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Recommend a Gibson/PRS/or epiphone- now sorted 😀


tall_martin

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Definitely a Gibson for me even though I hate the direction and Gibson's consistent ability to score consistent public relations own goals ('Play Authentic' ugh).

I spent almost a year trying out 2016 and 2017 series of Les Pauls (Traditional, Classic, Standard). Most of the guitars I tried in the shops however needed a decent set up. I also tried a Les Paul Tribute and I thought it was a really good guitar for £1000. I didn't end up buying it because I had my heart set on a full fat 'proper' Les Paul. At the £1000 price point I would also consider an SG which has essentially the same electronics and pickups as a Les Paul, but is lighter and has better upper fret access. My brother already had an SG though so I 'had' to buy a Les Paul to be different. 

I ended up buying a second hand 2008 Les Paul Standard faded (so basically a Les Paul Standard with a satin finish) in 2017. The looks of the guitar are 'so so' compared to the new Les Paul Standards but in terms of playability this guitar covers everything I need.  

In terms of buying 'new', I think that the new Standard 50s and 60s series are a big improvement on the previous Traditional and Standard series. At £2000 they are pretty big investments, however of any guitar model out there, a Gibson Les Paul is likely to hold its value better than a lot of other models at the price point. The Les Paul Classic is about £1500 and has coil tapping features that the 50s and 60s Standards don't, so that may be worth investigating too. 

 Irrespective of my love of GIbson guitars, the quality of a PRS S2 will be more consistent than Gibson from guitar to guitar. The SE and S2 series are really good guitars period, let alone being good guitars for their price point. However, for me the sound of a Gibson is what I prefer so I will generally buy a Gibson irrespective of the fact that a PRS guitar will probably hold its tune better, be easier to play, have more tonal variation (coil splitting options etc) and have consistent QC from instrument to instrument. In terms of you think you would prefer, outside of playing them I would recommend watching a few Youtube videos of reviews of the models you are looking at. 

Its a crap time to be shopping for a new guitar so my best wishes to the OP in their quest!

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Thanks for all the advise!

 

I’m supposed to be picking up my new guitar tomorrow. I say supposed as the seller still has it advertised on eBay for more than our agreed price.

So hopefully a new guitar day tomorrow 😀

 

If not I’m going to wait until the music shops are open again and play some in my local pmt. Its that or start going mad by looking at too many options on eBay 🙄

 

 

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In the end I went for a PRS.

I went to a shop in 2004, saw a display of them thought they looked cool at £300 odd, looked a bit closer and saw the price tag was £3000 odd.

So that and some money I inherited from my grandma have got me exactly what I wanted.

Fixed bridge, flame top and birds 😀. I’d have preferred one with some damage and wear, for less, but this one looked the best. 10 years old and not a mark on it. I very much doubt it will look like that after 10 years in my clumsy ownership 😐

On it’s own the guitar isn’t going to make me any better so I’ve got some lessons starting Monday. 

If I bought a prs se, s2 or a ce i’d Probably end up with a nagging feeling of doubt- is this the right one, should I have bought...

No doubt, no buyers remorse, no GAS and a beautiful instrument to get on with improving on.

Thanks for all the suggestions and tips, especially that purple prs pic- helped me to decide that I should just go for what I wanted 😀

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Lovely.

A PRS really can cure GAS. I occasionally think I might trade the S2 up for a "core" for the arch top and a more dramatic finish, but every time i think about it I find myself liking the understated effect. Another PRS is the only thing that would make me trade it though.

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3 hours ago, tall_martin said:

In the end I went for a PRS.

I went to a shop in 2004, saw a display of them thought they looked cool at £300 odd, looked a bit closer and saw the price tag was £3000 odd.

So that and some money I inherited from my grandma have got me exactly what I wanted.

Fixed bridge, flame top and birds 😀. I’d have preferred one with some damage and wear, for less, but this one looked the best. 10 years old and not a mark on it. I very much doubt it will look like that after 10 years in my clumsy ownership 😐

On it’s own the guitar isn’t going to make me any better so I’ve got some lessons starting Monday. 

If I bought a prs se, s2 or a ce i’d Probably end up with a nagging feeling of doubt- is this the right one, should I have bought...

No doubt, no buyers remorse, no GAS and a beautiful instrument to get on with improving on.

Thanks for all the suggestions and tips, especially that purple prs pic- helped me to decide that I should just go for what I wanted 😀

3E16BD51-C745-46D3-8340-08E20A2828BB.jpeg

C1C3868D-36C9-4754-8464-DF2568EDA36A.jpeg

F59700B1-BB15-4136-8BB1-E2C98BB266DD.jpeg

F1A14C6A-B431-4D06-A056-90A9F7FBC5CF.jpeg

D80C9BBF-D681-4653-869C-76DDC7724A43.jpeg

A7E8E4F4-79B9-4A8E-8DB7-51BD29507B3E.jpeg

 

Classy! Well done :)

 

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Good score!

