibson Les Paul's tend to ooze with quality tone, irrespective of which end of the scale they're situated...

Tokai-SA

Obviously very hard to judge nuances of tone from an MP3 sound clip, a Flac version is always better.

But, I'm sure Nick and Reinhard can hear a bigger difference sitting in front of the amp than we can hear listening to the clips.
The R9 has a smoother more vintage tone, warm and woody, with a kind of neutral/transparent EQ, whereas the studio was a tad harsher/hard sounding with a very slight 'nasal' mid honk.

Nice playing, and a well mic'd recording or a very cool little amp...sounded sweet.

Kalcium

deefstes wrote
nick wrote Answers are here for those that would like to see.
LOL, I got it EXACTLY wrong ?

lol I got the same thing! I am proud of the fact the I didn't mix guitars, like I knew 2 and 4 went together and 1 and 3, I just thought 2 and 4 were the R9...but I think thats cause I went with what I liked more eq wise and being more of a strat person (at least of late I've hardly touched humbuckers for main playing other than solos...) I guess I went for the slightly brighter (some people read harsher ?) sound. But now that I think of it vintage tones are darker and sound great, just somehow when Im playing I hear it as being too dark even thought its probably just right ?

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