I'm really gassing for a classic Custom 22 in amber violin stain, just like in the ads in mid 80's guitar player magazine.

And a 509 in an outrageous hue for coil tapping fun. 

And a 305 for strat tastic sounds.

Sigh.

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7 hours ago, Kiwi said:

Good score!

I'm really gassing for a classic Custom 22 in amber violin stain, just like in the ads in mid 80's guitar player magazine.

And a 509 in an outrageous hue for coil tapping fun. 

And a 305 for strat tastic sounds.

Sigh.

That is an expensive gas list! 

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  • 2 weeks later...

If I were in the market for a new guitar, I'd definitely look at an Epiphone LP, and budget for new pickups, or find a PRS SE Singlecut.

Out of the two, of probably lean towards the PRS, but I'd have to try out a few Epi's. 

I owned a few MIJ Tokai Love Rocks in the past, and they were LP beaters. I've also owned a few  late 70's Ibanez Artist double cuts. Ibanez reissued the Artist not too long back, which featured the 'Tri-sound' switching like the 70's ones, which offers sound options to the classic LP sounds.

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11 minutes ago, Skybone said:

If I were in the market for a new guitar, I'd definitely look at an Epiphone LP, and budget for new pickups, or find a PRS SE Singlecut.

Out of the two, of probably lean towards the PRS, but I'd have to try out a few Epi's. 

I owned a few MIJ Tokai Love Rocks in the past, and they were LP beaters. I've also owned a few  late 70's Ibanez Artist double cuts. Ibanez reissued the Artist not too long back, which featured the 'Tri-sound' switching like the 70's ones, which offers sound options to the classic LP sounds.

The current Epi Les Pauls seem to to have a D shaped neck profile. This would put me off buying one, but you might like it. The one I had twenty-years ago had more of a Gibson 60's neck profile which felt better to me, though I've since got used to and prefer the 50's neck profile on my Gibson Les Paul Standard.

The wide-fat neck on PRS SE guitars would be on my list to try one out. Tokai make some nice LP style guitars as do Fernandes. 

The PRS that the OP has picked up already, looks like a very nice guitar. 

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I had an early run McCarty once. Without doubt, the best sounding humbucker equipped guitar I’d ever heard (even with me playing it).  However, I ultimately didn’t get on with the ergonomics and it went in part-ex for my first quality bass.

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15 hours ago, ezbass said:

I had an early run McCarty once. Without doubt, the best sounding humbucker equipped guitar I’d ever heard (even with me playing it).  However, I ultimately didn’t get on with the ergonomics and it went in part-ex for my first quality bass.

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Nice guitars.

I remember being in Sounds Great, Heald Green one morning (an excellent place to spend some time while the other half is shopping in John Lewis or Sainsbury's just up the road BTW). A guy had been playing a McCarty for quite a while before I popped upstairs to 'drool' at some of the acoustics. As I got back downstairs, the chap was just putting his wallet in his pocket as the guys were putting his shiny new guitar in its hard case. He had the biggest grin walking out the door, one I could only hope he still had when he got home and said to the missus....

No doubt her words were: "Ow much!!"?

Edited by GeeJayW
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48 minutes ago, GeeJayW said:

Nice guitars.

I remember being in Sounds Great, Heald Green one morning (an excellent place to spend some time while the other half is shopping in John Lewis or Sainsbury's just up the road BTW). A guy had been playing a McCarty for quite a while before I popped upstairs to 'drool' at some of the acoustics. As I got back downstairs, the chap was just putting his wallet in his pocket as the guys were putting his shiny new guitar in its hard case. He had the biggest grin walking out the door, one I could only hope he still had when he got home and said to the missus....

No doubt her words were: "Ow much!!"?

Mine was still expensive second hand. However, because of that, I didn't lose much when I moved it on.

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On 04/06/2020 at 08:25, tall_martin said:

I found out a bit about these. Very limited production run of 50.

Nice score

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pecial “2010 Dallas International Guitar Festival” inscription on headstock.

 

Dallas 2010 “Shoot Out” McCarty Limited Run Specs:

Top - Private Stock grade quilted maple 

Back - Lightweight Mahogany

Neck - Mahogany

Fretboard - Select East Indian rosewood

Inlay - Green Heart Abalone “Original” Birds

Neck Shape - Wide fat

Scale Length - 25”

Frets - 22

Fretboard Radius -10”

Side dots - White Corian

Fret wire - DGT/Santana

Bridge - PRS Stoptail

Tuning Pegs - Vintage style

Color - Sunset Burst

Finish - Ultra-thin polyester basecoat & Nitro-Cellulose topcoat

Pickups: 57/08 w/ brushed covers

Electronics: Volume, push-pull tone, 3-way toggle

Hardware: Nickel

String Gauge: 10- 46

Case: Modern Eagle paisley

Back of headstock:  "2010 Dallas International Guitar Festival" 

Each guitar is numbered out of 50

Edited by police squad
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